Great Christian Diaries

2003-12-05 - 1.55pm  previous entry  next entry

Thanks Meg and Helen for your guestbook entries :)

I'm not sure what to write or how to write today, I feel weird. I need to write about yesterday - the presentation at Cameron's school, but I don't know where to start really. Also I generally feel weird. The old hormone whirlwind has subsided but no period yet. Not pregnant though - had a negative test this morning :( I expect it will turn up later on today, probably just as I'm getting ready to go to the pantomime.

As I'd expected, yesterday did stir up feelings again about Cameron. Today I have been reading back all my diary entries from when I found out he died through to a week after the funeral. I don't know why, I just felt like I wanted to be reminded, like it was getting faded in my mind. I don't know why I'd WANT reminding of all that pain, but I somehow wanted to remember those important events. So I have been crying this morning about Cameron, which is the first time in weeks now.

It was 10 weeks on Wednesday that he died. So weird to be counting and seeing the number climb.

Yesterday I was actually nervous about going over to Cameron's house and seeing Sharon again. And nervous about what to expect at his school. I was all shaky when I walked from the car to his front door. Sharon answered, and she was holding Nathan, so we went straight into the living room, where she introduced me to a lady who would be looking after Nathan while we went to Cameron's school. She put Nathan in my arms, and I held him for 20 minutes. He is a windy boy, and is uncomfy a lot with it, so I walked him a lot. He is still so tiny. Only 8 weeks old. He's gorgeous.

Sharon's brother was running late so we got in Sharon's car and headed for the school. When we got there, the headteacher was waiting for us at the playground gate to let us in. Sharon said her brother would be arriving soon, and the headteacher showed us Cameron's bench. It's beautiful. It is the longest bench I've EVER seen!! Well actually I've seen some metal benches that long, but this one is thick, beautiful golden pine, and it doesn't have an arm in the middle like some long benches do. The head said that the whole school chose it, and they thought that Cameron would have liked a big bench where lots of children could sit down. It had a plaque on it saying, "In loving memory of our friend, Cameron (surname), 1st July 1992 - 24th September 2003, Class 6SH. The children chose what would be inscribed on the plaque, and where to position it, and what type of plaque, etc. The school has been absolutely wonderful with the children, helping them through the grieving process in so many ways.

The bench was against a wall of the school building, looking out across the playground. The headteacher said they decided to put it there because that was where Cameron liked to sit at break times. There was another bench that used to be there, and he used to spend a lot of time sitting there, it was his favourite place apparantly. So they moved the old bench and put Cameron's bench in its place. I think that's such a lovely gesture.

His classroom was through the wall right behind the bench, and some of the children in there began waving at Sharon through the window. Right after that, I saw their teacher have them file out in a line to meet us. They were each holding a sheet of paper, and I thought, "What's going to happen?!" It all felt very surreal to me. I couldn't really believe I was there, at Cameron's school, and that these were the children he spent so much time with, his friends, even when I have been looking after his all these years, and I never met them before. It made his death suddenly very real again, because there they all were, without Cameron amongst them, and we were all there to acknowledge that he was gone and that he was special to us. It was very moving. And difficult.

The kids formed three lines next to the bench, and we waited for Sharon's brother for what seemed like AGES in the cold wind! Teachers started appearing from all corners of the building, some of them walking across the grounds from the infants school where Cameron used to go when he was little. I am guessing they left their classes in the care of assistants, so that there wouldn't be a full-scale riot by the time they returned! :) I found that very touching, to see them all walking across. I had no idea they would leave their classes and come because they knew and loved Cameron and this presentation meant that much to them. The headteacher said to us that they had wondered about getting the whole school out on the playground for the presentation, but they decided it would be better for everyone if it was kept smaller and more simple. Apparantly Cameron was very unusual - he was known and loved by all the children in the school, and the staff have had to include the whole school in ways to remember Cameron and work through feelings of loss after he died. That's quite something isn't it? I'm so proud of my little boy! Look at the impact he made, and how much he was loved! No other children are like that, even the special ones.

Cameron's two teaching assistants were there - one of them was the lady I met when I was visiting Cameron's body at the funeral chapel. Also the mums of Cameron's two closest friends were there, which was nice. It was a really important event for the children, part of their grieving process. The headteacher said they needed to do it. So I'm glad the two who had been closest to Cameron had their mums there for support. People asked Sharon if I was her sister (?!) and she said no I wasn't. She introduced me as someone who had looked after Cameron a lot at hospital and other times, and then she looked over at me and smiled and said to them, "She's his best friend." HOW totally lovely is that?!!! I could have walked on air :) And coming from Sharon as well.... I was unable to say anything to them, I just lost all my words.

