My day was ‘bookended’ with two little boys nestled under my armpits…  happy boys, snuggling in for cuddles..

 

Our list of best bits of the day today was endless…

 

Swimming, diving and bombing multiple times during the day in Grandad’s pool featured high on the list for the boys.  And also mine. It reminded me so much of Bambi and I, history repeating itself.

 

Eating ice creams and cross referencing our Bekonscot quiz answers against Grandad and Edna… and winning!  They may have seen the extra fireman in the fire engine, but we got the elusive people in the Tudor Mansion entrance hall… the lady on the stairs!… and we could see the small writing of the cost of a trip in the cable car … ‘ha’penny’.

 

Eating biscuits with Great Aunty Pam and playing on the Stannah Stair lift.

 

Willy liked going to see the church where I was christened and where we were married… and also liked seeing ‘the stone where the people from our family are underground’..  He meant Great Grandad’s grave…   (That was an interesting conversation – ‘do you want to go in a box or be burnt, Mummy?’)

 

Tom liked being able to eat as many cakes as he liked… My Godmother welcomed us all with wide open arms and ushered us into her front room where afternoon tea fit for a King was served.  His eyes lit up with the sight of platters of Victoria sponge, butterfly cakes, cream pastries, special jam tarts just for Willy, a tower of fruit and pots of tea… And no one telling him ‘last one’.

 

My best bit, seeing my boys happy… free… relaxed… and my Dad… happy… free… relaxed.  Making much happier memories in a place where the last time he had been, was the last time Mum went missing just after an outburst that hurt my Dad physically and scarred my sister emotionally…

 

My bestest bit, being held tight by my tiny Godmother, my Mumbo’s dearest friend, sharing my feelings freely, being able to talk about the events of the week leading up to Mum’s death, the boiling pot of emotion – a broken child, a stressed husband leaving a job, the death rattle and final loss.  Being told my emotional breakdown 6 months after the fact was totally normal and with her professional, no nonsense, expert medical bedside manner it was called ‘abreaction’; after living in the moment for so long to get through day to day, the body has a natural way of making you stop, ‘by pulling out the choke’ and slowing you down and face what has happened.  ‘Abreaction – the expression and consequent release of a previously repressed emotion’..  I feel relieved that I haven’t been going mad.  I feel relieved that I am normal.  I feel relieved that I have trusted my instincts, stopped, stripped my life back to basics and simplicity.

 

My bestest, bestest bit… the boys under my armpits, their arms around my waist, their bony chins on my chest, their bright eyes alive with laughter, their little soft kisses…their words echoing my last ones to my Mumbo… ‘Love you so much Mamma’..