Thursday, July 29, 2010

A long week.....

......

Saturday - forgot what did.
Sunday - Church
Monday - supposed to be cleaning, ended up in A&E with Charlie who has a broken thumb, finger, scafoid (probably)
Tuesday - Cleaned J's old house
Wednesday - Cleaned J's old house.
Thursday - today.  Clean our house, Families Day, cooking, taking playhouse down, all kinds of stuff really!

Tuesday and Wednesday I was at J's by 6.30, Tuesday finished at 2pm, Wednesday finished at 4pm.  It's nearly done.  Then he'll be moved into here properly. 

It was filthy, and several jokes have been made by the family and friends about having to clean yet another ex-wifes mess up, but whilst this was grim in places, mainly dust and so on, it wasn't as vile and unhygenic as Lori's old house when we cleaned that.  J's-ex has been out of the house for 9 months, as oppose to about the 4 weeks that Lori was out, and for 3 of those 4 weeks Rich was away getting help like a sensible person would, so J has been able to clean the place whilst he's been there as well, unlike Rich who wasn't there at all.  At least the pans in these cupboards were clean!  Who puts dirty washing up in a cupboard!

But it got me thinking.  Bleach usually gets me thinking.

How much self respect must you not have for yourself, if you can leave a place looking like that?  If you later learn that even the RAF gave up on the house and gutted it because it was *that* filthy, then that must make a person realise what a dire state they were living and raising a child in.  They said they could tell how hard we had worked to clean it, but to save our time and energy and money and just give up.  It made me have a double look at the way I was raising the AC, just to check that there was nothing like that in our lives that I was missing.  It was useful like that.

Speaking of which, I have to get on with here.  Shower, then off we go!

Friday, July 23, 2010

It's the last day today.

Awards assembly and Sports Day were yesterday. (The AC got the Class Cup - I thought I'd mention it in case anyone had missed it...)

Today is Steve's play, 2 hours of tray sorting and so on, barbeque lunch, Leavers Assembly, and home time, and that's it.

For a long time.

Weirdly, the BG has 28 days of holidays left, and the AC now has 52 days left.

Actually, that's not weird at all. That's just the way it is lol.

I'm not feeling very sensible today. The idea of 52 days at home is rather appealing to me. I know that the AC will be with his father for 3 days of that each week :-( but needs must when it is the best thing for the child.

On with the morning.

I need to go up and wake the man. He'll be awake really, just lying there, all warm and gorgeous. I'd love to be getting back in with him, but today I can't. He has some time off coming, so I will then. 

I was stood in the kitchen yesterday, just looking out of the window with a cup of tea, and he came up behind me, slipped his arms around me, and asked what I was looking at. In all truth, I told him that I was looking at the blue of the sky against the red of next doors bricks, and thinking about quilts, and summer, and just a wonderful life I have today. He told me I make his life wonderful too.

*sigh* You'd think after this time that the honeymoon period would be over - but no! 3.5 years and still deeply in love. It's amazingly cool. (Maybe it's because the She-Ex won't do the divorce so we can't be married, so there won't be a real honeymoon lol! But the Dear Reader knows my view on marriage!)

Anyway, really, on to the day.

I shall tell the world what the day was like later!


That was my Last Day of Term last year.  Or rather, that was around this time, on the last day of term last year.  As we all know, it ended rather differently.

and now, a year on, in school terms, all is well once again.  I never thought I would get used to him being gone, and in many ways I'm still not - there are things I think he would enjoy, things I want to know if he would like the taste of - but not in the way that so many people say that they turn to tell their deceased love one something.  That is gone now.  There has been a difference since Sunday that has amazed me, in both me, in the Adorable Child, in the world around us.  Sunday gave us a chance to move on, to draw a line under the mourning and to just remember Rich with love and pride and joy for all we gave him and more importantly all he gave us.  There are pictures now, but I am still waiting for some more to come in from other people before I put together a final account for the BG, and one for on here.  I would have given anything for her to be with us, to help as the AC did, to share in the joy and love that her Daddy's friends had for him, and to know that he wasn't just a "monkey in a suit" as her mother told us she would tell her daughter, amongst other, more derogatory names.  One day...... 

