My son, Annie's daughter and all taken too young

I'm fortunate that I haven't lost a child, except through miscarriage, but I have a photo of my brother taken just before he died aged 2. It is right next to a lamp in the lounge and makes me sad every time I turn the lamp off or on.

He looks just like DGD4 in the photo and I think that is what upsets me together with being the only person in his family who can remember him now.

I ought to move the photo but it seems wrong to move him just so I don't get upset. He died 63 years ago. Silly really, isn't it?

Hugs and love for those of you who have lost a much loved child.

Don't wait for the time when you will feel as you use to, it cannot come again , just build a new life because we have to x

Thanks Juliette I have to find a way to copy the messages on my home phone so I can listen to him when I feel strong enough. They are just ordinary messages left when we were out but I dread the phone breaking so I can no longer hear his voice.

How much time Juliette? I had to go for a shingles vaccination this morning and the nurse asked how I was and out it all came. I don't seem to be able to stop it once I start.

We will have to keep filling stockings because we have very young gc so DS's will always be there.

DS3 says it is perfectly normal for me to feel as I do but I wonder how long before I can simply go out and do something normal. It is all so raw.

What pain we mothers have to bear. Juliette

Nonnie. The first Christmas after DS died we put the stockings on the mantelpiece as usual but didn’t fill them, in fact they were never filled again.
On Christmas morning we did as we’d always done, DD and DS opened their presents from Father Christmas, DH made tea and toast for us DD and DS chose something from their Selection Box but instead of eating at home we packed it up with a flask of tea and went down to the cemetery.
This is 30 years ago DD was 14 DS13. Looking back now I suppose it seems to others a strange thing to have done but it comforted us and that’s my point really whatever comforts you Nonnie is right, there is no right or wrong way of grieving, everyone is different.
Time does make a difference, that awful pain and heaviness that you’re feeling now will gradually become an ever present dull ache that somehow you’ll learn to accept. That really is the price we pay for love.
My greatest sadness all these years on is that I can no longer hear him, you know in my head talking, what he sounded like. I know what he looked like of course I do photographs abound. Being sensible he probably wouldn’t sound the same anyway, he was nearly17 when he died he would have been 47 this year.
I think a light somewhere deep within me was extinguished the day that lovely boy died and try as I might, despite all the subsequent joys of grandchildren etc. I have never quite managed to turn it back on again. Sent with love, Juliette.

Thanks Silver I wish there was a sliver lining in this somewhere.

i remember clearing my mums house 4 years ago. I did it alone and naturally found it upsetting. She had lived there many years and had kept everything. A classic hoarder.
My initial avoidance meant that when i was forced into doing it, it was rushed and there are things i now regret having disposed of.
I really feel for everyone who is having to deal with this distressing job. If you have the space put anything you are not sure about aside until you are ready to finally decide what to do with them.
Nonnie, please keep the stocking. It clearly means a lot to you and if you can, put it on the fireplace for Christmas. Your son will never be forgotten.
MissA you are in my thoughts x

I have already made 2 memory boxes for my GS for when they are old enough to ensure they don't get 'lost' at home as happened to pretty much everything we gave them in the past.

We gave his clothes to the charity he did a fundraising run for, apart from a few things DH couldn't bear to part with and anything Star Wars which we have kept for the GCs as they know Daddy loved it. The housing association which owned 50% of his flat are finding people to give all his furniture to, people in real need rather than us getting in someone who would make a profit.

The Christmas stocking is harder because I made one for each member of the family and they all hung round the fireplace in age order. Will I leave a gap, will I put it up I just don't know. No stocking reminds me no son.

MissAdventure my parents and I had to do this after my DS died. It was so difficult, we all kept far more than was sensible, but gradually over the years time placed a distance between us and those belongings and we gradually disposed of them. I still have one or two things that were so essentially hers that I will never part from them: a dress ring and some earrings. I cannot wear the ring, it is too small and the shank cannot be enlarged and the earrings are too big for current taste.

Blinko, you are right, my DS died 26 years ago, but there are still times, when something unexpected can reduce me to tears at the thought of her.

One of my dear brothers was killed in an RTA when he was 25 years old. That's 43 years ago. I can say from my experience, that they never, ever leave you. I weep when I think of him now. Someone said that grief is the price we pay for love.

Nonnie, why not a special place to keep things which you treasure in a trunk, drawer, cupboard , you may one day want to give them to your grandchildren. I want to write memories of my darling daughter childhood for my grandchildren, she isn't here to tell them, I will not always be here to tell them, they may want to tell their children of their mother

I think the process of going through someone's belongings is just so sad. What are you supposed to do with all the things that meant something? I don't know what the answer is, and I have to empty out my daughters home too. I don't know how I will bear it. Some big stuff has gone, but now it is all her treasures left - all the things that made it hers.

Thanks Annie I know you understand.

MissA I could never do that, I handmade it for him, his name is embroidered on it, it would feel like I was giving him away. I already feel disloyal going through the process of selling his flat.

I'm due to take another of the pills which are supposed to stop me feeling but all they do is make it difficult to compose and say a sentence and stumble around the place. They don't stop the grief or the tears.

The tears and sense of loss never stop. My parents lost a child, my sister was in her mid-40s when she died. My parents were in their late 70s. DM lived another 7 years, DF, 17

They bore up under the tragedy and superficially returned to being the people they were, but after the tragedy I used to compare my DM to one of those lovely bright red Chinese lantern shaped dry flowers. Bright, beautiful, sparkling, but so fragile, I felt that she would crumble and disappear if a breeze were to catch her.

I think DS's death did break their hearts. Both my parents developed heart disease soon after her death and there have been news items several times this year saying that doctors in Japan have noted that some people faced with the shock of a sudden loss, do develop heart abnormalities shortly afterwards.

Nonnie, wish I could hug you x

Annie can't write, too many tears, for you, fo rme.

Nonnie, I have to wait until February too, no matter the outcome of the inquest grief will still be there but accidental death would mean so much to me , it won't be , but it would mean my girl didn't choose to leave me , no more wondering did she want me but had forgotten her phone

Nonnie

Could you fill it up with toys then donate it to a charity, Nonnie? its all too unbearable, isn't it? Yet we must, because there isn't any other option. Bitter? Me too..

Thanks all. At the moment it doesn't seem to make a difference how he died. He is dead, knowing won't bring him back. Will the tears stop after the inquest? Will they ever stop? Will I keep finding things which make me cry. Yesterday I was sorting out loft things and found his Christmas stocking, what shall I do with it? Shall I hang it with the others or not? So many hard things to cope with.

Nonnie, such a long wait for you my love, and perhaps no answer, I hope there is x

Unbelievable pain, unfathomable reasons and unending love.
I can only send my deepest sympathy and love to all of you xx

I know of several adults who have died suddenly, one of them was my friend's nephew who was my FB friend. I was talking to him about films late into the night, the next morning he was found dead in bed. It took a long time to find out why he died and then it was stated as a likely cause of death, a seizure whilst he was asleep. I would like to think he died in his sleep.
My thoughts are with the parents who have suffered this loss.

Nonnie so sorry to hear this. I believe there is something called 'sudden death syndrome' in adults which happens with no warning and if it was that, I think he would have died very suddenly and without suffering.