Great Christian Diaries

2003-09-24 - 8.30pm  previous entry  next entry

You're gonna need to read my last entry before going any further to make any sense of this one. I wrote it earlier. Thanks Poppy for your guestbook entry. I needed those hugs :)

I would like to waffle about some things that aren't related to Cameron, and then I will tell you my news in a minute I think. We went to therapy this evening and it was okay. Good actually. They are harvesting the grapes in the vineyards at my parents' house in France. Daddy sent me a photo of him on this huge machine in amongst the vines. He was just watching the locals doing it, and they asked him if he'd like to have a go, so he hopped up! Mummy said he was so excited, like a little boy. The photos are sweet. But I don't want to post them.

Sue and Judith came round today to chat with me and pray for me, which was lovely of them. I did a lot of housework today. I did laundry and cleaned the kitchen and did the washing up and folded a ton of laundry, and re-organised Neil's clothes drawers (needs doing on a regular basis!), and made the lounge nice and tidy.

It's the most beautiful day today. This morning was chilly. I woke up at 5am to switch the fan off because we've had it on every night all summer, and it's finally too cold for it, which means Autumn is officially here. Last night I went to housegroup and when I got home around 10.30pm, the air was sort of chilled, and sweet and crispy smelling, like wintery instead of summery. It's funny how the seasons have a different smell to them. The sky was blue all day today, not a single cloud in the sky, and the sun was warm in the afternoon. The leaves are starting to yellow and look golden in the sun. A perfect late September day. The sun just went down and the whole horizon is a hazy pinky peachy colour against the deepening blue. It's so beautiful.

My little boy died this morning.

I knew there was something bad to hear when I got his mum's message. It took me ages to get through to her because her line was engaged forever. I made myself a ham and salad sandwich (my favourite at the moment) because I hadn't eaten breakfast or anything, and it was nearly lunchtime. I ate half of it, but I couldn't swallow it easily for being scared about Cameron and what was wrong. I was so scared he might have cancer - leukaemia perhaps, because of how he'd needed a blood transfusion recently and the swollen foot. I don't know. I just figured it must be something dodgy with his lymph nodes, and that made me think cancer. That was the scariest, worst expectation in my mind.

When I finally got through to his mum, I asked how things were going, and she said, "Oh.... where do I start?" so I figured things had been rough, or that Cameron had been poorly. Or that my worst fear was true, that he really had been given a scary diagnosis. She talked me through recent events. He had been poorly a couple of weeks ago. He was transferred to a bigger London hospital. They discovered a couple of problems with his heart - his HEART, of all things! Alllll his health issues for his whole life, and none of them have involved his heart. Except for his Hickman line which ran directly from his heart to a tube-opening on his chest. He got infections in that darn line all the time, I was used to hearing about them and seeing him with a fever and things because of it. Anyway, every sentence she said made me jump to a conclusion in my mind, and then she'd say the next sentence and I'd jump to another conclusion.

"He was transferred to a bigger hospital" - Please tell me he's still there recovering, I thought.

"He was diagnosed with a heart murmur" - Please tell me that's not a big deal.

"They transferred him to another hospital" - Okay so that's where he is now, please tell me how he's doing there.

"He was found to have a heart infection. A virus of some sort." - Oh God please tell me he's doing okay on the treatment for that.

"They decided to do surgery." - Right so he's recovering, please tell me he's recovering.

"His heart was too weak." - No. Please no.

"And he passed away this morning."

It's not true because it can't be true, and yet I know it's true so it has to be true. I don't know what I said to his mum. I just remember that for the first time in that situation - of being told by someone that their loved one has died - I had no awkwardness about what to say, or of being sensitive in how I worded stuff. None at all. I just said how I felt. I remember I said that I couldn't believe it. I said "no" a lot. I said how sorry I was, when I pulled myself together slightly. That made her cry. She is holding so much emotion in and I am worried for her. She has another little boy who is nearly four, and she is due to give birth to a baby boy in a matter of weeks. I am scared for her. She said Cameron will be "back" by the weekend she thinks, and the funeral will be next week.

I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I just can't at all.

