Great Christian Diaries

2003-11-07 - 7.02pm  previous entry  next entry

Thanks Kelli for the supportive guestbook entry, and Ainsley for the lovely email story, and Emily for the phone call. I really appreciate your support. xxx

Yesterday was a much better day. I felt more secure being at home instead of at work, whether that's right or wrong, so that helped a lot. I have no period yet but I still feel crampy and yucky so it's definitely imminent.

Yesterday I did loads of clearing out and stuff in the small bedroom again, and I am trying to figure out where to put the furniture, so that has kept me nice and busy. I have had to store my fabric on a large set of bookshelves, so now I have nowhere to put my books! Arrrgh! But the fabric is getting out of hand. I am just obsessed with sewing nappies, and more importantly, collecting super gorgeous fabrics for the task! But the shelving is great, because now I have my fabric in 8 easily-accessible categories - stretchy knit prints, towelling and velour, flannels, burley knit terry, wool and PUL fabric, microfleece, heavy weight fleeces, and "other fabric"!! Phew! I love to sew. But more than that I love my fabric!!! I just love looking at it and stroking it and deciding on co-ordinating combinations for nappies. I'm an odd one. But oh well, my oddness simple means my children are going to have THE most super gorgeous bottoms for miiiiiles around!! ;) Not to mention the comfiest, oh yes. Now I just have to figure out where to store several hundred books. Hmmm.

In my big clearout yesterday, I finally found the software for the printer and digital camera, so I've been loading that today and making sure it all works. I just have to find the scanner software now. We have been having big problems with our AOL Broadband, so I uninstalled the whole thing and then reinstalled it today, and it seems to be fine now - except for quitting AOL which is apparantly impossible due to some other error that's happened since I reinstalled everything. Grrr. I have to switch the computer off at the plug to get away from AOL!! But maybe I'll spend a couple of years waiting on the helpline sometime, and get it sorted out.

So anyway, yesterday was better. I was going to go swimming with Judith but Neil had the car and I felt periody so I wanted to just cosy-down at home, and when I phoned Judith she didn't feel up to going anyway, so we'll go next week I think. Swimming always means a massive shave-fest anyway (!!), and that seemed a bit tiresome so I am happy to be hairy for the next week! ;)

Emily phoned me to say she was thinking of me, which was so lovely. We had a nice chat. Judith and I are going round to see her and chat and pray next week which is exciting!! It is slightly weird that I now have a friend who I see and chat to "in person" who also has been reading my diary for ages and therefore when I speak to her she knows my deepest woes and struggles and weirdisms from the last few hours!! I feel a bit.... naked when we chat, emotionally - if that makes sense - but I try not to visualise her reading my diary (hello Emily by the way!! hehe!) when we speak, and I also try not to think about anyone reading my diary as I type it. That makes it easier to just be "me" and type with as much depth and honesty as I like, because if I was busy thinking of anyone reading it, especially specific people, then I would feel all funny about saying some stuff probably. So I try not to! But in some ways it's very good for me to have that vulnerability and no choice about it, knowing she's read my diary, because I have nothing hidden. Sometimes that's uncomfortable, but complete openness is a good thing. Especially with trustworthy people. I have found it seems to help people somehow, I'm not sure how, but people keep saying it does.

Yesterday evening I realised it was exactly one month since we buried Cameron. Sue phoned to see how I was doing which was nice of her. I talked to her about things with Cameron, and about work earlier this week. She listened for a while and then she said she thinks they have underestimated how close I was to Cameron. I am so so so glad she said that, because I have felt that exactly, since she and Judith came round on the day he died. They said how sad it was and that they were sorry (for me) but then we prayed about Cameron's family and I desperately felt the need for some prayer support myself, but I couldn't bring myself to ask, what with the whole thing I was feeling about not being "eligible" for such grief. Then I had the angry patch where I felt like Sue and Judith and Sandy simply did not understand how much Cam meant to me. They were sympathetic but seemed kind of surprised at times when I seemed to be finding it so hard. That made me feel so angry and I hated having no.... official connection to Cameron, you know? I hate having to explain why I am struggling, or even to let people know that this is going on for me. If Cameron was really mine, everybody would know because people would pass such news on without me having to say, and nobody would require an explanation or seem surprised that I was struggling or quitting work, etc. But now Sue saying how she thinks they underestimated what he meant to me, that is such a relief and so wonderful to hear. It gives me permission to grieve as deep and long as I need - not that I needed permission from anyone, but it makes it so much easier when you feel people understand and give you unconditional time and freedom to deal with your feelings.

