Photographs

After Paul died I would look at photos of him in the many albums I had. Any picture I loved of him, no matter what age, went into a picture frame. There were pictures of him by himself,with me,with his brother, and pictures of the three of us. I have pictures of Paul and Jeff with their cousins when they were young and when they were all older. I was obsessed. When I ran out of space, I finally stopped!! Today in a newsletter from Compassionate Friends I found out why I had this obsession.

"There are two main reasons: 1) Parents are afraid that their children who died will be forgotten and everything will go on as if they never lived; and 2) this is one way to keep them in their lives everyday. Parents see, talk with, or know they can reach their living family members anytime, but this is one way that they can keep their children who died alive in their hearts everyday."

I should have known this, shouldn't I have? It made perfect sense when I read this in the newsletter, what a revelation about myself and many other bereaved parents for that matter. We often think we are crazy (bereaved parents) for the things we do and then we find out information like this so ........

...... it brings us back to one of the motto's of TCF,

"YOU ARE NOT ALONE".