My little fox has gone to the stars…

8th December 2021

Amber My little fox has gone to dance amongst the stars. My tiny little Warrior Queen.. I am broken.I love you all the way to the moon and back and will do forever and for eternity. My brave, feisty little fox, you have touched the heart of everyone who has met you and I don’t even know how to breathe without you Amber Marina Lily, 14th September 2021 – 8th December 2021

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9th December 2021

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9th December 2021

My perfect, perfect little fox Oh Amber I miss you so much and it’s not even two days, I don’t know how to breathe without you. The house is too quiet, I miss the sound of the oxygen, even the damn beep of your sats monitor and most of all I miss your sweet, beautiful and feisty self and the weight of you in my arms Devastated broken empty. I should be planning your first Christmas not your funeral I love you to the moon and back. Always xxx

@katieowl1700

♬ original sound – katieowl1700

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11th December 2021

My girls

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12th December 2021

First night without Amber at home I feel empty and like I’m dying inside. Hate my house right now, nothing feels right. I miss the weight of her in my arms. A day making funeral arrangements when I should be planning her first Christmas. Broken.

It’s not just my devastation, Pandora slept every night with her head over Ambers feet (I’d made a wee nest for her so she could safely co-sleep with me)Every night still, Pandora sleeps in the same spot and looks for her

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13th December 2021

broken

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14th December 2021

‘I have heard it said that the greatest loss that a human being can experience is the loss of a child. This is true. It doesn’t just change you, it demolishes you. The rest of your life is spent on another level.’ ~Gloria Venderbilt

Thank you for today Elizabeth I’m so glad that you’re speaking for Amber and I next week, I can’t think of anyone better and I’m certain a little fox pushed me to ask you too I’m also so grateful you brought me a little bit of calm today, you helped me survive another day xxx

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15th December 2021

I wish you were here Jemimah I wish we could go back to that day I miss her so much

One week without you Amber and it’s killing me. Every day without you has been unbearable but having to register your passing today officially has shattered me.

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16th December 2021

Not a happy post but I have just heard from the funeral directors that Ambers casket has arrived.I was determined my little fox would not be in a ‘box’ so I have had a custom made wicker casket made just for her in Dorset. So grateful to Cath and her husband for the care they have put into creating this and the attention to detail. This wasn’t something I wanted to have to order but they have made it as special as they can for my little one.

A friend who has just lost her little boy three weeks ago posted this poem to my page…

“It was the night before Christmas and Santa was busy making his rounds. He was light on his feet making sure he didn’t make a sound. But he took notice that some homes didn’t have that Christmas Glee.so he decided to stop because he thought that just can’t be. He crept in a mommy’s bedroom and stopped dead in his steps, as he saw a little angel hugging his mom as she slept. The little angel looked up and cried ” oh Santa you are finally here!! I’ve been waiting for you to help me let Mommy know I am near”. Santa picked up the wee angel and asked him ” What can I do? I’m just a simple toy maker I can’t make your mommy’s dreams come true” .So the two of them sat and they sat for a while until the tiny angel jumped up and screamed with a smile. “let’s leave her a sign a beautiful sign from above, let her know it’s from me sent from heaven with love”!!!So Santa dug and he dug deep, in that big glorious bag that was filled with lots of treats .He pulled out a beautiful white feather that look like it was made out of snow. And he thought such a beautiful sign that only a grieving mother would know. He placed it on her nightstand and kissed the angel on his head. Then placed him next to his mom as she slumbered in bed. I think I’ll stay here with Mommy and visit her in her dreams tonight, She misses me dearly and needs to know I’m all right. Santa made his way to his sled, And wiped a tear from his eye. He fell to his knees and managed to cry. Merry Christmas to all the grieving mothers across this big land. And let it be known your angels are with you holding your hands….”

…Amber left me two white feathers on Wednesday. One in my kitchen and one underneath the bag which contained her oxygen cylinders in my car.

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17th December 2021

Her funeral is arranged for Wednesday 22nd December… I don’t know how to breathe. I don’t know how to be here without her.

