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2003-10-08 - 2.53am (9th) previous entry next entry Thank you all so much for the lovely guestbook messages and emails. Sorry not to link or name you all but you know who you are. I really appreciate it again! I know I say the same thing a lot, but I mean it every time. It lifts me up no end to see your supportive messages. Thanks so so much! I was so amazed to see how much my account of Cameron’s funeral touched people. I am glad in a way, because he’s still alive in some way if he is still touching people anew each day, even after he’s died. So that is why I am so grateful to those of you who have contacted me to tell me how much they have been affected or touched by hearing about Cam. It means such a lot to me and it is helping me at the moment. I’m sorry I haven’t replied to many of you. I started to reply to one or two of you but I am so so so behind on emails and so bad at being in touch with people at the moment, so that is why, and I’m sorry about that. I also have one or two emails from people who have newly come across my diary, and I mean to reply to those very soon. If you are one of those people and are reading this (particularly Ainsley!) then please know I am already praying for you and thinking of you, and I am really grateful that you emailed me. I will reply eventually, I promise! :) And Emily, I have been praying for you and will be in touch soon. *hugs* Well. I missed a day yesterday didn’t I? I spent most of the day playing a new game on the PC and feeling fairly okayish, I guess because of the distraction. It was a rubbish way to spend the day, because I got nothing constructive done and I didn’t get dressed or anything, and the house was such a tip. When I wasn’t playing the game I was watching TV and trying to blot the mess and dirty laundry and dishes out from my mind! If I didn’t have a mindless distraction then I felt empty and sad, so I blotted out for a bit yesterday and did nothing useful. So I felt pants and guilty by the end of the day. Especially when Granny phoned (they are back from holiday and I have told them about Cameron) and said wasn’t it a good thing that I was at home all the time now that Neil is taking on more with his course as well as work, because at least I can ease the strain for him by having dinner ready and making the place nice for him to come home to. Urrrrrgh. Major guilt trip. She didn’t know of course, that the place was in a total state or that I haven’t cooked a meal in a week or more. I feel so bad, so awful, because I agree with Granny and besides, that’s what I WANT to be doing whether Neil is doing extra work or not. I told Neil and apologised profusely but he wouldn’t hear it. He said it’s been understandable lately. He is so wonderful to me. But I do need to pull myself together I think, and think of someone other than me a bit more. Neil said he has noticed I have been quite down on myself for 4 or 5 days, which I hadn’t noticed myself. Hmmm. He is usually right and seems to see things in me before I do, which sometimes bugs me a lot but now I am beginning to relax about that and be grateful that he cares that much for me and knows me that well. I’m lucky (not that I believe in luck but you know what I mean!) to have a husband like Neil – to have Neil for my husband full-stop! Yay for Neil :) Judith was meant to be coming round yesterday to check something on our iMac (which is not hooked up at the moment), but on Monday evening after the funeral I felt so awfully sad and antisocial that Neil had to phone her and cancel for me, and he rearranged it for Thursday instead. So she’s coming round tomorrow at 2ish. I still don’t fancy company but I do need to pull myself together like I said. Last night was the second week of the Alpha course we’re helping on, and I feel so bad, because I just couldn’t face going. I felt tired and drained and empty and like I could not face a room full of people and couldn’t bring myself to put on a front, which I would have had to do otherwise I would have been a complete misery all evening. I couldn’t seem to drag up the emotional energy for a front. Neil said I shouldn’t worry and he would go without me. So he did. I made a nappy and that was soothing somehow. It’s the first time I’ve made one since before Cameron died, and it has become such a hobby for me so I guess it’s good to sew them when I can. After I finished the nappy I felt more like myself so I started to tidy the place up a bit. I needed to for Judith coming round anyway, and I didn’t want Neil to have to, because he’s been doing all that lately and that’s not right with all the other stuff he has on. So I cleared up a lot in the lounge, and I did some laundry and hung washing all over the house to dry, and put a tumble dry load on. I emptied and reloaded the dishwasher. I folded lots of laundry and put some of it away. And then Neil got home and we chatted a bit about his