Today is not a good day www.giftsforangels.co.uk

It is now nearly 8 years to the day that Lola passed away. We have plans for Saturday 22nd, but today is not a good day..... I can't seem to stop crying sometimes the build up to her anniversary is so much worse than the day. Fortunately I don't have a job that demands that I go into an office and function, because today that is just totally out of the question!Its a day when I just want to stay in close all doors and cry, just cry!
I have never really understood the expression "Burst into Tears" because for me this has never been the case.... Before if something upset me it would play on my mind and eventually I might have a cry, but never have I Burst into tears... Until the day when I heard the words that would haunt me for the rest of my life
" Lola has a very large brain Tumour on the right hand side of her brain"
since then that expression describes a lot of days in my life like today for example. School run - dark sunglasses trying not to meet people's eye so I don't have to speak to them. I could feel the Tears building and trickling all the way back to the car it was only once I got home that I shut the front door and collapsed into a heap and Burst into tears..... I sat in my hall wailing loudly, uncontrollably and I knew that this is how today will be. I made coffe and went into my garden and smoked a cigarette ( yes today calls for smoking!) and all of a sudden I was back in 2003, even the weather was the same maybe a little warmer, but the exact feeling of shock and disbelief came over me. It is so easy for me to transport my mind back to those days before the funeral, when my angle was lying in her bedroom. Every morning I would wake up (not that I really slept) hoping to God that it was not real, just a dream and there are no words to describe the feeling of reality that followed soon after.
On the 22nd of March 2006 Lola passed away, 23rd-29th she lay in her bedroom peacefully and I am so pleased we had her at home, she was my child, my baby, my world.
On the 29th March was her funeral and Lola left home for the last time....
My Darling Lola,
I don't know where the time has gone. I miss seeing your beautiful face smiling back at me. You have missed so much and there is not a single day that goes by that I don't think about you sweetheart. I know you are such a good girl and I hope that you are having fun with your grand parents but I miss you. I want to hold you tight and hug you. I want to drop you off to school and meet all your friends. I want to know what you like, are you happy do you need me? Are you ok with being taken away from your family so soon? Do you understand? Are you warm, do you have friends? Are you Happy? I love you so much my darling girl and my heart aches for you every day - do you know this? So many questions I have that I know I won't get an answer to, but know that I will hold you close in my heart forever and I will take you with me always.
Loving you Much, Much and Much My sweet sweet girl.
Mummy x
http://www.giftsforangels.co.uk
This piece was .written through tears and direct from my heart today, please excuse any poor

grammar.. I

Keeping your loved one close www.giftsforangels.co.uk

When Lola first passed away I needed to be close to her in every way possible. I would put photos up everywhere ( even the bathroom) , I slept with her special blanket I even made my sisters sit through the then new "Charlie & Lola" cbeebies DVD. I used to sit in her room for hours just going through her wardrobe stopping every now and then to wrap her jumper sleeves around me - closing my eyes and pretending it was her hugging me.... The pain was immense. I had a tiny locket that I used to wear and my sister gave John a large locket with  pictures of Lola in. I hunted high & low for a large locket for me. I did fine one in a charity shop and I used to wear it all the time as did John. Over time the pictures wore, they were never cut properly and as they were only colour copies of actual pictures they were on thin paper.
 I can't tell you how amazed and happy I am to have found a company that lazer photos from an emailed image to the locket itself! It's just genius. They use a process called "Sublimation" to infuse your image onto the metal of the locket. These really are fantastic, the image stays clean, vibrant and durable over time. The glass locket especially can hold up to 6 pictures on discs that can be engraved on the reverse.
As much as I don't go through Lola's wardrobe as much and her blanket has now been taken by her sister "Ava", I have to have something off her with me at all times. I carry a mini photo album sometimes, I have a necklace that has her name & now these beautiful pieces of jewllery. The house is still full of her pictures even my bathroom!
As I always say everyone's grief is different, and this is one of my coping mechanisms. It works for me!
http://www.giftsforangels.co.uk/shop/engraving

Add caption

What is normal, this lady has read my mind x

What is normal?            Written by Gail from www.achildofmine.co.uk 

Normal is having tears waiting behind every smile when you realise someone important is missing from all the important events in your family’s life. 

Normal for me is trying to decide what to take to the cemetery for Birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, New Years and Easter.

Normal is feeling like you know how to act and are more comfortable at a funeral than a wedding or birthday party.. yet feeling a stab of pain in your heart when you smell the flowers and see the casket.

Normal is feeling like you can’t sit another minute without getting up and screaming, because you just don’t like to sit through anything.

Normal is not sleeping very well because a thousand ‘what ifs’ and ‘why didn’t I’s’ go through your head constantly.

Normal is reliving that day continuously through your eyes and mind, holding your head to make it go away.

Normal is having the TV on the minute you walk into the house to have noise, because silence is deafening.

Normal is staring at every child who looks like he is my child’s age and then thinking of the age he would be now and not being able to imagine it. Then wondering why it is even important to imagine it, because it will never happen.

Normal is every happy event in my life always being backed up with sadness lurking close behind because of the hole in my heart.

Normal is telling the story of your child’s death as if it were an everyday, commonplace activity, and then seeing the horror in someone’s eyes at how awful it sounds, and yet realising it has become a part of my “normal”.