Sharon's brother arrived, and the presentation started. The headteacher welcomed us and explained why everyone was gathered here today. She explained about the bench. Then one by one, the children came forward to stand in front of the bench and read out their piece of paper. On their papers, the children had written how they remember Cameron, and what they liked about him. They all wrote in different ways. More than half of them mentioned how he was funny and loved jokes, and was always making them laugh. So some of the kids came out in pairs and read jokes out between them - really groanable jokes, but everyone laughed anyway. One little girl finished her joke by saying, "I hope you liked that one Cameron."

They had written their memories of Cameron straight from the heart, which was what made it so very moving.

They all said they remembered Cameron as somebody who was kind and caring, and who made them laugh. Many of them mentioned what a good friend he was. One little boy said that Cameron was like a big brother to all of them, always looking out for them and being friendly and helping them. The whole class seemed to have been very close to Cameron as a personal friend. I have never found anyone to have that many good friends before, even kids. Cameron's closest friend read her piece of paper out, and said that when she heard the news, she couldn't speak. Some of the others talked about how it had made them feel to know that he was gone too. Many children said that he was special and that they would never forget him. The class "statement" said that he would never fall out of their hearts - how lovely.

Then Cam's closest friend came forward again with a big black folder, and she announced to us that the class had sponsered a killer whale in Cameron's memory, and she read the certificate out and showed us a photo of the whale. It says: "This is to certify that class 6SH of (school name) have adopted a killer whale in memory of Cameron (surname)." I was so moved by that - isn't it lovely?

Then a boy announced that the class would now sing "If I were a butterfly" (Cameron's (and mine!) favourite hymn), but that in honour of Cameron they were going to add some Elvis "uh-huh, uh-huh" sounds and some Michael Jackson "whoooo!" sounds!!!!!! Hehehe!! I looked over at Sharon and she was shaking her head, laughing. She said, "That's JUST like Cameron!" And it would have been just his thing.

Their teacher started them off (no instruments to keep them in key, bless them!), and they sang the whole song. At the end of each chorus where they sang, "And I just thank you God for making me me!" they all grabbed their shirt collars and pulled them up, going, "Uh-huh, uh-huh!" followed by flinging an arm high up in the air and yelling, "Woooooh!" Hehehehe, it was sooo funny, honestly! We laughed and laughed watching them, knowing that Cameron would have been almost literally wetting himself with laughter if he'd been there. And the kids had such fun doing it. The feeling was a good one, even though Cam wasn't there to share in it.

After that they sang their class song, which each class at that school have written for them, a different song for each class. Their song was called "Pass it on", and it's about friendship and how they will never forget their time in that class, and one thing they will always take with them is friendship and how to pass it on. It was lovely.

Then the headteacher thanked us for coming again, and asked the children to invite us into their classroom for drinks and biscuits! The kids were SO lovely, so attentive. We got ushered in and I kept getting gazed at in admiring ways for some reason. Maybe it's because the children didn't know who I was, just that I was some connection to Cameron. I was particularly taken by one little girl, Isabelle. She just seemed to stand out amongst the kids when they were doing their presentation, to me anyway. I just kept noticing her, and she kept looking at me. In the classroom I was very politely offered a drink four times by four different children! Hehe. They were all so sweet, and so polite. They had obviously rehearsed the afternoon with their teacher, the presentation of course, but also how to behave afterwards and all that stuff. I had a plastic cup of blackcurrant squash, and a bourbon biscuit. They had a luxury box of biscuits which they were offering round and looking very proud about it! Then Isabelle came and asked me if I would like to see the display in the main school hall for Cameron. I said I would LOVE to, and Sharon was being asked the same thing by 2 other children, so a small group of them took us to the hall.

In the hall, a younger class was rehearsing a song for the Christmas concert, and we went in to see the display. They all got really distracted, bless them! But their teacher got their attention back and they carried on singing while we looked. In the hall there is a huge display board, the type that usually displays an entire class's artwork for a whole school term. At the top there is big lettering saying, "Memories of Cameron" and there's an enlarged photo of Cameron underneath that - his last school photo, the one I got at the funeral. His class have drawn pictures of him and written jokes for him, and written loads of memories down. A lot of the things that were read out in the bench presentation were also up on the display board, neatly written with drawings. There were three or four photos of Cameron that were taken at school during classes or outside in the playground when the class were doing some sporty thing or special event. The children were so eager to show us the board, they went ahead of us and kept pointing at his photos, looking at us to see if we approved of their work for him. They seemed so proud of the display. I stood for ages reading each one and looking at the photos of Cameron. There was a particularly lovely drawing of Cam, complete with his nose-tube and a big smile, and I commented aloud on how lovely it was. Isabelle looked up at me with a huge smile and said, "That's mine."