Today I went to the cemetery again. I picked a load of purple daisies (which are STILL going strong in the front border despite it being November!!), and some deep blue lobelia, and tied them in a posy with a rubber band. I wrote a little note on a small piece of card and covered it in clear plastic to keep it waterproof. I wrote, "Dear Cameron. These flowers are from my garden. I'm going to grow prettier ones next season so I can bring you some. I love you and miss you loads. Alice xxx" and I put a sparkly butterfly sticker at the top next to his name. That's just the type of note I used to write him when he was alive, so I see no reason to write differently now he's gone.

I used a paper clip to attach the note through a hole in it, onto the rubber band, and then I got in the car and drove to the cemetery. I did not fancy seeing his dead flowers again, because it seems to hurt that they look so bad. I want soooo much to throw them away to make his place better, but I can't do that, it's not my place. But anyway, when I got to his grave, guess what?! His mum and dad had been and thrown all his funeral flowers away! I guess they probably went yesterday since it was a month after the funeral. His grave looks very different now that it's not hugely overflowing with flowers. It looks so small. Too small for Cameron. I thought it would be better once the flowers went, but it made me cry a lot instead. I think it is because it looked so.... normal. Like a normal grave. Not new anymore. I sat down on the muddy grass next to his grave, closer than I've ever been able to before now that the flowers are gone, and I said to him, "So this is how it's going to be from now on?" And somehow that really hurt and made me cry. I know when he died it was permanent, and when he was buried that was permanent too, but somehow it has taken on a new permanence now that his grave is "as it will always be", with the funeral flowers gone. The funeral flowers linked now to then. And now there's nothing except a big lot of time between now and when he died. I really can't bear this time thing, how it creeps and grows, and puts more and more distance between me and my little boy. I dread to think of when the time comes when he wouldn't recognise me for my age if he were here to see me.

So I sat and cried and told God it was awful and it couldn't be true, and got myself accustomed to Cameron's new-looking grave, and while I was doing all that, the lady who had disturbed me on Tuesday drove up in her car and parked right next to Cam's grave again. What are the odds of that? She's really nice though so it's okay. I just don't like being disturbed when I'm at Cam's grave. She got out and said, "Hello my darling" and then she saw I was crying so she asked if I was okay. I said I was and didn't get up to chat, so she left me to it, which I'm grateful for. It's weird getting to know people who visit their loved-ones' graves. It's weird to be one of them. It's weird to bump into them often at the cemetery.

I'm glad her car obsured me from her view as I was sitting so low to the ground, because I felt more able to cry and not be so distracted by her while she was there. She stayed for about 30 minutes, and I just sat and didn't move, just looking at things on Cam's grave and crying. Then she asked if I wanted a lift down the road (it's a long road, and she gave me a lift down it on Tuesday), but I thanked her and said I had my car today. She's really sweet. So then she went, and that was a relief actually because then I could carry on being myself with Cameron and let my feelings be whatever they wanted to be. I had my wallet in my pocket, I was reminded because my fingers closed on it when I was trying to warm my hands in my pockets. I felt like looking at it, so I pulled it out and sorted through it. It has been years since I sorted through my wallet. I have student ID in there!!!! And library cards from 1998!! Anyway, guess what I found? A photo of Cameron. I always carry a photo of Cameron, and always have since I fell in love with him all those years ago. This one was taken when he was about 3 and I took him to the park. He was giving me a huge smile and the "thumbs up", and I've had it in my wallet ever since. I forgot it was there. In the same slot, behind his photo I found a photocard of a beautiful sunset/sunrise, can't figure out which, taken from above the clouds, and it says, "Jesus, our help for today, our hope for tomorrow" I looked at it for ages, feeling like God had me put it there in 1996 (or whenever it was) specifically for me to find it and be blessed by it on this very day at Cameron's graveside. There was another card in the next slot with that beautiful verse from Isaiah about those who wait on the Lord rising up on wings like the eagle's and renewing their strength. That was of huge help to me when I was ill, and it's still so uplifting, but it was the other card that really went deep into my heart today.