My house used to be my sanctuary, it used to be my place to retreat, to relax, to meditate and to be creative. It feels alien to me, unfriendly, empty, quiet, dead… from the crazy invasion of hospice workers, doctors, nurses when I first got Amber home. The loud hum of her oxygen concentrator, the beep of her monitor (that I hated but now miss), the intense routine of her medication and feeding times, the way I could cuddle her whenever I wanted to (a novelty and dream come true without asking permission from a nurse in the hospital), her sweet face next to me when I went to sleep at night and woke up in the morning…that brief dream is gone. Over. Finished. I feel empty, lost, heartbroken, shattered, desolate, devastated…none of these words are enough. None of them describe how I feel. None of them come close.

The only sound now is the incessant alarms on my phone, set two hourly for her medications and her feeds. I’ve managed to turn off the overnight ones but the daytime alarms goes off constantly. I can’t turn them off yet. I only just emptied her bathwater today. I keep fairy lights lit constantly in the bedroom as she never slept in the dark and now it seems neither can I.

I even miss the hospital wards, desperate as I was to escape them. I feel institutionalised and miss the routine. The safety of knowing she was cared for by the best medical treatment, by interventions, by doctors and nurses I trusted and came to know well in that place. Of knowing she was ‘ok’ and THERE and mine.

Her pram sits empty in my kitchen. Her playmat where it was before she passed, with her bear from her flight to Glasgow lying on it, along with her firefly pram toy. Her fluffy blanket is exactly where it was in her baby box where she’d sleep in the living room and I have three babygrows she wore and I haven’t washed… they smell of her. I need to do washing but my airer still has her washing on it and I haven’t been able to clear it yet so I have nowhere to dry my own. I can’t move any of it.

I wear a fleece heart she slept with next to my heart, I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to be without it now.

I missed her so much on Wednesday I went and sat and cuddled her in the funeral home for an hour and a half…

Today I was there for three and a half hours. I just sat, read to her (‘Guess How Much I Love You’ and ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’) and sang (‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’) I cuddled her and cried. I looked at her sweet little face, she just looks like she’s asleep, dreaming but will wake up any second. Except she doesn’t. I cried more. I cried a lot.

I rewrapped her in her blankets, rearranged the satin lining they have placed in her wicker casket and pinning it as neatly as I could (I hate pink satin). Made sure that her teddies (her rabbit, her hare, her owl and her fox. The fox I will bring home on Wednesday, no doubt to cry and rage and despair over at the devastation and unfairness of her loss) were arranged just so, that she had her amber beads in her left hand (part of a necklace I was given as a gift whilst pregnant. I have split it in half, she will keep half and so will I.. a link between us… I hope you don’t mind Alex, it felt ‘right’) and her silver heart in her right hand (cut out from the silver keyring I now carry… part of my heart forever gone). Sprayed my perfume on the knitted square which lies beneath her head. Tucked the mould of my kiss and the pawprint of Pandora into her blankets (Pandora’s pawprint at her feet where she slept adoringly, my kiss by her cheek that I kissed so many times I lost count.) Added her monkey teething ring she used to cling to in hospital. She has her hare with a gauze bag around its neck, it contains a moonstone (my birthstone), a silver heart, a lock of my hair (as I have a lock of hers). The book ‘Guess How Much I love You’ is placed to one side carefully. Photographs of her and I, Coreigh, Oliver and I, Pandora and a beautiful rainbow are place where she can see them, her family around her. I straightened the knitted pink hairband my sister Kim bought for her, it covers the shaven front of her hair perfectly. I was going to keep it as a memory but I get a strong impression Amber wants to keep it herself, she looks so beautiful of course she can. I’d give her anything she wanted if I could. I’d give her my own breath again if it would bring her back to me as it did before. A little knitted square is tucked into her babygrow.. I wore it in my top against my skin before taking her to the funeral home… we got it in scbu, we would each have a square and I’d swap them daily when she was first born so we could smell each other all the time. It was never natural to be apart, even more unnatural now.

The time with her passed so quickly today. The owner of the funeral home looked in the room, he said we looked beautiful together. I cried again.

The lady who works on reception came in with coffee, I said I was sorry for staying so long. How it was silly really, her spirit is no longer in her body but I missed the weight of her in my arms. Miss gazing down at her little, delicate face. She said it was fine, whatever helped me to cope, to ‘get through this’.

Nothing can help me ‘get through this’. I just want to see her wide, dark, wise eyes open and watch me again. I want to feel her warm and snuggled in my arms. I’ve wrapped her in one of her warmest blankets, a heavy fleece lined cable knit, I don’t want her to be cold.

I’m dreading next Wednesday. I feel everything acutely. I feel nothing.

I miss you little fox.