On the other hand I did get a friends request from her mother at the start of the week on FB email.  I'd like to think she seriously wanted to be friendly.  I like her mother as a person, I always have, and I've been as supportive as I can be of the things she has wanted to do and the questions she has asked, because if the Old-She-Ex is happy, then surely the child would be happier?  I liked her as a friend long before she went all weird and leaving Rich and stuff.  I know she behaved badly at times in that friendship, but I've forgiven that a long time ago.

However, today is last day of term.  I've spent Tuesday night on the loo, Wednesday early morning on the loo, Thursday back in school but tired, Friday here we are!  I can't miss end of term.  I have worn dresses and skirts and colours all this week - the year of Black Trousers is over lol - and I have a particularly pink dress to wear today.  I'm not a pink person usually, but this is great. PINK!  I am *so* not in mourning any more lol! (Note I didn't say I wasn't mourning - I don't know that that sense of loss will ever end)

Today is school BBQ, and Leavers, and Last Circle, and so on.

It will all be fine people.  The other option is..... well........ stupid ;-)






Tuesday, July 20, 2010

A Year and A Day.....

.... was fabulous.  I'm still waiting for all the photos to be in so I can do a proper post, but it was everything it should have been and more.  We left the ashes of his kit (which burned like a DEMON in a most uncanny way!) at the foot of a tree with a circle of beer around him and a few words said.  We had a few moments to address the deity of our choice, and then we played and played and AC got a rope burn but wasn't bothered until he got in the bath when it stung like a patch of nettles.  Everyone came home filthy, tired, but very happy and some how emotionally complete.  I just wish BG could have been there.  It would have been good for her to see where he lies now, but I guess one day she will. I'll take her there any time she wants to go. Bless her poor little self.

Over the next couple of days I will move Rich's things from the bedroom (I left our room complete for the whole Year) and we will start to progress.  It's all good people, it's all good.

A longer version, with pictures, shall follow......

Saturday, July 17, 2010

A Calendar Year

Here we are, at the end of the day.

It's been a good day.  I've baked a lot, preparing for tomorrow.  We've sorted out J's iphone4, we've curled up on the sofa to watch BB from last night, I've cried, and cried.

And that's that really.

I've drafted an email to BG, which I'll put on her blog, because even if I send it her mother won't let her see it.  Her mother won't let her see the blog either, but there we go.  It'll be there when she's older.

Damn it all, I miss Rich tonight.

Friday, July 16, 2010

52 weeks today

This time last year.

Is it today?  I think so.
Is it tomorrow, on the calendar date? I think so.
Is it Sunday on Year and a Day?  I think so.
Is it next Friday, which is end of term?  I think so.

All of them are days without Rich.  All of them are going to be..... whatever they are going to be.

What I know, is that this time last year, he was in bed, snoring, and warm and gorgeous.  Today, Jack is in bed, and warm and gorgeous and snoring.  It's not better, it's not worse, it's different.

Today, I need today to be different to last year.  I have an irrational need to ask Jack to text me when he gets to work, to call him at lunchtime, to wait by the door for him to come home.  I need that.  Today is new children in the classroom, is Denises's leaving do, is the world carrying on rolling without Rich in it, without the one person who has ever truly, completely, understood me.  I know my Besterest Friend and my Soul Friend read this, but Ladies, Rich reached places that a lady could never reach ;-)  and I know you know what I mean.  and I know that I've lowered the tone, but dammit, it's my tone and I'll lower it if I want to!

Anyway.

Shower.

yeah.

Laters people.  There will be a laters.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

15,16,17,18

What are we counting down to?

Year and a Day! Wooooooooo!

It's going to be brilliant.

