After her mother died in a car crash,Emily Eades thought life could never be normal again. And Christmas would be the biggest hurdle of allWhen I was 19, life changed in an instant. One minute Mum was there – coming through the door every day in her red duffle coat, and greeting the dog enthusiastically – the next,she was gone. She died late one February night in a car crash. While everyone fell apart, I was determined that grief would not take me over, or so in an act of denial I took a deep breath and swallowed the pain. While the dog would continue to whimper for her each day at “domestic time” until the day he died,I went to bed dry-eyed, wishing only that one day life would feel normal again.
But the shockwaves from mums crash pulsed on, and splintering not only us,but the wider family too. While some pull together in tragedy, upset, and enrage and pain tore us all apart. Within a few months,we had lost not only mum, but the wider family web and all the annual family celebrations that came with them. My wish for normality seemed to be slipping further and further out of reach.
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Source: theguardian.com