All posts filed under: Stories

Georgina’s Story

My mum was the kind of mother that everyone wanted. She was immense fun and our house was filled with laughter, books, animals (gerbils, cats, dogs and guinea pigs) and a warm fuzzy sort of chaos.  She never asked people to take their shoes off and always invited whoever we had round that day to stay for dinner. As the youngest of three, there was always plenty of people around and lots going on. She wasn’t big on routine or rules and she didn’t sit down and spend hours playing with us. She was too busy making chocolate brownies, drinking G&Ts, reading or chatting to her friends. She was our mum but she also had her own life, irrespective of us and made that quite clear from the outset. She made sure that her values and the things she thought were important – family, language and literature (she was an English teacher), horses, kindness, cuddles and good manners were instilled in us as much as possible… but other than that she let us get on …

Charlotte’s Story

What no one ever told me about grief was that no matter how much time passed, no matter how much I tried to work through it (hello therapy), no matter how much I thought I’d got away with it, I would never be able to escape it. That complex web of emotions, unanswered questions and sheer gut-wrenching sadness would always be there, lurking away, poised ready to pounce when I least expected it. And bamm, just like that, out it would come armed with the cruel ability to turn one of the happiest moments of my life upside down. That moment came early on a Tuesday morning in the summer of 2011 when my son was born. As I sat with him in my arms I reached for my phone to call my mum. I mean, that’s what you do when you’ve just had baby isn’t it? You call your mum. Only then it hit me, like a truck, like a freight train, like all the cliches you can think of. My chest suddenly heavy, …