Recently a very tired and emotional Rubes called out to me after putting her and Pops down for the night. I went in to her hanging her head over the side of the bunk deep in thought… and she said “Mum….. I really miss having someone to call Dad…… I just miss saying the word….” It broke me. Rubes keeps her emotions close to her heart. Rarely do we get an insight into how deep her scars are…. She talks about Trenton like he was the funniest, greatest and most disgustingly gross character on Earth, but not often in the same way Poppy does. Pops talks about what she misses with him not being around anymore. She wonders and daydreams and wishes it were different. Perhaps in Ruby’s Aspie brain that is not an option? Last year the visits with her birth father became less frequent and less frequent, and now they are just meeting once a month for an outing. I asked her the next morning if now that Dale was around, did she feel that she had no need for her birth father anymore? I was right. In her mind, everything is very black and white. Even though he is trying to make it up to her now, because he missed 10 years of her almost 13 years of life, she doesn’t owe him anything. So why should she have to put herself out? She has more respect for Dale and Trenton, who of course will always be her Daddy. That’s enough for her. Poppy, who took a lot longer to come around to the idea of me loving a man other than her Dad, is now accepting of this new person that she see’s every day. She will never miss her Dad less, but she now understands that Dale in no way wants to fill Trent’s boots. But he has patched over a section of the gaping void that the big man left behind. He has this special relationship with the girls that brings out a smile in them that I’ve tried so hard to find over the last three years….. and his three boys bring back an innocence into this house that I though was lost for good. It has been wonderful for all of us….. and although there is always some guilt attached to a new relationship after losing someone so special, I am learning to let the guilt go, and live again. In three weeks it will be three years since Trenton died. Four days after Ruby turns 13 years old. When people tell me this time has flown, I cannot help but think “Maybe to you…… ” The majority of those three years were the worst of my entire life. I still wonder daily, weekly and monthly how on Earth we all survived. Parts of us didn’t…. and are gone forever. But after the storm comes this kind of calm where you realise “This is it…. right here, right now.” Life is what happens when you are waiting for life to happen. Don’t bloody miss it. Tomorrow morning we fly the girls up to Sydney to attend the grief camp that is run by “Feel the Magic”, the wonderful people that sent the kids to Disneyland last year. It is an Australia wide event now, and it’s already proven itself to be a wonderful and healing experience for all the kids that have attended. I truly don’t think they would have been ready before now, but they are actually excited about it. Through my support group I have gotten to see just how crucial it is to have other people around you that have actually walked a mile in your shoes. They will be surrounded by kids this weekend just like themselves, that have lived through the greatest of tragedies. It’s so terribly devastating to read that three years ago today in my Facebook feed, I had just driven Trenton to hospital to undergo what should have been simple surgery for a broken ankle. I read the 45 messages underneath this post from his and my friends telling him what an idiot he was, and to hurry up and recover. He was a ridiculously loved man. It never ceases to amaze me how little we can predict what life will throw at us. All we can do is honour those that we have adored and lost, and try and bring back the happiness to those that were left behind. I’ll continue to do this until it’s my time to go. Life is for the living. XXX