evening. They hadn’t minded that I missed it so that’s good. Today has been different. I haven’t played any games. This afternoon I decided to go and visit Cameron at the cemetery. I should say visit his grave, but I seem to not want to say it like that. I keep describing it to Neil as “going to see Cameron”, like last Friday when I went to visit his body at the chapel – that was “going to see Cameron” as well. I told Neil this evening that I know he’s not really there and that I’m just going to see his grave, but I don’t care – I am always going to refer to it as “going to see Cameron”. Maybe that’ll change, but for now that’s what I’m saying. So I went. I haven’t written a letter yet or bought a rose to take and lay on his grave, because it occurred to me that his grave is gonna be completely covered with all those flowers that were there at his funeral for a while, and the letter might not get noticed if his parents come by, and I want them to keep it when they do see it, I don’t want it to just get blown away or for a million other visitors to read it. So I am waiting till his grave is clear. But I have some large but delicate purple daisies that I planted in my front border earlier this year, and they are pretty, and as I was leaving for the cemetery they caught my eye so I got out of the car and picked two – for me and him. And I took them just for Cameron, not for anyone else to notice. It is cold and very windy today. Not freezing cold or anything, but cold enough when the wind blows. It keeps looking like it’s going to pour with rain because the clouds are so thick and grey and heavy, but it doesn’t rain. It blows over after a while and the sun shines for a bit before more of those rainy clouds cover it up again. I knew I would be standing out in the wind for a while so I wore a thick winter sweater and a windbreaker jacket with a hood. It feels weird to be dressed up so warmly again after such a hot summer! And it was hot till only a week or so ago, so it does feel odd to be wearing thick clothes and finding the air too cold. Anyway, I went to the cemetery. I drove right in and parked my car, and I walked across to Cameron’s grave. It’s quite a sight in that graveyard, I can tell you! It catches the eye from a long way away. He has so many flowers that they cover his grave completely, and they overflow behind his little cross marker and they overflow on both sides and in front, especially onto the side that’s empty with no-one else’s grave there yet. It’s just a great big mass of beautiful colourful flowers with a little cross sticking up in the middle! Which is lovely to see because he was so loved. Tears surprised me yet again, and I was crying before I’d reached him. I do feel surprised that tears still come, because I am used to feeling like crying before I cry normally, and I honestly keep feeling like I have no more crying to do over Cameron, that the harsh raw emotions are past and the empty stuff is what’s to come. So it does surprise me when they just start flowing out of nowhere when I don’t think they are there to be spilt. The hurt all comes back as raw as ever when I cry which isn’t so nice but I guess I should let it happen when it happens, because shoving it down would not help me at all. And it does stop at least. It’s not the type where it feels like I won’t ever be able to stop crying. I know I will stop in a short while, but it just feels like the hurting won’t ever stop, which is different to just crying. It’s all so weird. Should I avoid visiting Cameron? I do okay when I don’t focus on him so much, except for the empty feeling. But when I do something to do with him, like visit him at the cemetery, or see his family, or something like that, I seem to take a couple of steps back and not do so well for a few days. So is that a sign that it’s hindering me to focus on him, that it’s only making me upset? Or is that a good thing and I should do it more often or at least keep it up like I’m doing? I don’t know what is best because I don’t want to fall into a rut of feeling down and empty and sad a lot of the time. Some would say that this would be an example of NOT getting on with life after someone has died, but staying in the past and not moving on. But on the other hand, I want to see him, I want to stay in the past, and I DON’T want to move on. Should I have to just yet, when I am so desperate not to, this soon? I don’t know. Maybe it’s not important either way. But I feel new to this kind of experience and I don’t want to put myself in a path that will make it harder in the long run. I think too much probably. I don’t want to feel so unhappy like this, but at the same time I can’t bear the idea of letting go and moving on. It feels so empty and unbearable, like just putting him aside and I can’t do that. I know that’s not what it would be, but it still feels that way. There must be SOMETHING I can still do for him, not in myself but like I used to – to DO