Wedding plans
So today I’m planning bits of my future wedding day and it’s so important to me that Órla is involved throughout the day.
Roses have always been one of my favorite flowers so when I gave my eldest child Zoey (who was 9 years old at the time), the choice of middle name for my expected baby I was thrilled when she chose Rose.
When Órla was taken from us too early I constantly referred to her as Órla Rose. Suddenly I had to be surrounded by all this roses. I spread rose petals in her coffin covering her body. I had bunches of roses in vases in the room she rested in until it was time for her body to leave. My bedroom wallpaper is roses as is my bedspread. The first gift my fiancée gave me was a single rose.
So needless to say our wedding invites will be adorned in roses, our family unity candles are being designed with roses on them, our table decorations will be circles of roses and of course my bouquet will be roses.
I want to have her there with me throughout the day and when choosing our songs for the evening the Dj informed me he uses a huge screen for displaying pictures whilst a song is being played, it was then that I remembered Órla’s favourite song to sing was shine bright like a diamond by Rihanna. In fact I remembered her singing it so much I knew I had a recording of it on her iPad. When she had flown home it was one of the pleasures discovering 4 short videos she had made herself a few months before she left us.
I said this to the dj and he said he could add her voice to the song during the chorus whilst playing the song and some pictures clips on the screen. I got so excited at the thought that I was going to hear her on my day and dance to her favorite song.
Today I went to search out her video clips only to find that it was obviously in my mind I could hear her sing the song and not that she had recorded it at all, how could I have got it so wrong? I can hear her sing it right now …..
Five years on and it still cuts like a blade and I’m still discovering new hurts. I really wish she could be there with me physically and not just in spirit.
Till we meet again bubba❤️
Life goes on and on …..
It’s been a while since I’ve posted so I thought as it’s just past your 5th angelversary I’d write about how life is 5 years on from losing you.
I still miss you every minute of everyday, I can’t imagine that ever changing but the rest of my physical life continues as if nothing is different, my physical presence does the same things I still watch tv, visit friends, go on holidays.
I’ve moved home 3 times since you went to heaven. At the end of last year I sold the home I bought to raise you girls in, the house you had most of your firsts in – first walk, first birthday party, first cot, first big girl bed, first swing, first dog, first day at school, first tooth fairy so many firsts but also memories of all your lasts, last cuddle, last kiss, last fight, last breath.
Órla’s first day home
Órla’s first birthday
It was a big decision to let go of this house, I had moved out to live with grandma a year after you’ve passed and your sister lived there with her baby son. Then I met jim and moved into a rental but i knew eventually we wanted to buy a house together and so made the decision to sell. To be honest it was easier than I thought I felt I was making a fresh start and leaving all the bad memories of the house behind – you did spend your last days suffering in that house and our fun front room turned into your dying room and your morgue. All the happy memories were tucked already deep inside and I struggled to see them, now the house is gone I’m remembering the happiness the house had rather than the sadness.
Ironically your sister now rents 5 doors down the road so I still see it every week but it doesn’t pull me down in the same way – I don’t have the ‘what if’s’ anymore.
I’ve travelled more than ever and seen so much of this beautiful world. I’ve made new friends and had new adventures, I’ve welcomed a grandson into my life and 3 beautiful grandchildren from Jim’s son. So life has been busy and ongoing
BUT
The pain in my heart is still there, the pain doesn’t ever reduce and I don’t imagine it ever will. I cope, I get by, I don’t feel the urge to join you right now as I did at the beginning of this journey, although I have no fear of death whatsoever if it means being with you again. I’m happy to be patient and wait I know my time will come when we will be reunited. Some days are harder than others but I try to remind myself that you were in a lot of pain in this world especially at the end, I also remind myself that grandad is there with you so your not alone.
I can’t imagine what it must be like for moms and dads who lose perfectly healthy children in a horrific accident or in an act of violence knowing they had a whole happy healthy life ahead of them. I got used to compromising and changing my expectations when you were first diagnosed with autism at 4 years old, life for you was going to be testing to say the least and then when they diagnosed you with CF we adjusted to accepting life may be shorter and we lived everyday as if it was the last.
