When you first lose someone like we did; sudden and unexpected; your body and mind go into shock and self-preservation mode. You're in a fog and go about your daily business almost mechanically...like going through the motions but feeling very disconnected from it all. You talk about your loss like it is a sad story you heard. You hear yourself say the words but you heart is too numb to feel any emotion as you talk about "it".

People say, that is your brain shielding you from something so terrible that you could not possible process all in one go. Instead, the fog lifts bit by bit as your brain comes to learn to live with your new reality, your new normal. As this new normal is pretty much going to stick around for the rest of your life, your brain consequently takes its time getting you used to living with it.

I suppose that is part of why they class the newly bereaved as such for 5 years.

Almost two and a half years in, there are still moments when a new part of this, our, reality reveals itself to me. You sit there and it dawns on you that this too is now part of you, part of your life.

It can be difficult to get used that. Of course you are aware of the obvious things...the stuff that you'll never get to do with him and that he'll never get to experience. Graduation from Montessori, 1st day at school, etc. As time goes on you become aware of other things that'll never happen for you now.

Taking him to his first Munster match.
Trying to get him out of bed as a teenager.
Worry about him when he is out partying with his friends.
Watch him sweat it when he brings the girlfriend (or boyfriend) home.
Seeing him on his wedding day or try to cope with a newborn.

There is so much. So much to make you stop and go: "Oh!...another thing that we (us and him) have been denied."

This is when your brain allows you to bit by bit realise the true enormity of what happened...with all the repercussions and consequences that come with it..

Like watching a subsequent child grow up and reach all the milestones...and more to the point watching them do all those things that your other child should have been doing also. Small things, ordinary, every-day things. Things that most of us take for granted. Like hearing them say I love you.

That is what the Miss hits regularly and you realise this is it. This is the new you. And you get on with it, determined to make every moment you have with your family count. Because you cannot change what happened but you can make the most of the here and now...