something, something involved. But there is nothing, not now that he’s died. And there’s the emptiness which I can’t bear. So going to visit him is “something”, even though it’s not much, it’s something. The thing is, there’s emptiness in that too, which I discovered today. That was a hard thing to realise. I walked to his grave, and I stood there looking at the flowers and at his little cross with his name on it, and I said, “Hi Cam” and he wasn’t there. Total emptiness like a vacuum. Much more so than when I visited his body. They filled his grave in nicely. When I looked closely I could see between the many flowers, and it’s nice and earthy, and the earth looks all soft and crumbly and new, not dry or packed hard, or clumpy. It’s a little rounded mound of earth at the moment, like a freshly filled grave usually looks. The grass in front of his grave was new turf, I could see where it was cut and laid. And there was a new paving stone behind his marker, like all the other children’s graves. A finished job for sure. I thought that would be comforting, to see that everything was complete for him. But it hurt instead and the emptiness of it all was so painful to take in. The whole cemetery was silent and still except for the wind which was pretty strong, so I could hear the odd flower-stand rattling and wind chimes which some of the graves had, and leaves in the trees rustling, and of course windmills whirring in some of the children’s graves. The plastic wrapping on some of Cam’s flowers crackled in the wind too. But other than that it was me and the wind and that was it. I felt so lonely, and in particular I felt like the world was suddenly a desperately lonely and empty place without Cameron, and I found that feeling so upsetting. Talking to him just made the void more obvious and there was nothing I could do but sit cross-legged at the foot of his grave and cry and have the wind blow my hair all over the place. After a while I noticed a few stray flowers had blown away from their arrangements so I busied myself picking them up and pressing them back into the little lumps of oasis stuff that they were arranged in. That was almost fun to do because I had to find which arrangement they belonged to (not an easy task with so many similar ones!) and then find a nice spot to place them in on the display. Me and Cam decided that it would be nice to give the other Cameron Anthony a couple of his stray flowers that were blowing in the wind, since his grave looked rather empty, and I know Cameron would have thought like that, so I pressed two white carnations and a blue forget-me-not into the soil so they wouldn’t blow away. After that I felt a little better, because it felt like I’d just “done” something with Cameron almost, because I knew he would have loved the idea of sharing some of his flowers with the other Cameron, and I was able to carry that out for him. I talked to him a bit more after that, and it felt empty but I did it anyway. I really and truly do not believe that the people who are buried can hear us when we talk to them, not in any way. That’s my belief anyway. I know it’s a nice comforting thing that many people say, but I really honestly don’t believe it for a second. It doesn’t make things worse to think like that, it just feels more realistic to me. That does hurt but I don’t want to feel like I’m doing something for comfort when it goes against what I believe is real. But I talked to him for my own benefit, just to sound off and just to make the air seem less still and lonely. I knew he couldn’t hear me but just in case, you know (having just said all that about not believing it!! Man I’m contradictory lately!). And just because I needed to. I told him his flowers were beautiful and described how they smelled. They smelled amazing! Especially when I was sat down so close to them all. The roses and lilies smelt the most incredible. So sweet and fragrant. I’m glad I went there before they started to die and smell less lovely. I put my two purple daisies in the hole in the ‘A’ of the “CAM” flowers which were propped up against his cross marker. I told him they were from my garden. I felt okay when I was talking to him, but if I stopped babbling for a second the empty ache closed in again. I sang his favourite hymns to him, all the way through, choruses and all. I told him they were my favourites and I was so surprised and pleased when I saw he loved them too. I told him I had other favourites from school and I sang some of those to him as well. It was awful because I just kept feeling so overwhelmed with sadness just from absolutely nowhere and it kept making me cry, and then things hurt like I didn’t know how stop making them hurt. But then after a while emptiness was the main feeling so I just sat still as anything and watched the wind blow his flowers, not even feeling like I needed to breathe with everything so still and lonely. And then after an absolute age that seemed to pass a