Back in the classroom she pointed up to a row of photos above their coat pegs near the door. It says in big lettering, "Line-up order" and there's a photo of each child making a ridiculous face (!!), with their name under it, to remind the kids what order they should be in when they line up for a fire drill or something important. Apparantly they asked the kids to make a silly face for their photo. I like a school that isn't all formal and embraces silliness :) Anyway, Isabelle pointed to a photo of Cameron. He isn't in the line up order anymore, but on the other side of the big lettering from the line of photos, there's his photo, making a silly face, and it's framed with the words, "We will always have Cameron in our hearts" Isn't it just totally lovely? What a lovely school. And what special kids.

Some other kids came over, and they wanted to know if Sharon's brother was Cam's dad, because there is such a strong resemblence. He said he was Cameron's uncle, and then they said to me, "What relation are you?" I said I wasn't a relation, but that I had looked after Cameron for a long time whenever he was in hospital. They said, "Ohhh you're a nurse" so I said I wasn't a nurse, I just was Cameron's carer at hospital and sometimes at home. They seemed happy with that.

Sharon handed out pens to each child, just because she wanted to give them all something on that day that they could have to remember it by. She didn't know what to get so she bought a load of pens. You would NEVER imagine pens could be so exciting!! All these 10 and 11 year olds were in a state of high excitement, scribbling with their new pens on scraps of paper, comparing with each other, etc, for a good 15 minutes!!! I've never seen anything like it! They were really thrilled.

It was weird to be in Cameron's classroom, thinking that's where he has been. I had some time to look around and think after the kids got their pens, and take things in a bit more. On the board at the front, there was a list of the schedule for the day. Just items they would be doing that day - I guess that's something they write up there each day. It had things on it like maths, breaktime, etc. At the top of the list it said, "Cameron". All of a sudden I wanted to see the room as Cameron did, I wanted to know where he normally sat and things like that. I asked Isabelle, since I'd talked to her already, where Cameron used to sit, and she immediately leapt up and took me over to a table in the corner by the window. Each table has six desks in it. This table was the one covered with a tablecloth and drinks and biscuits, so she was peering under the tablecloth looking for Cameron's desk. Another little girl asked what she was looking for, and Isabelle said, "Cameron's desk." So the little girl pointed to it and we went round the table. Isabelle lifted the tablecloth and showed me Cameron's name label still on the desk. She said, "His label's still here, we don't want to take it off." She pulled out the desk drawer, which contained a well-used ruler and a pencil, but was otherwise empty, and she said, "There's still a ruler and a pencil in here, but we don't want to take them out." I said, "Does anyone else ever sit here?" She said, "No, we don't want anyone else to sit here now." But she was bright and cheery all the same. Children are so matter-of-fact, they are so honest and open. There's just no hidden things, it's so refreshing.

I thanked her for showing me his desk, and then I went back over to Sharon, where she was chatting to various kids and teachers. Cameron's closest friend was hugging her and telling her in a sort of embarrassed tone that last night she got Cameron's photo and started dancing with it in her room. What a sweetie. The whole time we were there by the way, they were playing killer whale song on the little cassette player in the background, which was a lovely thought too. They really saw it as a party for Cameron, and I think it was immensely important for them. Then the kids were called for a quiet time over in the corner, and the whale song was turned off, and we chatted quietly with the headteacher for a while. Some of the children had to go out to play a football match on the school field, and the others stayed having their quiet time.

Before we left, Sharon said she wanted to say thank you to all the children, and she started to cry and got all apologetic, which I think was unnecessary because children respond to reality, and emotions don't raise walls for them. I think it was probably a good thing that they saw her tears, although she shoved them away again pretty quick. But anyway, she thanked them all for being friends with Cameron, but most importantly for treating him as normal, because she said it was very important that he was treated normally, and she was really grateful to them all for being such great friends to him. She thanked them for the afternoon, and the bench and the whale and the drinks and biscuits, and then they all thanked her for the pens again (at the teacher's cue!) and we said goodbye and left. By the time we got to the classroom door most of them had turned back to the teacher, but I sort of felt loathed to leave. It had been such a great time of feeling connected to Cameron again, and meeting his friends was wonderful. I know he would have been delighted that I met all his friends. I looked back into the room as I walked out of the door, and the last thing I saw was Isabelle looking right at me, smiling this huge smile at me. I gave her an equally huge smile and left. I felt great just having that smile given to me at that moment. Lovely girl.

