19th December 2021
So I finally did some washing and took it to my friend Islas house to dry, it felt ridiculous carrying my wet washing across the road but nothing makes sense to me anymore anyway.
I can’t get the thought of the pink satin lining Ambers casket out my head, it’s so ‘chintzy’ and so far removed from what I intended her casket to be, natural, earthy, simple. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful to the funeral directors, they’ve tried to make her look beautiful in there, tried to make it ‘cosy’, it’s just not me. It’s not Amber either. My mum asked me if I could ‘live with it’ but I just can’t shake it off, the feeling it’s not ‘right’. I’m going to go back tomorrow and see her, take one of her swaddles and a needle and thread and re-do it. If I don’t I know it’ll bother me for the rest of my life that it wasn’t right and how I wanted it to be for her. I think I’ll be there a while tomorrow again, it’s going to take some time and I need to sit quietly with her too, read and sing and cuddle her. I don’t know if I’ll be able to on Wednesday, maybe tomorrow is the last time I’ll hold her. Maybe I’ll go Tuesday too. It’s a 90 mile round drive to see her but the days without her are so hard and time ticking by too fast.
My neighbour does beautiful woodwork, I asked him if he could make me a box to keep her ashes in. I don’t want to look at the cardboard scatter tube they’ll return her in. My baby girl reduced to a cardboard tube, it’s hideous. He came around yesterday with a gorgeous wooden box he’d already made, he’s going to put foxes on the outside for me but wanted to check I liked it first. I do, it’s a more fitting place for her to rest. At the same time I don’t… looking at the container that will soon hold what remains of my baby girl is unbearable, unimaginable, unthinkable, unacceptable. Inevitable.
A couple of the Highland newspapers want to do a memorial piece for Amber. Isla started a Go Fund Me for Amber and I and one of them picked up on it. Another had approached the funeral directors. I’m not sure, I generally am a private person, I’m not that keen on media or putting myself ‘out there’. Perhaps it will help this blog? Perhaps it will help another family? Perhaps it will make Trisomy 18 more spoken about, more recognized, more understood? I’m just not sure, I don’t want to have to talk to people I don’t know right now. I’m hiding, frozen and I don’t want to face the world. I just want Amber back.
The Go Fund Me was unexpected, it’s a beautiful gesture and people are so generous. It will help so much so if anyone has donated who is reading this now… thank you so much. you have lifted some of the financial burden that losing Amber has brought. This journey with her has restored my faith in human nature, made me see with new eyes peoples kindness and generosity. I was getting a bit cynical before this pregnancy I think, this is clearly another of Ambers precious gifts to me.
It’s cold and damp today, it suits my mood. I’m so tired but need to walk my dog soon. I wish Amber was with me, I had so many plans to tuck her safe in a baby wrap and carry her with me, warm and safe while we walked by the river, through the forest and in the hills. The ache is constant, the pain is physical. I never knew pain like this could exist.
Amber, The Trisomy 18 journey of 'my little fox' 