She said she had sat by his bedside this morning until he died, and she said goodbye to him from me, and from everyone he knows. Absolutely everyone. She said he was a fighter, as he always was, and he fought till the end, but his heart was just too weak. She said after he died she came home, and started phoning people to let them know. She just wanted to get it over and done with. I think I was one of the first few she phoned, since the message was left at 9.30, so he must have died quite early this morning. Her ex (Cam's dad) will be dealing with all the funeral arrangements so that she doesn't have to, which is good. I am absolutely dreading dreading dreading his funeral. At the moment the only thing I'm doing is shaking and not believing it, which I've done all day so far. I can keep that up for a while, and it seems preferable to all the emotions of acceptance collapsing in on me and being so painful. But I won't have a choice at the funeral. If the penny hasn't dropped by then, it'll have to at the funeral. I'll have to see him in his little coffin, and all the hundreds and hundreds of people whose lives have been touched by this precious little boy, many of whom I haven't seen for years, since I was regularly looking after him. They will all be distraught. His mum says everyone she's phoned has been shocked and distraught. I don't know what to think, HOW to think, what to do with myself. His mum said she would be in touch about the funeral, and she said if I wanted to phone I could do so from Friday onwards, just to give them a few days to take it in. We talked for quite a while. Both of us seemed to be talking weird, like chokey and shaky. It was so surreal. When I put the phone down I cried and wailed and shook and failed completely to deal with the situation, but after a while it all seemed to subside, and I walked around the house trying to clean up for Sue and Judith coming round and talking aloud to myself, saying how I couldn't believe it and it couldn't be true, and just repeating "He died, he died, he died" over and over. I feel like a crazy woman. And I don't know myself at all.

My house is a treasure trove of photos of Cameron. He's looking at me when I open my bedside drawer, there's a big album of his photos in the lounge, photos on the shelves, everywhere. I don't know whether to put them away or not. I feel like things can't stay the same so surely the house should reflect that? But that also seems silly. I just don't know. This afternoon I gathered up my photos and looked through them on the couch. I found his letters that he's sent me since he could write, and even the dictated ones from before he could write, that his mum wrote and sent. We saw each other a lot, but we still wrote, especially when he was away at the children's hospital in Birmingham. I wrote him a letter full of drawings after he had his transplant when he was four. I made it as much like a children's story book as I could. I wrote and illustrated how I learned that he'd had his transplant on my 20th birthday, and I drew all the presents I'd received and the things I'd done for my birthday. I drew a picture of his mum phoning me to tell me his transplant had been a success, and I wrote that it was the best birthday present of all. I sent him a photo of us that had been taken earlier that year when we'd gone out for the day. I was sat on a table and he was sitting on my lap with the biggest widest toothy grin you've ever seen, and I had my arms tight all round him, and we were both looking right at the camera and smiling. I have a copy of that photo too. Maybe I'll scan it and post it here someday. I worry about posting it right now incase his mum might not want his photo on the internet. But anyway, when I saw him on his birthday this summer, he still had that photo on his wall, and some postcards from me too. I always sent him postcards. He loved me, oh I know he did. We had a really special relationship, I guess because I was so close to him and looked after him so regularly for long blocks without his mum or dad, and he wouldn't have been able to remember a time when I wasn't in his life. If I went to visit, his mum always said he was up early and waiting at the window an hour or more before I was meant to get there. We'd talk for an hour on the phone, even if I said I had to go, he didn't seem to want to stop, so we just carried on. In his letters, even this year's letters, he always wrote how he misses me and loves me. I wish I wish I wish I had spent more time with him. I didn't know I would have so little time. But that's no excuse.

Now what shall I do? My precious Cameron is dead and I can't even let it into my head. He's not here. I have written all this without even crying about it or getting choked up. I just shake all the time, that's all. I feel sick a lot, but probably because I have hardly eaten anything today which is silly. I ate my other half of the sandwich when we got home from therapy. I had put it in a food bag in the fridge without even thinking about it and when I got home, there it was.