I’m so glad I gave up work to spend more time with you, I’m so glad I took you out of school as you hated it so much and I’m forever grateful for the special holidays we had together before things got really bad. I’m so lucky to have had you in my life with your quirky ways and deviously funny nature. We shared such a close bond and that will never change. I’m blessed with being able to hear your voice and looking at your homemade videos when I feel able to.
Our last happy holiday
I wish things could have been different and you could have lived a happy healthy life, gone to college and fulfilled your dreams. I would have been so happy to see you on your wedding day and be by your side when you gave birth to your children but it wasn’t meant to be. God had a bigger plan for both you and me and I have to trust in this.
That is what keeps me going and keeps me strong I’m determined not to waste the life I still have and with every breath I want to keep reminding people about you and how brave and strong you were. I don’t ever want a day to go by when I don’t say your name or think of your beautiful face or funny voice.
And so I will continue
Until we meet again Órla Porla my little bubba
Love mom
XXXXX
Órla Rose
Happy 14th birthday
Monday would have been your 14th birthday here on earth instead it is your 5th birthday in heaven away from us.
The years have flown by my darling but I’m trying so hard not to let the memories fade. I talked to your daddy today on FaceTime and although we didn’t actually talk too much about you it was nice to have the connection with him on your birthday. Everybody else has forgotten, well except for CeCe of course she couldn’t ever possibly forget the day her courageous annoying sister arrived into her world.
Although tears were shed early that morning most of my day was spent remembering happier times, your birth, feeding you for the first time that first precious night I spent with you. Such beautiful memories I will treasure forever.
I wish we had time for more happier memories to make but time was not on our side. My tears are starting to fall again and I really don’t want this to be a sad post so I’ll sign off with ’till we meet again’ love you bubba ❤️
All my love mom
Ashes
This is a post that has been sitting in my ‘draft posts’ for well over a year and I’m still no nearer to letting your ashes go or even deciding what to do with them.
I read/heard somewhere that’s it’s not good to keep your ashes that it’s important you are set free – if anyone who reads this knows different please let me know because I can’t imagine ever wanting to let you go.
Now I know it’s not ‘you’ in there as such, I realize your spirit, your soul is around me whenever I need or think of you and lives in heaven with our lord, but what was the physical you, the you that I kissed and cuddled, the you that I gave birth to and breastfed is in that mound of ashes that sits on my bedside cabinet where I can see you at all times. The remains of the physical you is just too hard to contemplate letting go of even after 4 years.
When my dad died 2 and a bit months before you, his ashes sat with my mum for over a year but then she chose to spread them in a few special places close to both their hearts.
I remember the day so well as my pockets were full of my dads ashes in a sandwich bag as it was in a public park and every time the coast was clear Mum and I would scatter them onto the rose bushes as quickly as we could before someone would walk by – in fact one particular woman was in a very chatty mood and in the end we had to explain what we were doing as time was getting by. It did make us laugh.
I too had some of my dads ashes and mixed them with a bit of Órla’s ashes and set them in concrete in our family home which is where my only other child lives with her son, my beautiful grandson who we found out the day before you left us that she was expecting.
Other than that the rest sits here with me in my new home (I wonder what my fiancee Jim feels about this? I never really thought, but he’s an easygoing man who accepts the picture in every room and the feathers I collect and my sudden mood change and tears).
Órla’s dad has requested some of her ashes and I purchased a smaller urn an exact replica of the main one for him as he of course entitled to them but I can’t seem to let go and fortunately he is not pushing me.
It’s coming up to your 14th next month, 5th without us beside you and I’m still struggling with letting your ashes go.
love and miss you bubba until we meet again xxx
4 YEARS
Four long hard years since you left us to fly with the angels, after only nine and a half years of enjoying your presence in our lives. At times it only feels like yesterday and at times like today, it feels a lot longer than four years. Thank God for technology I can still hear your voice and listen to you tales on video. If I close my eyes really tightly and really concentrate I still feel yours arms around me, but your smell is gone forever and I’m struggling to remember it.