little and I would get distracted again and want to look around a bit more or stretch my legs or something. How weird is this? I looked at some graves near Cameron. The one across the road from him was fairly recent, in the last year, and it was a grave of a 35 year old man. There was a big flower arrangement (not real flowers) spelling the word “Daddy” and on his grave was a laminated photo of two little girls, and the words “Daddy’s little girls” underneath. That’s so sad :( I always stop at graves like that and think, “I wonder what happened to him?” I never went far from Cameron’s grave or stayed away for long. I had to keep going back to feel nearer to him. It was a crazy thought that his body was so far below the earth and where I was sitting. I had a mad moment feeling weird and trapped because I felt like the earth was separating me from his body and it gave me almost a panicky feeling. There was too much earth – all those feet of it - and I felt like I couldn’t reach him if I wanted to, not like on Friday or at the funeral when he was right there in the coffin in front of me, which is crazy because he’s not there in person, and anyway what am I going to achieve by being able to “reach” his body? Nothing. So that was a silly feeling. Another horrible thought was how his body is just going to decay from hereon out. And then he’ll just be bones and I would never recognise him if he was just bones, at least now I know what he looks like and I know he’s my Cameron as I have always seen him. I told you I was thinking crazy. I worry about that a bit, but I don’t know what’s normal and what’s not, so I am trying not to worry about what I think, however daft or wacky at the moment. A lady came to visit him while I was there. She had a posy of flowers with a note attached, and probably for the very last time I had the absolute pleasure of someone thinking Cameron was mine, just like people always used to at the hospital. She approached me with some hesitation and asked if I was Cameron’s mum. I said no. I always hated having to say no, and today was no exception. She said she hadn’t met Cam’s mum, but her kids went to school with his real dad’s step-kids and they had wanted her to bring some bright coloured flowers to lay on his grave. I don’t think any of them met Cameron, but they obviously felt touched by how upset his step-siblings were at school. She asked who I was, and I told her I was his one-to-one carer when he was in hospital. Wow that feels like an old title now, since I haven’t seen Cameron in that capacity for years. I graduated to a close family friend after that and have been ever since. We made small talk about how he had so many flowers and how lovely he was, and then she made moves to leave. I said she could stay if she wanted to, but she said no, she just wanted to leave the flowers. I told her Cam’s parents would probably keep the note because they had collected the notes from flowers at the funeral. She nodded. I thanked her for bringing the flowers, and then felt weird for doing so, because maybe it wasn’t my place to thank her. But I feel so much like he’s mine in my heart. Whenever people complimented him I would always say thank you and take it personally, like a parent would I guess, rather than just agreeing like anyone other than a parent. And today I felt personally grateful that someone thought to bring “my” little boy some pretty flowers, so that’s where the thank-you came from. I hope she didn’t find that weird. I stayed at Cameron’s grave for an hour and a half, until closing time. About 15 minutes before closing time I was feeling much more myself and was more upbeat for singing “If I were a butterfly” nice and loudly since there was nobody else at the cemetery! And then a lady drove into the cemetery and pulled up next to the grave of the “Daddy”. I sat facing Cam’s grave so I had my back to the other grave. She got out of her car with some gardening stuff and then she called someone up on her mobile and talked for a while about meeting someone after she’d been to the cemetery. I just sat and watched Cam’s flowers in the wind, and thought of him. I didn’t really feel too disturbed by the other lady, but when she finished her phone call it was really nice because she called over, “Sorry for disturbing your peace” which I thought was lovely of her. So I held my hand up and called “Don’t worry!” and then turned back to Cameron. The weirdest thing happened. I don’t know if it was the connection with another person that brought me back to earth or something, or maybe it was because she said something sensitive that reminded me of where I was and why, but all those painful feelings came back like a flood and I couldn’t stop crying. The lady came over on her way to fill a water vase and said, “Was he your brother?” I said no, and that I had looked after him a lot when he was younger. She asked how old he had been, and I said eleven. She shook her head and said