Belief

It's impossible to know what the future holds for grief and bereavement but I know it is better to talk about it and to tell someone how you feel. Being alone and inside your head is an inevitability though that I have come to accept, occasionally I want it! Being alone gives you time to seek something quiet, it is the time I really think about my Suze and imagine what I know can now never be a reality; her arm around me, her smell, her laugh and her embrace. The embrace bit I really never stop thinking about because it encompasses so many other emotions and feelings; love, compassion, want, hope, safety and comfort. In lonely times these are the virtues you think about and wonder if you'll ever experience again? I think also about my friends and other family, they must also experience the type of loneliness that I describe, different, but still loneliness. Being alone in your thoughts, thinking by yourself of mine, your's, all of our memories and experiences of Suze. As a friend, mum, daughter, sister and wife!

This day is a bright day, a hopeful day. Lily has run a 'Race for Life', in her mum's memory. She would be so proud! I express part of my grief through this blog, Lily has expressed her's through the designs on her running vest. "I miss you mum..", "for Susan, the best mum in the world...", her friend also, running in memory of her grandad and the "beautiful Susan Sheppard", amazing words, amazing deeds from children. What a day really! Bright sunshine, a sea of pink in a park, all there to do something, to make a stand, to remember someone special and to provide hope. I liked seeing Lily smiling with her wonderful teachers, I liked it even more seeing them holding hands. I like'd the messages of love on the runners vests, the effort, warmth and humanity. The runners and non-runners, dogs, children and well wishers The old and young, mums and dads, boyfriends and girlfriends. These are mighty fine things in our world, worth cherishing and believing in. I believed in today and for Lily, Lou and I it was a force to be reckoned with. I'm beginning to see the importance of belief when in grief. 

I met with Suze consultant in the week, to really get some sort of closure on the medical questions that inevitably emerge and fester a bit as time creeps on. My memory of the meeting though was not one that I had expected. Not about treatment and care, drugs and admissions but more about advice. "Try to remember her not at the end, but before all this happened. She was a lively, positive person, in the brief time I knew her she struck me as someone who must have lived her life this way." I hadn't countered on emotional advice, just clinical, so it was thoughtful and as I think now right and correct. So although my grief, and as I'm sure others who knew Suze too, can vary, it is right that I remember, perhaps we remember more her brightness, her fun, like Lily and thousands of others today. Pink and Bling. Shine on babes positively in our memories! Our daughter was beautiful today! Shine on with belief!

http://www.justgiving.com/Matt-Sheppard1