I felt so much better in myself after looking at these and Cameron's photo for a while. I got up and had a good look at Cam's grave. He has some beautiful things. His glass angel is still there, and so is my flower pot with just the note saying "I love you Cameron" inside it. I am really touched that his parents left that there, even though it's just an old flowerpot with a weathered note in it. The flowers that went with them are in the bin now, so it's sweet of them to leave the pot and the note there. I took the pot away to the bins, but I secured the note next to his angel. He still has his tiny red teddy bear at the foot of his cross marker, and he has a glass vase full of flowers embedded in the centre of the mound of earth. There's a new sculpture too. A cream cherubic angel sitting on a rock. It's bigger than the glass angel. The details are so perfect. This angel has wings too, and flowers in her hands. She has her chin resting on one of her hands, and around her wrist is tied a note which I read, and it says, "Cameron, We will love you always, you are always in our thoughts. We miss you and love you very much. Mum, Dad, Michael and Nathan xxx" It's so heart-breaking to read things like that. It just is. I can't imagine how they must be feeling. Sometimes I think I must know, but I'm sure I don't really.

I put my flowers in a space on the earth, and used the paper clip as a prong to secure the posy to the ground. I am glad they know I visit him. Cameron used to say that I was always there, and I don't want that to change ever. I want to be as much "always there" as his family are, just as I always used to try to be. Except these last few years. Why couldn't I have just put more effort into seeing him more? I know I was ill, but then after that, why couldn't I? I wish I had known.

Well the rest of my time at the cemetery (I stayed about an hour and a half) was much better. His grave was strewn with leaves and the earth was all packed hard in places, so I set about tidying it up. I think that is okay, that his family wouldn't mind me picking the leaves off and loosening the earth a little? It's just making changes that I shouldn't do. This task made me feel immensely better, like it was such a joy to feel like I was DOING something for him at last. I was making his grave look nice, working on it on his behalf. I sang while I worked, a Christian song that uses the words from that verse from Isaiah that I mentioned. I don't know what song it is or who it's by and I don't know many of the words but it's upbeat and cheerful and I sang what I knew over and over. I told Cam I still love to sing, and this is a song I like. I told him I would sing other things to him some time too, which I'm sure I will. I cleared all the leaves off his grave, and I used a stick and my hands to rake through the soil and make it loose and crumbly and soft-looking. I evened it out around the edges and around the vase in the middle, and then my hands were all muddy and this lovely rich damp earthy smell hung around in the air, and I felt good for "looking after" Cameron again in some small way.

I sat with him a while longer, but the sun was getting low and his grave was starting to be in the shade which made it very cold to sit there, so I decided to take some photos - I took my camera incase I saw any pretty opportunities while I was out. I took several photos at the cemetery, and I have uploaded my photo software so I can post them here. It has been a beautiful clear autumn day today, as you can see from the photos. Such a pretty day for visiting the cemetery. Anyway, they are mostly general photos.

This first one is part of the cemetery with some of the older graves. I thought it looked pretty from the side, with the trees and their colours in the background:

This one is of a big tree near to where Cameron is buried. The light was coming through it and I felt like seeing what would happen if I took a photo of it:

This one is a photo of the main part of the cemetery. I couldn't resist the big tree with the sun on it, and the blue sky behind it. Cameron is buried just beyond it, not far from it's outermost branches:

This is a photo of a row of children's graves. I like the red leaves and the light. Cameron's grave is at the far end of this row:

This is the same row from the other side. Cameron's grave is the one right in front of you. This is where I sit, on the grass there at the side of his grave. It's not the best angle for a photo but I wanted to be sure not to give any of the details of grave markers away, since it's on the internet. So you can't really see his angel statues, or much else about his grave really. But it's a photo of where my little boy is buried, and now you know where I sit and what I'm talking about when I say I've been to the cemetery:

Leaving Cameron was not so hard today, and I promised I would visit again soon. I feel sad and empty somewhere inside me, especially when I drive away, but there's normal stuff on top so it's not all painful.

Well that's it for today. I will update again soon. Sorry I am still not emailing. I will get to it eventually, really I will. Thanks to everyone for being lovely and things. *hugs*

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