What I want today on Oscar’s 13th birthday is to sit and cry all day. But I can’t – I have 3 other children, of which the youngest looks at me with such innocent confusion at my tears as we sit and cuddle up, that I know I have to stop.
It is true that cliché you read on “inspirational quotes”; Child loss is not an event, it is an indescribable journey of survival. And at the moment I am just about surviving. The memories which on other days bring me such joy is currently only reminding me of what is no longer possible, of all the dreams lost, of all the things Oscar should have experienced that he never will. Things we all take for granted; becoming a teen, secondary school, falling in love, the first dance, walking hand in hand with a loved one, the first drunken night, the first kiss, learning to drive…the list goes on.
I do love celebrating Oscar, and I have now forced myself to bake a cake with Milo and Lucas for him but this day is becoming harder, not easier. Ian and I didn’t sleep all night, Seb woke up at 3.30am and couldn’t sleep for hours. We miss Oscar every day but today we are reminded even more of the future that was taken from him. In the last year before he died Oscar swapped between wanting to be a footballer, a tennis player, a singer and a cyclist and there is not a doubt in my mind that he could have become whatever he set his mind to – all the memories in the world can’t make up for us knowing he had that taken away from him