KINSLEY MARY SADIE MCMILLAN

Dear Kinsley, My dearest Kinsley if love could have cured you then you would have lived and breathed for eternity. The day i lost you was the day i lost myself. I’ve been trying so hard to find myself again but it's the hardest challenge set yet because you were my world. It is not a path of choice, but it is a path I must navigate and walk with intention. It is definitely not linear with a pot of gold at the end. It is a storm of heart wrenching pain. ⚘️ It is a journey through the darkest and deepest parts of my soul and unbeknown to me time is not easing this heartache. Time is allowing the darkness to permeate through my body into the places that scare me, the empty bits of my soul and it’s a tsunami of sadness. However, I try to remember when this happens that it is an angel touching my soul to take over my heart to remember you. To honor you I get up every day, take a breath and start another day without you in it. Sometimes I laugh and love talking about you with those whose hearts and minds you touched in this world. I listen to music you liked and sing loudly with the windows rolled down! I am receiving your messages! We love the visits from the magpies you send us. We didn't realize Maggie was a magpie until after you died! To honor you I say the truth, I take chances, I'm more courageous your love is still my guide. You were the love of my life; you are my light and magic from the highest source. Now I live for us both so all i do i do it to honor you. I try to be like you, living with dignity, pride and grace. To honor you we visit you at the cemetery. We feel you all around us and we want to embrace that. We fill your spot with colors to honor your ability to see now. To honor you we have been selling sweets to raise money for children suffering from this dreadful illness. GRIEF is very powerful, more powerful than any international army across the globe. Every part of my body aches, every cell is tainted and feels permanently unable to regenerate. Every part of me longs to be with you. Every day is like climbing a mountain, battling the most powerful emotions that ripple through my soul. This is magnified on days or nights when grief is loud. I become more impatient, distracted, frustrated, and unfocused. In these moments I try to remember the reason I have a part of me missing is because part of my heart went with you. I was so blessed with you sharing this love so beautifully it occupied an entire part of my soul. My pain will never be healed until you are in my arms again i ache for the day I am with your beautiful soul again. Every time I think of you my heart still fills with pride. You are the most courageous and tiny human I have ever heard of. You are my hero I don’t smile as often as my old self. Smiling hurts now. Most of everything hurts some days, even breathing hurts. My heart still bleeds. You brought so much joy, laughter and happiness to my life that nothing seems the same anymore. I smile as I think about the keyring, I have with your photo on it which says "sass in spades' '. Even on days when grief is quiescent, when it isn't standing loudly in the foreground, even on days when I am even able to smile again, the pain is just beneath the surface. It's still there. I can feel happy and sad at the same time. I will be sad for the rest of my life without you here in this world. People make me happy, I'm happy with Freddie, Mummy, Uncle Adam and Phil. There are days when I feel paralyzed. My chest feels the sinking weight of your absence and, sometimes, I feel as if I will explode from the grief. If people knew how much I missed you they would wonder why I'm still breathing. I wonder this myself. I often look up to Heaven and blow kisses, love and hugs to you, we miss your touch, your angelic voice we miss everything about you. Losing you has affected me in so many ways: as a woman, a mother, a human being. It affects every aspect of me: spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally. There are days I don’t recognize myself in the mirror anymore. My understanding of life has changed and a hybrid life has been formed, a different meaning of life is evolving What I knew to be true or absolute or real or fair about the world has been challenged and completely crushed. I'm finding my way, moment-to-moment in this new life. Things that once seemed important to me are barely thought of any longer. Things aren't important in this world and I notice life's suffering more- hungry children, the homeless and the destitute. I went to the park just the other day and I saw Freddie looking at children with siblings. I just thought of you. He picked up toys a little girl dropped like he did for you. There are so many things about the world I now struggle to understand: Why do children die? There are some questions, I've learned, which are simply unanswerable. Why did we saw you on Earth and why couldn't you see us? Why are these roles reversed and why now you can see us but we can't see you. Without you I am incomplete the only piece of me that still feels alive is the space in my heart that's where you live and your memories live. Grieving mothers-, grandmothers and brothers’ wont’ wake up one day with everything ’okay’ and life back to normal. We all have a new normal now. As time passes, I may gain gifts, treasures, and insights. I may even become a better person with a higher level of compassion and understanding but trying to be positive isn't always possible because anything gained was too high a cost compared to losing you. Perhaps, one day, when I am 91 the age my Gran died and I'm very, very old, I will say that time has truly helped to heal my broken heart. But I'm not so sure....... You were my sunshine my only sunshine