Jim: A year on

This was originally written in response to Jason Manford's replies to the awful comments posted about Gary Barlow's daughter, who was stillborn recently.  Jim then asked his wife Nicole to include it on this blog, to give a father's perspective on loss.

It is a year on Thursday since we lost our son Xander . It was the worst day of my life. Arriving in the hospital full of hope and excitement -and totally shit scared- to be told (after far too many scans for there to be any other news) that our son that we have been waiting for, for what was the happiest most exciting nine months, had died. The world just stops there is nothing , this is wrong.  As the father I then had to watch my wife go through 24 hours of hell, watching her in so much pain and feeling so helpless knowing that at the end there is no bouncing bundle of joy. There is nothing, just an emptiness.  We should be carrying home (in our new car seat) Xander dressed in the lovely robot baby grow but no. We go home to an empty house that now feels even emptier than before because there is, and always will be, a Xander-shaped hole.  

So you get on with stuff, trying to be normal, knowing there is no normal now, it is all just a front.  So you go on, in my case making myself ill, but going on.  We have had a strange year filled with some mind-blowingly sad times but with some happy times too.  Trying to keep positive, setting ourselves a target to do new things in memory of our beautiful baby but knowing despite the lovely walk, on a lovely day, with the most wonderful wife in the world, we are missing something.  It is not just a walk in the park - it is a walk in the park without Xander and will always be.  In memory of Xander please try something new this week #forXander