Spare a thought..

Grief is unique to each and every person. Everybody deals with grief differently and at different times, there is no right or wrong way. Before my brother Oliver passed away I had never experience losing someone close to me, in fact I had never even been to a funeral. Personally I was extremely private with my grief, on my bad days I would want to be alone and rarely would want people to see me cry, to this day I do not like people to see me cry. Other members of my family would want to be surrounded by close friends and family, others would want to try to carry on as normal. It was definitely a testing time for my rock solid family- prior to losing Oliver we were invincible and probably took for granted how lucky we were to be so close and to enjoy such happy family memories. I am pleased to say we all stuck through every knock together and could never of survived those times without each other, we still continue to support each other every day. We will never be the same again and every family occasion is overshadowed by the people missing but we will always unite in their memory as they would of wanted us to.

Christmas is an extremely sensitive time of year. Not everybody is fortunate to have families they can turn to, and this is the point I want to make in this blog entry. Whilst my blog is intended to bring much laughter and inspiration, please also spare a thought for those who may be finding this time of year extremely difficult. For some it may be their first year without a loved one, for others it may be their fifth, tenth.. Just because someone is not vocal about their sadness does not mean it is not there. So if you know someone who will be missing someone at this time of year, or who may not have many people to talk to -send a card, pop in to see them, write a letter.. You have no idea how much the simplest gesture can mean to someone who thinks no-one remembers.

Throughout my blog I will be supporting different charities as well as my main charity CRY. I would like to bring your attention to the charity TCF- The Compassionate Friends.

TCF is a charitable organisation supporting bereaved parents, siblings and grandparents following the death of a child/children. They are passionate in supporting others through forums, meetings and sharing memories. TCF has been such great support to Oliver's Dad Shaun he is now a trustee and set up the Birmingham group.

Please take a moment to have a read of their website http://www.tcf.org.uk/ and any donations would be appreciated.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, I hope you all have a lovely Christmas as I intend to - raising a glass to my very special Brother Oliver and Grandad George. Both missed everyday and never forgotten.

I will be back soon with the next of my challenges xx



Oliver (left) and his best mate Steve 'Phippsy' before their Christmas day pint