End of another era and beginnings of a new one. Ten years on......

July 1998 Portsmouth. Matt's Degree Day.

Ten years ago, two very proud parents and a very proud younger brother, plus their grandad, (middle name Milford!) went to The Guildhall in Portsmouth to watch Matthew Milford Sellers, then 22 years old, obtain his Honours degree in Computer Science..............................

Fast forward to June 2008.

Yesterday there were once again, two very proud parents, and a very proud fiancée, only this time it was Matt's younger brother who obtained the results of his Honours degree in Communications Engineeering and Computer Science. His ceremony is also in July, in Birmingham, at the Grand Hall of Aston University.

Only once again, at a special occasion one of us will be missing......................................

I said I would not write another blog on this site, unless I had something to say of significance, and this is it.

I returned home from Nyons, France, once more, last weekend, having had another week of French language study, which I enjoy in a masochistic sort of way!!!! Hard work, but worth the effort!!

My friend, Cecilia's son, Richard, who stopped at Nyons, en route from Cap D'Agde, going North, said it reminded him of French "Boot Camp"!!

I travelled with Cecilia last year and we intend to return next year, all being well!!

As I said, I returned last Saturday, and on Sunday Mrs. FLN, (Matt's widow, I hate saying that but it is how it is.....), came to dinner, and told us in the course of conversation that she had seen a house in Manchester. the North of England, and had decided to move.

This was alternately very exciting news and very sad at the same time.

We are pleased she has found somewhere she wants to call her home again, as it so hard to live here with all the old memories .

Hot on the heels of this news was Alan's decision to move to Bristol, to look for work there, and set up home there with Jen when they are married in October this year. He will move as soon as he has a job, and both he and Heidi, (who will move in mid July) will have left Sutton by August.

So, in one fell swoop, our lives are being radically altered again......................................the pattern thrown out and a new one has to begin, but it comes at a cost.

We have to let our children go.

They need to fly and spread their wings, but inevitably for me the grief of Matt's death came back like a huge tidal wave for two days and I couldn't sleep.

Why, you might ask?

It was the dawning certainty of the door of his, and Heidi's, house being closed for the last time, and no more to go there, "hear" his voice there, " see" him there at home where he used to be, that last party he had for his birthday, and the garden he liked.

His books, his hat, his pictures, his gardening tools, his hopes and dreams ...........................

Things that Heidi finds so painful she can no longer live there, which we understand so well.

A fresh start for her, and a fresh start for Matt's brother.

We are proud of her and it is a very brave thing to do.

Nonetheless, I have to say it like it is, and I wrote pages in my journal, letting the grief flow out.

I read my journal again.

Cornwall May 2008

It is,and always will be, a very special place for us, having had so many family holidays there.

This photo taken in the late 1990's.

A dad and his two sons.

What did I write in May?

Extract from my Journal.

"After breakfast we walked from Housel Bay round to Lizard Lighthouse and once more I was soaking up the scenery and as it is spring, the abundance of wildflowers and birdsong. A lady had spotted some dolphins in the bay at breakfast............

A lazy seal floated on his back for awhile. The housemartins are back, and they are so like an RAF fighter squadron! Chasing each other acrobatically across the sky weaving in and out, swooping and soaring.

A long line of gannets was out flying over the sea looking for fish.Sounds of the wren, blackbirds, robins, stonechats, greenfinches and the "chack!" of the jackdaws.

As we walked on we were surrounded by the colours of the flowers, swathes of yellow field mustard, splashes of bluebells in between, sea pinks, the white bells of garlic, and I love the huge pink and yellow flowers of the mesembryanthemums, tumbling down the cliffs and crevasses, fleshy leaves bright green. then suddenly a foxglove would rear its spiky head.

Matt's Rock.

We arrived at Matt's rock once more, .......................

8 months on since the last time we were there..................September 2007

How did I feel?................

I find it moving and poignant at the same time, and sad, but the pain was not as raw.

It is such a beautiful place.

I knelt down and looked into the crevasse where his ashes are scattered.............

Then I sat down just to think, Stephen standing nearby.

It made me realise how far we have come in our grief journey, and what a lot of things have happened over the last 8 months.

Meeting new people

Heidi spending more time in Manchester

Alan becoming engaged and setting the date for his wedding for October

My 60th birthday trip to New York

It all concertinas together when I sit down where we finally placed our son in February 2007.

I picked some nearby sea pinks and dropped them into the crevasse, a silent homage to Matt.

I felt a loosening of the tightness around my heart- we will never forget him- and have all the memories of him forever.............................

You are with us Matt, and on days when I don't try so desparately to hold you so tight, I remember you more easily, but I will miss you always and forever...................

So we sat there on the rocks, talking, and then we prayed together for those whose lives have been devastated by your death, and also Chris's..............

We went on to our favourite "Most Southerly Point Café" and had a drink and some cake, seeing more seals along the way.

And the spring which has been so over wound in me began to uncoil,

It is a healing place."

Fast Forward to this week June 9th - 13th 2008

More extracts

"Grief charging through me like a bolt of electricity, unexpected, taking my breath away............it feels like another bereavement. This time the finality of the door of Matt's house being closed for the last time................

Once again his life being parceled up and sorted through, and all that will be left of him there will be an echo and the memory of him at home.

It is a very courageous step for Heidi, and she has our admiration, but it hurts like hell............what was his life, their life, ended now in Erdington with the call of a removal van at the door in a few weeks time.............................

I already dread the "smell" of the first stirrings of autumn air, that will never leave me- another September coming along, and it hardly seems like two years............time can fool us into thinking that it wasn't THAT long ago when our lives were blown apart.

How can it be two years? ............two years of not seeing them................heartache, heartbreak...........

Poem for Matt

There's a hole in the world

Where you used to be.

It is perfectly shaped in your form,

A vacuum, but it's there.

Like reaching into the space where you

Lived and breathed.

It's a mocking illusion.

There's a hole in me

Where you used to be

Gaping,raw,aching,

Arms cannot wrap around space.

There's a hole everywhere I turn

It travels with me silently

Wherever I go

It is always with me

A reminder of all that we have lost

And, on returning, the memories

Burning

Down the years where you were real

Tangible,loved, living, breathing.

There are holes in the world

I recognise others-

Children lost forever

Parents who grieve

Over what might have been.....................

And now snatched away

Suddenly,

Leaving only brokenness.

There's a sadness in their eyes

Like a reflection

From a deep well

Of pain

Hidden but always there....

Surfacing at times to overflow.

And it goes on until

We leave a hole in the world."