So far we have

Mum and Dad
CharliePaul + Mrs Wife + 2 children
April and Curt + 1 or 2 children

Ru and Fran + 3 children
Rachel, Paul + 2 children
Sue and David
Vicky and Gareth
Carla and Pete  + 2 children
Caroline + 2 children and hopefully + Danny
J and I + 2 children
Malcolm RAF

So so far, that's *counting* 21 adults and 16 children.  More or less.  I think there might be more.

I've emailed I-t-B (much to other people's confusion, but 2 wrongs don't make a right.) but I haven't heard anything.

It's going to be a lovely day.  We're meeting at about 1pm, going for a walk, doing what needs to be done, then eating picnic and playing in the adventure playground.  I've been thinking about the words I need to say, and the words I want to say, and the faiths involved and it's all sorted in my head.

I wish BG could be here, but there's no way her mother would let her - she didn't even let her come to anything last year, so celebrating and having fun this year would be out, for sure. However, this is what the AC needs, this is what I-t-B denied him, and it will be a day of joy!

I have cried every day this week, and will do up until the day I expect.  I can't sleep and I'm living on tea again, but that's ok.  On Friday is 52 weeks.  On Saturday is the calendar year date.  On Sunday, the Year of Firsts is over.  After that I will move his things, wrap his sword carefully for the AC later, send the uniform we aren't using up to the air cadets, go through his clothes, and be ready to move onto the next step.  I will never stop loving him, and he will never stop loving us, but I can't put my life on hold forever.  My son deserves better. 

After all, Rich never said he would stay with me forever - he knew he would die early.  I know I made his last years the happiest he had ever had, that every part of our life that we controlled was fabulous,  that I mitigated the nastiness of the She-Ex as best as I could and encouraged his relationship with BG as much as I could, and that he loves us.  What he said, was he would never leave us on our own.  He hasn't.

:-)

Laters people.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Looking for the silver side.....

From the ashes of disaster.....


And I'm finding it.  It's all good, and I'll post a proper update later.  But what I can't say, dear old musicals can say for me.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

I was right.

I can do all things.

Life trickinesses (and no, that's not a real word!) have been over come.

Sports day was excellent.  The great thing about my job is that I get to see the AC in all his sports days. There are many great things, but that's one.

The children were noisy but excellent.

And things with J and I are back to lovely.  We have a couple of things to work on, where we are just different in our reactions, where I am used to a certain kind of reaction meaning something, and he is used to the woman in his life reacting in a different way.  For Rich, it gave us a chance to think, and was one way of us avoiding arguments and having time to discuss the issue instead, approaching it calmly.  Shouting rows solve nothing.  However, walking away for a few moments is something that J sees as flouncing off and sulking - the last thing on my mind.

It's made me think about how what we do is something that we understand, but can be seen in so many different ways by the people who we are in front of.  How maybe the reaction I saw wasn't the one that they meant.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Love is.......

..... difficult.

It's not, but it is.  Just with every relationship, there are tricky bits.  Let's face it, getting properly together with a teacher at the end of term just as the year anniversary of the death of the man of her dreams occurs has got to be tricky.  Realising that she isn't the same person as the woman you've been living with for the last 13 years, has again, got to be tricky.

But life is tricky, and if the world is going to keep turning then the world will stay tricky.  There is nothing insurmountable.

I can do all things through He who strengthens me.

Monday, July 5, 2010

BVF was.......

..... utterly ace.

There were some dodgy bits, like the fact that for some reason a friend of J's just blanked me the entire weekend, for reasons best known to herself.  She was very chatty to him, but just ignored me or looked through me or whatever everytime.  Was I bothered? Slightly, because I've done nothing to upset this child (I say child because she is 23 and behaves like one lol!) but I'm also not bothered, because I know I've done nothing.  I met some really cool friends of J's that will come to be friends of mine, and life was good.  Camping was brilliant, although there are adaptaions to J's routines that need to be made if we are taking children again.