Nothing in my life, absolutely NOTHING, means anything to me right at this moment. I don't want to have a baby, I don't care about it one bit. I want to carry on with life and be happy, and Cameron was always the happiest most generous child who lived life to the absolute fullest despite his lifelong, life-threatening health problems, so I should too. He kept me going when I would otherwise have committed suicide I am sure, until I found God and a reason to live. So I should keep going now. Even when I think of all how I'm feeling, I feel angry at myself because what right have I got to assume such possession of a maternal role and maternal emotions over this child's death? Surely his family would find that insulting, since I have no IDEA how this must be for them - they are the ones who have lived with him and loved him and brought him up and he is THEIR child, not mine. But like I have said many times before, I fell so in love with Cameron and we had this bond between us. He acted with me like my own child. It was agony leaving him at bedtime because he cried and beat the floor and looked like I was breaking his heart to leave him. None of the nurses could console him, and the look on his face was unbearable. And when he woke and saw me, he would smile like - oh, like nothing else I've ever seen! His whole face, even his whole body would light up, and he'd reach for me and I'd hold him and kiss him and tell him I loved him. He went through a clingy stage around strangers with me. I taught him some of his first words. I loved him more than anything else in my whole world, and he loved me back, I believe just as much. So now it hurts like someone ripped a limb off my body and hit me in the stomach repeatedly with it, and they still haven't stopped doing it. But I feel like I shouldn't own such feelings, or such possession of Cameron, because he was never mine, and no matter how much love or time I had for him, it surely could never have been as much as his mother's love, and so her pain must be immensely worse than mine. So I wanted to make it clear that when I write about him as my little boy, it's not that I'm putting myself on his mother's level, because I can't. But only that I write about him that way because that's how he has always been in my heart.

I can't believe he is gone. I can't bear to have a baby now. If I had to face this with my own child it would be more than I could bear - if I already feel like this about Cam. Plus how could I ever love my own child like Cameron? I know it's silly, but I almost feel guilty to put Cam aside in my heart and love another, a child of my own. I don't want to love a child more than I love Cameron. He is too special. And I also feel like not having children because there seems no point when my precious boy is dead. Dead is such a horrible word. Died isn't, and dying isn't so bad, but dead is horrible, like a fish with it's eyes all pale and jelly-like, staring up at me. It's so hard and spiteful. End-like, and factual. I feel like my own children can't measure up to Cameron. He is so special. Was so special. I can't believe this is happening. Has happened. The strangest thing - something I expected the opposite of - is that I am not angry with God at all. He must have a good reason. And you know what else? Nolan's death was hard to get my head round when I found out last week, but today it keeps coming back to me. I keep thinking of him, and of how he touched so many lives before he died. I keep thinking of how the lady at his funeral said that he DID serve his purpose in life, even though he only lived 9 years. And it's like somehow that has prepared me for Cameron's death. His life has had immense purpose, and I feel like God always planned that he would only live this long, however he died, so he lived his life as it was meant to be. In a great way. I am amazed at how calm and peaceful I feel towards God about it. So I know this must be "right" in some way, meant to be. Nothing to fight against because it's how it was meant to be. God had it in hand, and he weeps with us, so there's nothing to be angry about towards him. Maybe that's just me talking today, maybe I will get angry another day. I don't know.

My head is aching and I am just going to write round in circles from here on probably, so I'll stop for now. Neil is being wonderful. He wanted to come home from work but I said I was okay, and Sue and Judith were coming round. They were sympathetic and hugged me and prayed for me, and I just shook and didn't cry, but they don't understand the depth of my love for Cam. Nobody does, because whenever I've talked about him, he's just been "the little boy who I used to look after at the hospital". How shallow is that, for what really took place between us? People who know our relationship like that can never know how much he meant to me. And I didn't just look after him at the hospital. But telling them everything would take too long, so that's how they know it. Only people who knew me while I was caring for him, like my family and his family, and also Neil knows because of how much I've talked to him about it. Katy knows, but she won't ever reply to my emails anymore. I don't know what I've done to make her do that. My parents were wonderful on the phone today, and Mummy is glad they are coming over in a couple of weeks, so that she can hug me and comfort me like she wants to. All afternoon if I tried to make sense of what had happened, a big black capital-lettered NO filled my mind. I could see it in my mind's eye. It filled all of my vision and I couldn't see past it so I just stopped trying and carried on with the housework. Cheryl says it will hit me after a while. She was lovely this evening, really sympathetic and she really seemed to understand, despite not knowing the depth of my feelings. She said to be sensitive with each other around the funeral. We aren't seeing her for three weeks now because she's going away on holiday for a while.

I'm going downstairs now. But I'll write again soon. Either I will want to pour out everything I'm thinking and feeling here, or else I'll want to hide and avoid writing for a while. I don't know. This is all new to me. But I think I will write again very 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