Dear Freds

I've been doing well today. We saw the Hastes, and your big sister and Martha were thick as thieves and tore up the house in typical fashion (she's now so exhausted I just found her snoring in bed). Of course if you were here and trying to sleep through it, it would have been impossible. You are sleeping soundly where you are though. I've started writing now because this thought occurred to me and then I felt desperately sad again. I really want to come to Sun Rising and sit with you, we could look for snakes and owls together and I could read you some Rabrindranath Tagore from the book that Aunty Ros sent me. Sadly I can't come and be with you because your Daddy just called and is stuck at the car wash and I can't drive yet - I won't be allowed for another week. When I can drive and when I have the car I'll be with you more - like it should have been. If only you knew how I miss you, and how the moments which are quiet, scream with the loss of you. Those moments were to be filled with our adventures, and now they are filled with shredded memories. Glorious pictures of you in my head are interspersed with pain, trauma and sadness. How can you not feel my love when it is so huge? I feel silly for worrying that I wouldn't know how to spread my love and affection across all three of you - you all fill my heart like a giant colourful hot air balloon! Endless love. But much of my head is full of only you, because it is all so cruel and unfair that you aren't with us, surrounded by your adoring family.

There is not much else to say today other than I miss you. I am going to survive and overcome this sadness but never think for a moment it lessens your place in my heart or in this family. Tilda will always be your big sister, and Sam your big brother. You will always be my precious youngest, my sweet sweet boy. The time we spent together was a lifetime crushed into days, hours even. But it was your lifetime nonetheless and I shared it with you feeling all the things that mothers do. Pride, awe, anger, worry, frustration, happiness, guilt and of course unconditional love - they all spilled out in a frantic wave as we struggled to grasp the briefness of our time with you. I adore you Freddie Bean, I can't believe you're not here.