4th July at April and Curt's place was fantastic.  Big American bbq session.  April was the lady who taught me that not all American women are nasty minded and deliberately hurtful, and she also showed me that there are American women who can cook properly, not just burn things in the oven that came straight out of a packet!  She is wonderful.  They have all been very accepting of J and of how my life is progressing, and that's the best bit.

Unfortunately I came home to find that Dave, the crayfish, had, for some reason best known to himself, shuffled off this mortal coil.  Whether it was the stress of 2 moves or something, I don't know, but he is an ex-crayfish.  I cried and cried last night.  Rich and Sam bought Dave for my birthday in the year that Rich died.  He was supposed to live 8-10 years.  I don't know why he died, but he did. :-((  Now I have to explain that to the AC as well.

And we have entered 2 weeks to Rich's death.  The countdown started Saturday, but the Friday feels more significant, I don't know why, it just does.  Life is like that.  This time last year Rich had just come back from being away, and came home on trip day (Friday just gone)  The She-Ex had been vile again, and I was spending ages trying to help sort out BG's reading, only for the She-Ex to say it was helping initially, and then lose interest in doing it and just be nasty again.  We were planning a future, and although we'd lost 2 babies that year, we were getting ready to try again.

It's hard not to look back to a year ago, or even two, or even to 2009 when we woke up to the fact that the She-Ex had made stuff up to get him removed from the house in such a nasty manner.  Little did we know (I would put, "little did any of us know" but I think she had it planned all along) that BG would be gone for good by the end of 2 months.  Little did any of us know that Rich and I would be together.  Little did any of us know we would be ripped apart.

Shower.

p.s. no, I haven't had an answer to the emails of before.  All she had to do was ask polietly and I'd have Fed-Ex'd the thing to her, but she couldn't even do that. She can't have it both ways!

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Quiet because......

I've been  quiet on here for a week, since I got this last Saturday. I opened it, and read it, because I thought that Lori and I were over all this nastyness.  Turns out she was just waiting for a chance to stick the knife in and twist it.




I am not putting a subject here, because I am convinced you will not read this anyway.

One..Ian still has not sent the death certificate.

You promised it over 5 months ago.

I need it for a good many reasons.

but hey..no worries right?

Rachel having health care was never a top priority for you and Richard was it?

I find a good many things hilarious lately, Your complete lack of realizing it is *ME* doing this for rachel.

Not the schools..not anything else...

it is ME..doing it for rachel.

Not Richard...Not you.....Not any one else.

As soon as you send the death certificate, it is done.

Ian and Ann will alway's have contact with rachel.

You and Sam, no longer have any reason to be in contact with her.

Step families, don't count.

ANd that's all you ever were to her.

She will be told you and Richard were planning on taking her away from me.

That you two were planning on filing her head full of tons of lies about me.

She will be told all of that.

So while you are having fun planning and living your life.

Remember that.

all you two ever did was hurt her.

Couldn't send her a birthday present the last year.

A telegram to a child that didn't understand the significance of it.

makes no sense to me at all.

But hey, don't worry about it right?

you two alway's were having your little agendas...

btw...Rachels and my life now is perfect, there is no fighting, no stress...no worry about what Richard was trying to do. 

She's no longer living in fear....

she is at peace.



I've answered her, without saying all I wanted to say, because I don't want to sink to her level, because I need to focus on the AC and J and I.  Because that is a part of my life that is over, and I don't see why she should keep wanting to hurt me in the way she does.  I know it's coming up to the July 4th episode, when she had Rich removed from the house for something he hadn't done, that she later said she'd made up, and that, instead of getting her the attention she wanted, just got her single and lonely in the States without him, and us happy over her without her (always sad without BG, always, but happy without her.)  We all know it's 2 weeks until it's a year since he died and she's loving the chance to choose now to have a go at me, (the cynical side says she's probably warming up for some nasty extravaganza on the actual day!) because she knows I'll be vulnerable.


The thing is, I'm not.


Not vulnerable to her particular brand of attitude.