I forgot to say, when I was standing looking around the classroom after the kids were given their pens, Isabelle came up to me with a much-folded and wrinkled piece of paper. She held it out to me and said, "Would you like to have my memory of Cameron?" I said I would love to, but asked if she didn't want to keep it herself. She said no, she had it written out somewhere else too. I told her I would keep it forever, which I will. I held it the rest of the afternoon. I wondered if I ought to offer it to Sharon, but Isabelle chose to give it to me, and the school promised Sharon that when they take the display down in the hall at the end of term, they will give the whole thing to her. So I kept it. This is what it says:

"To Cameron,

You were funny, cheerful, bright and a caring friend. Cameron was never rude to us. Bright and cheery and he never felt sorry for himself. Mrs. Mole and Mrs. Harvey cared for you and so does 6SH. This is how I remember Cameron.

From Issie xxxxx"

I love that she gave it to me. I showed Neil. I keep looking at it. I wish Cameron was still alive.

Well after we left, we sat in the car and looked through some folders of Cameron's school work which the teacher gave his mum. Some of it was dated 11th September, and 8th September, and things like that, less than 2 weeks before he died. So weird. His mum said how weird that was too. She said it's so recent, and yet he's been gone 10 weeks. His favourite subject was R.E. Also he loved science. There's a colourful chart that he did, mounted on yellow card, so it must have been part of a display not too long ago. It's very moving, because it is his life-map, done a few months ago. He drew the whole thing himself and filled it in.

In the middle he wrote "Life Map - Cameron", and there are six different coloured arrows coming out of that. One says the name of the school, another says "secondary school", another says "travel", then there's "family", "education" and "job".

Under his current school it says science and friends and things like that. Travel has two lines coming out of the arrow, and along one he has written, "Go to Africa", and along the other it says, "Go to America" That makes me sad because he never got to. Under Secondary School there are quite a few lines, and he has written things like, "science", "ride my bike" and "use the computer more" - none of which he was able to do in the end. His mum said he was really looking forward to secondary school.

Under family it says about his brother, and how his mum and dad are expecting another brother for him.

Then education and job were really funny - I wonder if he was being serious or if he got bored by that stage of the project, or if he really had no idea what to do in the long-term future, so started to write silly stuff instead! I don't know. We both laughed a lot when we read what he put. Under education it says, "Learn about cats" and under job it says, "Cat painting" Hehehe, I'm sure he wasn't serious, because he's never shown an interest in art at all, and he loves cats, but not really to that degree! He's so funny. I love him. It's so weird when I see I'm writing in the present tense again, and knowing I should change it.

Well anyway, after about half an hour it was time to pick Michael up from nursery, so we went back in and collected him, then went back to their house. Nathan was immediately plopped into my arms again, which I can't complain about :) I held him for 2 hours, and sat with him laid in my lap for a long time too. We chatted about loads of stuff, mostly going over and over stuff we'd already talked about, all about Cameron, and about the afternoon. Probably loads of stuff was said that I'll want to write here, but I'm realising this is already a very long entry and I need to do something else with my day before it disappears, so I'll write more about this another time if I need to.

I couldn't sleep till 4am for having Cameron in my head again, and reliving the whole afternoon, and just loads of other things too. I couldn't stop thinking about him long enough to fall asleep, and then I woke feeling nauseous (IBS) around 7am for a while, then I dozed till the neighbours started banging and drilling at about 9am. So I do not feel that groovy today! I have to paint a few bits on the new door with woodstain, and sew the curtains so that we can put them up, and figure out how to get to the theatre tonight, and have a bath and wash my hair. And eat. I feel rather detached from myself today, so eating and feeling is a bit weird and uninteresting. Cameron's death seems more real again, which hurts.

But I did have an exciting phone call from Emily last night. She asked me to pray with her, so I prayed over the phone, and that was really good for me. Put on the spot, I wonder if I can really draw close to God when I feel far from him, but if I reach out to him, particularly for someone else, then he draws me close. So that was very good for me! And hopefully for Emily too :)

Anyway that is all for now. I'm sure I'll update again soon.

Recent entries.....

Cameron's first anniversary - 2004-09-24
Update - 5th Anniversary and other stuff! - 2004-08-16
Church picnic and being happy and things :) - 2004-06-27
Barbeque at Cameron's house... - 2004-05-18
To Tara... - 2004-04-19