97 Days. This really is too much of a struggle.

Today has been a real struggle. This life now is a real struggle. I am just waiting about somewhere in between life and death, not really living but not yet dead, despite the fact I feel it inside. I have no real purpose anymore. Everything I do is because I have to do it, not because I particularly want to. I eat to stop the sickness, wash when it becomes unpleasant for others who have to be around me, speak to people who speak to me because that’s what I’m expected to do. Everything feels too much like hard work. I continue to take medication to send me to sleep. The dreams still come. Every night. Usually they involve me being able to save you, but they also resemble a scene from a horror movie.

I am now in a world where my horrific nightmares are more bearable than being awake.

The endless thoughts about your childhood and where it all went wrong continue. I am still unable to draw on any positive memories but I am told this is not unusual. Even so, I know I loved you more than life and love you still. I think back to when you had left home and you would visit, and during any visit, you would always become the centre of attention the whole time you were here. We would stop whatever we were doing and you became the centre of our attention. Your sister would nag at you to play, getting over excited around you, desperate for your attention. We would chat late into the night about whatever you were up to, what you had been doing, what you planned to do, but always around you. You would leave the house laden with food, tasty treats and whatever else I thought you might need. We would always encourage you to ‘just stay over’ instead of driving back home, and sometimes you would but not often. I would nag at you to ‘let me know when you were home safe’ and you always forgot, leaving me awake in bed until I eventually got a text reply saying, ‘sorry, I’m back!’. We would plan day trips around when you could fit us in on your days off, occasionally, we might only even manage a couple of hours to get lunch with you in between your shifts. I always said you worked too much.

I find it so hard to grasp how you could even contemplate taking your own life when you knew you mattered so much to us. You knew you were adored and admired by your younger brother and sister. You knew that my whole life revolved around your happiness. You knew this. You knew that I worried about you and that it mattered so very much to me that you were safe and happy, and that this is what made me happy.

You mattered. You really, really mattered to us.

I struggle to think of any moment when any of us could have possibly led you to believe otherwise. I can not comprehend a world in which you did not feel that you mattered to each and every one of us.

You always said you were my favourite child, and you meant it. I have to believe that, even in your last moments, you were not thinking rationally, that you knew you were loved unconditionally. I just really fucking struggle to grasp that this is happening to us. That this was ever, EVER, EVER an option for you.

It isn’t getting any easier. I don’t think I thought it would. But I didn’t think it would keep getting harder, which it does. I keep expecting you to walk through the door.

When I woke today, my phone beeped and for just a few seconds, I thought it would be you. Then the realisation hit me, like it does every morning. But I still don’t believe THIS is real.

My son, Liam, is amazing. He is amazing at everything he puts his hand to. He is the one we get in touch with when we need to know something, because he is the one who knows. He is the one who gives his younger brother a pep talk when he’s starting to stray off the rails. He is the one who tells us how to build the best models for his sister’s school projects. He is my go to for most things. He is the one I speak to first thing in the morning, last thing at night. Every day. Every single day.

How the hell did you think we would come through this? Did you think? You can’t possibly have thought about this.

When I am thinking rationally, I try to tell myself that you were not. You could not possibly have been thinking rationally. I don’t have the privilege of being able to afford myself that amount of kindness for any decent amount of time though. So the majority of the time, I’m dissecting all the memories I do have (ones when I feel I ought to have been a better mum) and working out what I did/said/missed/didn’t say/didn’t do/should’ve done until I feel physically sick. I try to imagine another outcome, one when you are alive and happy and I manage to fulfil my role as a your mum and keep you safe. Also until I feel physically sick.

I am not coping very well. I still curse the universe every day when I wake up. I still struggle to grasp what is reality and what isn’t. Everything is too much of a struggle. I don’t think my heart could take it if I didn’t believe that at some point you’ll walk through the door and bear hug me again.