how awful that was. Then she said, still shaking her head, “I dunno, it makes you wonder if there’s a god at all doesn’t it?” Right at that moment I realised this was an exercise for me. In the past I have had times where someone has said something like that and I’ve either vaguely agreed by saying, “Mmmm…” or some neutrally acknowledgey thing like that, or else I haven’t answered at all – because I have inwardly worried that I would offend the person or that they would not like me. And then afterwards I’d kick myself for not standing up for what I believe. But this time I thought ahead. I realised that if I agreed in any way I would be denying God. If I said nothing it would still be the same as denying God. And I love God, and he’s my Lord. No matter if it offended her or if she threw her vase at me and stomped off (see my irrational fears?!), I could not deny my God. So I looked right at her and said, “I believe in God.” It felt so great to say it, and greater still because I said it through tears of anguish over God’s decision to take Cameron away from me, and I knew I had done the right thing because it felt warm and joyful in my heart somehow. She said, “You believe in God?” like it was weird thing to believe, like I’d said I believed I would sprout wings in a moment and if she’d like to wait and see, I would fly into that tree and fetch a leaf from the top branch for her. I nodded and blew my nose. She said, “Not me, not any more.” And I asked if the man was her husband. She said stuff I could not quite understand, she didn’t answer my question as such, she just talked about the man in a way that showed she loved him. And she said, “Maybe one day we can hope for a better life.” But not in a hopeful way, more like a bitter sarcasm, which I thought was sad. Sad that she was so empty of hope, and it made me wonder how people get through times like this without God. Surely without God you have to rely on either the feeling that you must control your life, which would lead to huge amounts of insecurity and fear (I know this myself), or else you’d have to believe in being blown around by “fate” like the leaves were being blown around in the wind this afternoon. And I can’t imagine that feels very secure or purposeful. So I don’t know how hard it must be to go through losing someone you love without God. But I’m glad I don’t have to. The cemetery guy came by then and told us he was closing up, so the lady went to quickly fill her vase at one of the taps, and I picked myself up to head back to the car. I found that leaving Cameron again was just as hard as before, even with his grave finished this time. It felt too lonely out there to leave him in any way. I felt an urge to lie down by the grave and just stay there all night, but not really, just a wish, a mental fantasy. I did not know what to do to say goodbye, or how to leave, how to cut off my time with him that afternoon, when there wasn’t any substance there in the first place. I picked up my bag and zipped up my coat, and moved to leave and just started to cry because it was too hard to leave. I went back and told him I loved him and kissed him on his cross marker, which felt utterly silly and I don’t plan to do that any other time, but I just had to do something. And then I left. Going home was okay once I’d properly left him, because I got to thinking about the lady and I started to pray for her which felt warm and purposeful, compared with how empty and purposeless things had felt next to Cameron’s grave. As I drove off, I saw a car pull up beside Cam’s grave and a lady got out and stood there for a moment, before getting back and driving away again because they were closing up. I don’t know who she was. I was glad that Cam had visitors though. It made me wonder how many he had this morning when I wasn’t there, or yesterday. The rest of today I have felt sad and empty. But I have tidied up a lot more, and I did all the washing up and cleaned the kitchen and scrubbed the sink, and I put the bins out (which a cat already broke into, grrr!), and folded a TON of laundry and put it away, and I put two loads of laundry on and some tumble dry loads. And chatted with Neil about stuff, about today at the cemetery and about his course and things. Oh and I got my period. So no baby for us again this month. Next month is our fifth month of trying for a baby. I hope it happens soon, but lately I care about that a lot less, with my perspective on life so changed. I’m glad I still have Jesus though, because a rocky uneven road like this one would be awfully hard to navigate safely without his guidance, or just knowing that he’s there beside me. I’m so thankful to God for so much, and that gives me joy at the moment simply because I know it brings him joy to know that I trust him despite how hard things are right now. God is always good to me and I want to show faithfulness to him in return. |
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