Today it is exactly four years since my husband died; since my entire world changed completely.

It has been both a blur and an eternity. I remember the day in vivid, technicolor detail and have also forgotten so much of that time. When I read back over these blog posts that started about 18 months into this journey, I am astonished at what my boys and I have gone through and survived. I am proud of myself for getting up each day and putting one foot in front of the other when it would have been so much easier to stay curled up in a ball avoiding the world.

I am heartbroken for all of the secondary losses that have come, and the people that I can no longer call family; and at the same time I am so incredibly grateful for those who stayed and for the new ones that have come along. I am amazed at the experiences that I have had and the boundaries that I have pushed, as well as the boundaries that I have put up.

I am so incredibly grateful that I had 28 amazing years of living a fairy tale with the sensational man that was Claytie. That we created four phenomenal humans who have been my saving grace. And mostly I just feel so very, very lucky that Clayton Thomas James chose me to be his forever.

Today the boys and I will celebrate and remember Claytie. We will eat ‘catfood casserole’ and scratch scratchies. We’ll remember all the funny things that happened and we’ll listen to his music. ‘It is what it is’ and we will make the most of it x