Yoo Hoo! I'm Here. Learning to simply breathe and thanking you for being a friend

Inhale. Exhale. Breathe.

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Hello... It's me. I'm still here! I've been gone for a while, and that's the hard truth! At this very moment, my heart is racing, my palms are sweaty, and it feels like I'm meeting you for the first time once more.

Dealing with Grief has been quite challenging, and there have been moments when it seemed like I could barely breathe. Yet, today I'm reminding myself to inhale... exhale... breathe.

Losing Mama in January felt as if the world I knew had abruptly changed, halting and then quickly spinning on its axis and having no clue how to find my equilibrium. It was as though gravity had trapped me in a world I didn't recognise or even had the desire to belong to. I just wanted to break free from the gravity of pain and float away like a feather on a breeze and find peace. My mind and body simply could not exist without Mama. I desperately wanted to escape the crippling sense of loss, of being in a constant battle between forgiveness and guilt. I wanted the goddam world to stop and let me the hell off!

If you have faced Grief, mourned the loss of a deep unconditional love, I know you're feeling every word read so far. We are not alone. We are not wrong to let our feelings show.

Grief, it’s no joke is it? The hardest of men and the smartest of women are powerless against its strangle hold. I thought my happy, go lucky, life-is-for-living gift that Mama gave me would be my super power but even I came apart. My life raft of humour so full of holes, I quickly sank like a rock to the bottom of the ocean with the sun setting silently above the waves.

Luckily for me, a Mama's love knows no bounds

I was not going to allow the waves of Grief to drown me. My desire to live life, thankfully has begun to turn around. I just had to see what was in front of me.

In March this year, Mama safely delivered my beautiful granddaughter Nora to my world. With the most beautiful inquisitive eyes with which she looks at the world in deep wonder. I watch my grandson Jude as we play together and his love for all things fun and magical. He is so full of life it is hard to not be drawn into his brilliant mind. My children Nathaniel and Imogen showing me how to live life to the max with their loved ones, Megan and Joe. Nothing holding them down. Beating Grief by merely loving to live. I see them as if Mama is with me seeing what I see through my eyes and this gives me great comfort. Her love is still ever present. There are no celestial boundaries her love cannot break through.

It has been difficult to even write this catch-up blog and I dont even know if it makes any sense at all but I wanted to explain my absence, not that you needed to hear it as I know you have been there, through the thick of it with me, offering me your shoulder when I needed you.

So this is me and where I am with my life after Mama, Raw and Real, with one promise to you and Mama. With every every new day, with every new sun, I will count my blessings no matter how tough the day ahead may or may not be. I will find my place.

Thank you for reading this weird little blog and for all my family and friends, thank you for being my oxygen. To my little reading genius fans, I thank you for continuing to grow, imagine and play and for being my snogalicious inspiration.

All my love and devotion, always,

KLo

xoxo

If you missed the limited publication last year of the final instalment of Santa’s Button Books, The ELF.B.I and Santa Save Grandma’s Christmas Day, a story written and dedicated for my mama's last Christmas, this is now available at Perfect Reasons Publications and will soon feature on Amazon and Waterstones.

Grandma’s Christmas Day