Doudou

Isi loved teddy bears - her doudous. I mean, really loved them. She took her doudous everywhere - the shops, the hospital, school. Once we accidentally left a doudou at school and only remembered when we were half way home. We raced back and were so relieved to find that her teacher had not only put it somewhere safe but had alerted the whole staff to look out for when (not in case, but when) we came back for it.

Now today it is 6 months since what should have been Isi's 7th birthday. We haven't talked about it much here in the house - it's been somewhat of the elephant in the room so to speak. But it has been really hard for me. I've been thinking a lot about how she would be now, and I think she would still have loved her doudous just as much.

So, the first picture I am sharing is of the gorgeous teddy that my lovely friend Anne sent for Isi for her 7th birthday. Sadly isi never saw it, but we are saving it so that if we ever have grandchildren then we will give it to the first one as a gift from Isi.

It doesn't show in my poor photo but it is so soft and fuzzy and squishy that Isi would have loved it - thank you Anne.

The second thing is Isi with another of her bears. Sorry that it's the wrong way up but I haven't learnt if there's a better way to load videos.

For Isi, as long as she had a doudou she could face the world.

I wish I had a doudou myself.

Countdown

Today was a bad day - it has been six months since Isi died.

I count things down these days - how many weeks has it been, how many days until Steve comes back, how many hours until I can take more painkillers.

Well Isi loved to count in a much nicer way so here she is. Much more fun than my counting!

Cats

We have a few cats due to my soft hearted habit of homing unwanted cats and kittens. As of 2 o'clock this morning we have one less. Doom Kitty (my kids name the cats!) died after falling ill suddenly yesterday afternoon. He was less than 3 years old so this has come as a terrible shock. He was in fine health before so I don't know why he died. I am wondering if perhaps he ate poison (we have a lot of farms around here and I know at least some of them put bait down to kill mice and rats) but I just don't know. I have to tell Isi's sisters this morning and Rachael in particular will be devastated as she adores all the cats.

What does this have to do with Isi? Well, she wasn't keen on all of our cats (sadly, including Doom Kitty) but she did love two of them in particular - Salem and Floppy. Salem she loved because of his loud purr and the way he licked her hand when she stroked him. And Floppy because she was such an easy going cat - never scratched or bit and you could pick her up and play with her like a doll almost!

When we found Doom Kitty, aged about 6 weeks or so, Floppy instantly took to him and behaved like his mum. She would let him suckle for hours, slept with him, played with him, everything that a mother cat would do, except that as a neutered cat she obviously wasn't his mum.  I look at Floppy now and think she has sort of lost her child too.

Anyway, here is Isi with Floppy in Isi's dolls pushchair. What you can't see from this (and I wish I had taken a video) is the half hour before these photos were taken, during which Isi was pushing Floppy around in the buggy. I kid you not, it was for a full 30 minutes that Floppy just say there in the buggy being wheeled around the house. Any normal, sensible cat would have jumped out, but not Floppy - I told you she was easy going. I remember Isi having great fun doing this and the photo shows her giving a little love to Floppy after her long ride.

RIP Isi and now Doom Kitty

My princess

The thoughts I am having at the moment about Isi are some of the hardest to deal with. It's the guilt for all the things I did (or didn't do) that I should have, and the associated regrets. I know it's pointless because you can't go back, but it doesn't stop the dark thoughts coming.

The things that trigger it are the everyday, hard to escape from things. The Disneyland advert that reminds me how much Isi loved the idea of Disney princesses and wanted to go to Disneyland. We promised her we would go after she recovered from her second brain surgery but she never did and now I think, why didn't we just go before her operation. Stupid, stupid, stupid us. We wanted to give her something to look forward to afterwards, another reason to get better, but now it's too late.

In my better moments I think that perhaps she'd have hated the noise, the crowds, the waiting in line, and all the walking about, and maybe it was for the best. More of the time though I think she may have enjoyed it and she would have got to meet her princesses and now that opportunity is lost forever.

Still, she was always my princess, and she outshone all the Disney ones put together.

So here is my princess with her favourite 'crown'! Yes, I know it's a bag but she saw it as her crown and that's what matters!

No light, no light in your bright blue eyes

When I was with Isi after her second operation to remove part of her brain tumour she never opened her eyes again but she had very dry and sore eyes after the operation so the nurses would regularly open her eyes to put various drops and creams in to ease the problem. And each time they did it her eyes would seem lifeless and I could not lose the feeling that she wasn't really with us. And now the image running through my head is of those lifeless eyes after the operation and I can't shake it.

You see, Isi had the most beautiful bright blue eyes (from her dad as mine are brown) that were full of life. People would comment om them - in the supermarket, at the post office, that kind of thing - and at the time I hated that, because she couldn't see but her eyes looked so normal. What do you do when someone says how lovely they look? Just smile sweetly and agree or risk making them uncomfortable by pointing out they didn't work (well, not strictly true - her eyes did but her optic nerve didn't).

Now I'm finding it harder and harder to talk to people, my friends, the people who care about me. And yet in so many ways I look normal. I can make small talk, that's easy, but really talk about how I feel - that's so much harder. And I'm reminded of Isi's eyes - superficially fine but completely non-functioning underneath.

No light, no light.

To sleep, perchance to dream

Today it has been five months since we lost Isi and all I have wanted to do today is sleep the day away. I know it's because of the date but I also know that tomorrow will be much the same. I stopped dreaming for a while after Isi died, well probably not true, but I stopped remembering my dreams at least. But now, they are back and how. My dreams usually are more bizzare and stranger than before (keeping cats in the fridge anyone?!).

But I had a dream recently which involved Isi which was the strangest of all because it was so normal. It was just me and Isi doing stuff, but it wasn't a memory. It was more like a melange of memories - we were at the hospital but cooking a meal (not possible there) and playing with things that we never took to the hospital. And when I woke up, it was the strangest feeling - because it was so normal it felt like extra time so to speak - that perhaps these things had happened and I had had more time with her, even if just one night. It was sad, comforting, unreal and yet so full of emotion. I wonder if my desire to sleep so much is a need to recapture that dream and that feeling, or whether I am just so tired.

Well. I thought of this photo and it made me wonder what Isi may have been dreaming of (and Rachael too!). I'll never know now but I hope it was good.

Snow Days

It's not very often we get snow here in south west France. I think in the seven years I've lived here we've had it twice.

Now, young kids usually love snow - right? Not Isi. Actually, not strictly true. She liked the idea of snow, just not the reality. The concept was good as far as she was concerned - family fun time outside, something different to play with, a construction opportunity (and she did like to build things). The reality was cold hands, wet feet and too many layers of clothing, all of which she disliked (with the notable exception of socks of course!).

This year we have had the longest period of snow that I can remember - it's been ongoing for days now and normally it disappears pretty quickly. Isi's sisters are loving it - no school and lots of building snowmen and pelting mum and dad with snowballs. And it makes me think about what it would have been like with Isi here. I thought there would have been tension between Isi's desire to stay in and her sisters' desire to go out and how someone would have lost out.

So then it made me look at the photos we have of the last time we had snow. I fully expected to see pictures of Alex and Rachael having fun and Isi looking miserable. But instead, I see Rachael helping Isi to find something she liked doing in the snow (emptying buckets of the stuff). I see Isi having fun sweeping away the snow. And I see the ways we found to make her more comfortable by bringing out a chair for her so that she didn't get too wet. I know that there were also whinges from Isi about wet floors and the cold and many changes of clothes to remove any hint of moisture. But it also reminded me that as a family we have always found a way to sort things out. I need that affirmation now more than ever.

Thank you Isi for reminding me that things are not all bad.