Just around the corner

Chapter 2

There is never a time limit to grieving. A day turns into a week. A week into a month. A month into a year. Living on auto pilot is the only way to function when you feel your world is crashing around you.

The days always start the same. Get up at the crack of dawn. Make the kids school lunches. Eat breakfast together. Get dressed. Take kids to school. Go to work. Finish work. Go home and cook dinner. Eat dinner. Have a shower and go to bed. Life is constantly on the same loop. The only thing that broke up my days in the first few months after Al died was going to the lawyer.

His workplace was fined and charged with unsafe work practices. My husband's death was avoidable. They were fined a hefty sum of money that was given to me. Even though it meant that the girls and I would live comfortably for the rest of our lives it still was not going to bring him back to me.

The seasons changed. Christmas came and went. The school year finished and started again. We all grew a year older. But each and every single day nothing got easier.

Everything that I saw on tv. Every song I would hear on the radio. Every joke that was said out to the universe all reminded me of Alex. I remember six months after he died a song came on the radio while I was driving the girls to school. I had to pull the car over as the song was our wedding song. I cried and cried until there was nothing left to cry. It was safe to say there was no work for me or school for the girls that day.

"Mum, there is a party on Friday night. Can I go to it?" Misty comes barreling into my room with a smile spread across her face. At 16 years old, she had her father's features. Looking at her reminded me of him every day. I sometimes chocked up just looking at her. Her personality was her fathers to a tee.

"Sure. Curfew is the same though"

"Thanks mumma, and I know. I will be home before 12"

Misty comes over and sits beside me on the bed giving me one of her amazing cuddles. She just knows when I need some strength given back to me.

Alex's death rocked our family unit to the core. At the time Lacy was going through puberty which made everything so much harder for her. Not being able to control her emotions and not knowing what she was feeling was taking its toll on her poor mind and body. She went into a dark place and would scare us constantly with her words. I knew that I had to do something before she hurt herself.

Misty might have had the same personality as her father but that only meant they were always at logger heads with each other. Whereas Lacy worshipped the ground he walked on. She was his little shadow. If he went to the kitchen for a glass of water, she did the same. If he went out to pull some weeds from the garden, she was right beside him helping him out.

Lacy received counselling to help her overcome losing such a massive role model in her life. Her father was everything to her, which only made the grieving worse for her and for me. Having to watch your bubbly 13-year-old transform into a shell of her former self was the hardest thing as a mother to go through. Thankfully, we got her help and she may not ever be the same, little snippets of her past self are coming up to the surface.

**

Friday morning arrived sooner than I would have hoped it would. Misty was too excited for this party tonight and I was starting to regret telling her she could go. We all know what happens at these teen parties, but I could not be that parent who stopped her from going.

I met Alex at one of those teen parties. Unsupervised and left to our own devices. I had only been with him for 3 months when I found out we were expecting Misty. I thought then and there that he would walk away as he had his life ahead of him. But Al surprised me. He was with me every step of the way. I was only 17 when I had Misty and Al was the man of my dreams. Good looking and smart. I did not ever think I would have had a chance with a guy like him, but he chose me and we had been together ever since.