I'm starting a "post-bereavement blog".

Mum came to see me in a dream this week. What made it both special and unusual was that she wasn't with Dad. Now all through my childhood is was always Mum and Dad as a team, a united loving team so to be with Mum but not with Dad seemed strange. In the dream I knew that she was dead but I wasn't quite sure if I was dreaming or if I had also died and this was the longed for reunion.

It turned into one of the "special talks" we had sometimes as I was growing up. Always loving, always frank and always remembered. The first one was when a girl in the year above me at primary school died. Mum talked to me about dying, carefully choosing words and concepts that I would understand. I stopped being scared and confused so when Dad asked me about what had happened I could tell him how I was feeling. Parental team work!  We had other talks before and after my periods started and from 13 to 16 a whole series of non-stressful talks about sex, relationships and even female masturbation.

This time she told me - "I will wait for you, do you understand? No matter how long. I will watch from inside your head to make sure you live every year you have to its full. Then we’ll have so much to talk about when Dad and I see you again". 

Which all leads me rather neatly to my blog. Writing my bereavement blog has been helpful to me and from the feedback I have received it has also been helpful to other people. But times change, priorities change and in my case I have changed as well. 

I want to keep blogging but not hammering away about and around the same few topics. I would like to start a "post-bereavement blog" so once I get my exam results and once Granddad's trial is over that is what I am going to do.

Finding closure - at last!

The last few years have not been kind to me! But, finally, I think I have reached “closure” the point where I can move on into adulthood almost, but not quite, as if the bereavement hadn't happened. 

For me closure came quite suddenly as I was visiting Mum and Dad’s grave. When I turned away to walk back to the car park it came over me like a warm blanket wrapped around my shoulders. That sad part of my life was over. The twin demons of survivor guilt and “Sally the Victim” had been exorcised and placed where they belonged, in the past. 

Of course closure doesn’t mean forgetting. I will not forget my Mum and Dad and will never forget the kindness and compassion shown to me by the people who walked with me during my long journey. Neither will I forgive and forget the people who tried to exploit my emotional, financial and physical vulnerability. Will 10+ years in prison teach the two people concerned a lesson? Somehow I doubt it.  

I know that many people have read this blog and more than a few have found it useful as they faced the horrors of sibling or parental death. I just wish we had been able to meet under happier circumstances. So where now with the blog? If I stop posting new material to the blog and, even more so if I stop promoting it, experience shows that the number of hits per week starts to drop off quite rapidly. Relying on people finding the blog via a search engine just doesn’t work.  

So publication is going to continue but with a slightly different emphasis. Instead of just telling my story of how I coped with parental bereavement I’m going to broaden the scope of the blog a bit. I’m going to include more positive stories about my life – particularly my nude modelling and my running. 

It’s now going to be more a “life after bereavement blog” rather than a “coping with bereavement blog”.  

This is one of the reasons why I’ve started looking for a new E-pal. I have exchanged emails with a lovely lady for over 4 years but she is very much linked in my mind with my dark and sad past rather than the future. I’ve realised over the last couple of months that it suited both of us to part – her life was becoming more complicated and mine was becoming less – and we were moving in different directions if that makes sense? 

In a perfect world I would hope to exchange news and thoughts with an E-pal every 2 to 3 weeks. If either of us ever feels that things are just not working out we should not feel guilty about waving goodbye but I think we should say that rather than just not replying again. I was **very** badly hurt by somebody who did that to me a few years back! To this day I still wonder what I did wrong? 

Despite everything I have lots of happiness in my life. I am in a long term relationship and I have 2 particularly close friends who also share my house. I love my life modelling (nude modelling) that I do for art groups and schools/colleges and I love my running. I’m a county level cross-country runner and I compete in events most weekends. My musical tastes come from my Dad: Pink Floyd, Enya, Enigma and Gregorian. My height (5 feet 11 inches) and my fairly extreme skinniness comes from both sides of the family. 

If you would be interested get in touch!