Stay with me baby please I need you my precious bubba
I miss you
3 years 10 months 9 days
I miss you so much
My heart breaks all over again
Will it ever ease?
No, I know that now
I want to shout your name over and over again
I want to hear you call mummy
I want to smell your hair and feel your arms around me
I miss you
I miss you so much
Why did it have to be like this
I want to believe there is a plan
I have to believe otherwise I may not see you again
Help me to believe my darling
Help me to live without you
I miss you
Love mummy ❤️
Christmas 2017
Today I finally figured this is my 4th Christmas without you and not my third as I thought. How could I have gotten that wrong? I suppose I see you being gone 3 and a bit years but of course there was that first birthday, first Halloween and first Christmas the year you left us in 2014 before we got to our first Easter and first Angelversary without you.
Now we’re on our 4th Christmas, my 3rd with my new grandchild and my 2nd with my new partner.
It was an easier Christmas taken over by Leigh being 2 years and 10 months and understanding the whole Santa Claus thing (how terrible that we explained Christmas as Santa Claus and being good and receiving presents and not Our Lords Son being born even though we tell him all the time that Órla and grandad live with Holy God in heaven).
I thought this year I was in a much better place to spread the Christmas cheer and participated in gift buying & wrapping etc with my immediate family. I even thought about sending Christmas cards to the important people in my life, i mulled over whether it should be a photo of Órla as a remembrance of her at this time then decided it was best to buy angel cards that supported Cystic Fibrosis. Happy with my choice when it came to writing them it just didn’t seem right, how could I write happy or merry when I’m without my child. I decided to pack them away for another year. With so many people choosing to donate to charities rather than waste money on postage it seems less obvious this year. In fact since I stopped sending cards since Órla passed at Christmas 2014 I have received less and less cards anyway, my sum total this year was 4 cards.
I seem to be surrounded by advertisements on TV for Pokémon this and Pokémon that, everywhere I look I see Pokémon plush toys and t-shirts readily available, it makes me think how far in advance of Christmas 2013 I had to order Pokémon for Órla as I had to order from America, China and Japan but the look on her little face when she opened her gifts was priceless. Thankfully I took some video of our last Christmas with her which I can look at whenever I choose. Thank goodness for modern technology.
She was such a tomboy and loved Pokémon and Sonic the hedgehog and video games but her favorite color was still pink and purple. She used to follow YouTube and in particular this gamer called Stampy. In fact when she was asked by the charity Make A Wish she asked to meet Stampy.
Unfortunately she passed away quicker than we thought and never got to meet him. I decorated her coffin with Stampy and Pokémon pictures I’m sure she would have been pleased. I also named my new hamster Stampy, it’s like I’m still trying to keep her with me all the time.
Anyway Christmas is over now as I try to finish this post. We got through it and I think in some parts we may have even enjoyed bits of it.
Miss you terrible my darling, love you to the moon and back.
Till we meet again
XXX
Happy birthday my beautiful girl
27th August 2017 would have been your 13th birthday, a teenager. I wonder so much what you would have been like, would life have been any easier for you my darling. Would you have understood your autism and cf more, would you have learnt to cope with taking your meds better or doing your physio? Realistically probably not.
You were always such a strong character and no one could tell you what to do, not even me who I know you trusted. I miss you so much baby, I just wish I could visit you and wish you a happy birthday and get one more cuddle.
Gran and I booked a safari for the week of your birthday, how silly of me to think I would be too distracted and busy to be upset. No matter how hard I try I’m finding it hard to stick to my promise to ‘celebrate’ your birth on this day and not the fact that your no longer with me.
Jim has made my life so much better and I thank God for sending him to me but the ache of you not being here never goes away. Jim’s birthday falls the day before yours, this helps me realise how lucky I still am to have special people in my life. He proposed to me in July and in such a romantic way I’m still reeling from it, I never expected myself to ever smile again let alone be happy and looking forward and not always backwards.
I miss you so much my bubba.
Happy Birthday my angel
Love momma xxxxx
Losingórlarose 