She tells me to get on with planning and living my life - what am I supposed to do?  Put it on hold and be fat and miserable like her? Not going to happen.  I have some pride in myself and a love for my son that stops me wallowing and thinking it's all about me.


She tells me that her life is perfect - I'm glad for her and the BG that their life is perfect.  That BG is at peace.  It wasn't us that told her if she was naughty she'd have to go and live with Daddy, or lied to her for years that Daddy was working in a garage down the road and would be round in a few days.


All we ever did was hurt her.  We didn't drag her away in tears from her native country, fail to help her learn to read, fail to keep her clean over here, fail to potty train her by almost 4, or live in a mess.  We didn't do any of those things.  We phoned when we should have done, wrote when we should have done, sent what we should have when we should have, except for her last birthday when there just wasn't any money.  Why?  Mainly because of the exchange rate.  Because Lori couldn't get a bank account sorted, we had to convert money every month to sent via Western Union.  When the rates went pear shaped, there wasn't enough money to go round.  We went without so she had her money - and how much went on BG?  I wonder - certainly the swimming money didn't!  We weren't the ones screaming insults down the phone.  That was all Lori.


Oh well. I answered......



As you said Ian was going to supply the death certificate I fail to see why you think that harassing me for it is going to solve the situation. Ian, just in case you are unaware, has not been well. This could explain the delay in sending the certificate.

As for what you tell Rachel, that quite obviously is entirely up to you but deep down we all know the truth don't we?  If you want to tell her we were planning on taking her away, you feel free.  It's a lie, but that doesn't usually bother you.  We had no intention of telling her lies about you, but in many cases would not have told her the truth as what child wants to know her mother would leave her late at the childminder so that she could stay and play on the computer at home?  If you want to claim her memories of the fun things she and I did together, like the beach, then you go ahead.  Recreate your own past in a way that suits you.

Your fear of the truth is up to you, and your conscience.  I know that I have nothing to be ashamed of, no skeletons in the closet of my behaviour from that time or since, and so I will cheerfully answer any questions that she has for me about her Daddy, about how we got together, about how lovely our home was that he helped make for us, about how happy I made him, about how much he loves Sam and me, but how she was always special and always his Princess, even though you chose to take her away from him and made it impossible for her to see him.  You can deny it as much as you want to, but I am the only person who knew how he felt about you and her in the last 4 years of his life, and I am the only person who can answer her questions, maybe not now, but when she is an teenager or an adult.  She will always be able to talk to me about anything she wants to, and I will answer her truthfully.  If you have nothing to hide then I don't see why this is a problem for you.  Rich was always concerned about her healthcare and the way that you had gone back on your promise that she would always be covered.
Lori, I know why you are doing this at this time.  It's the same reason you were always difficult at times of emotional importance for Rich and I, from the first wedding anniversary he had without you where you had Rachel phone him to ask him to come over and fix the video, to the same reason why you asked for the Death Certificate originally on the Boxing Day of the first Christmas we had without him.  However, then, as now, it's not all about you.  For Rich and I it was always about Rachel and Sam.  For me, it will always still be about Rachel and Sam.  Even now, when I am still sorting out things to do with his death, my emotions have to be kept until Sam is asleep, because I am woman enough to put my son first and not let him see me upset like that any more.  I am woman enough to put my feelings about you to one side, as I have for the last 5 years, and put Rachel first.

So to close I would ask that if you are saying that Sam and I have nothing to do with Rachel, that no further correspondence be sent from you to me as any further contact will be taken as harassment and legal action will be taken. Please bear in mind that this is no threat, it is merely a statement of fact and as I have over 5000 e-mails saved as proof I would seriously think twice before you contact me again. That said the line of communication for Rachel will always be open. She and Sam are the real victims in all of this. You've got exactly what you wanted - financial support for Rachel and no interference from Rich - and you are still trying to bully me.  You have made this bed for yourself Lori.  I hope it's comfortable.

Lots of love to Rachel, as always,



I'm going to pack for BVF now.  It's going to be ace.  I won't let her ruin my weekend again.