Normal is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honour your child’s memory and their birthday and survive these days, trying to find the balloon or flag that fits the occasion. Happy Birthday? Not really.

Normal is my heart warming and yet sinking at the sight of something special that reminds me of my child. Thinking how he would have loved it, but how he’s not here to enjoy it.

Normal is having some people afraid to even mention my child.

Normal is making sure that others remember her.

Normal is that after the funeral is over, everyone else goes on with their lives but we will continue to grieve our loss forever.

Normal is weeks, months and years after the initial shock, the grieving gets worse sometimes, not better.

Normal is not listening to people compare anything in their life to this loss, unless they too have lost a child. NOTHING. Even if your child is in the remotest part of the earth away from you – it doesn’t compare. Losing a parent is horrible, but having to bury your own child is unnatural.

Normal is trying not to cry all day, because I know my mental health depends on it.

Normal is realising I do cry everyday.

Normal is being impatient with everything and everyone, but someone stricken with grief over the loss of your child.

Normal is feeling a common bond with friends on the computer in England, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and all over the USA, but never having met any of them face to face.

Normal is a new friendship with another grieving mother, talking and crying together over our children and our new lives.

Normal is being too tired to care if you paid the bills, cleaned the house, did laundry or if there is any food in the house.

Normal is wondering this time whether you are going to say you have two children or one, because you will never see this person again and it is not worth explaining that my baby is in Heaven. Yet when you say you have one child to avoid that problem, you feel horrible as if you have betrayed your baby.

Normal is knowing I will never get over the loss, in a day or a million years. 

And last of all, Normal is hiding all the things that have become “normal” for you to feel, so that everyone else around you will think you are “normal”.  

What do you do when you see a funeral procession? www.giftsforangels.co.uk

A question I always want to ask people is this
" what do you do if you see a Hearst with a sometimes long procession of cars following it?"
Befor Lola died, I would never over take such a procession if for instance it was on a dual carriage way... But I very rarely would acknowledge one, that may have been passing me as iwalked along a busy street! That's the truth and I feel ashamed to admit it.
The morning of Lola' funeral was by all accounts a big blur... The undertakers coming to take her from her bedroom, my husband and his brothers insisting that they carried her, me leaving her room before they closed........ ( I can't bring myself to say the next line let a lone type it, but you get the general idea). I remember looking at the car and walking around it, don't ask me why but did. Sitting in the car behind I was watching in disbelief the car in front as it pulled away taking my baby girl from her beautiful home for the very last time. Much more is a a blank but what really stands out is I was intently watching all the other cars that passed us, and when we drove into the centre of "Hove" it was busy with people going about their business.... The cars had to turn off a very busy street ( church rd) to drive to the church where the service was going to be held, as the car turned not 1 person out of the 50+ people in that street stopped, or made the sign of the cross or did anything!!!! I wanted to get out & scream at these selfish people , they didn't even notice the small white ...... That was in there very reach. How could people be so Unobservant, so dismissive, so disrespectful of what they were witnessing? It was very clear that it was a child and yet not 1 person did anything. It must haven only been 2 minutes but I was transfixed on all these people thinking
" someone will notice" but no, nobody did, they didn't care that that was someones whole world in that car, my whole world. Much was the same on the way back except for one man. He was walking up another busy road with a child on a scooter and caring another child who was clearly having a tantrum... He was busy but I never forget the look on his face as he glanced to his left and saw that first car & as he looked away he did a double take in utter disbelief.... His look was of shock and immense sadness... This one man in that 3 maybe 4 seconds restored a bit of my faith in the human race. In all that time 1 person stopped and looked and expressed the human emotion that I wanted, I needed and that I felt Lola deserved.
Now when ever I see a Hearst I stop just for a second acknowledge the procession and make the sign of the cross. So please I erg you all, even if your not religious just stop and show some respect to the dead and to their loved ones, it only takes seconds out of your life, but the memory I have of that one man will last a lifetime.
http://www.giftsforangels.co.uk

Bereaved Mothers www.giftsforangels.co.uk

Hello All and Happy New Year, sorry I don't seem to be able to manage to write regularly any more, I do it when I feel inspired, stressed or just fed up! To day it is inspiration that brings me to my keyboard. With all the pain I go through as a bereaved parent means I can be of some use to others in my situation. I am further along with my grief and I was recently asked a very honest question from another bereaved mother,
" does it get easier?" And my answer was
"Yes". Life has away of bending to the traumas it throws at us. I honestly said that the pain does not leave you, nor would you want it to.... This pain is your scar, a reminder of your greatest gift & loss. A scar that you learn to hide, not because of others but so you can get up and meet the demands of each and every day. You are never the same person after experiencing such sadness, you are not a complete person anymore a party of you is missing. If for instance you had your right hand amputated, you would have to learn to do everything with your left hand.... It would be hard but you would have very little choice. In a similar way grief gives you no choice but to learn to live a different way.
Sometimes when I have these email/ phone conversations with other Mums in my position, it amazes me how easy it is. We have a mutual vulnerability a complete understanding of each other and yet we have never met, I have no idea about their general life, what their husband does for a living, where they were brought up and yet I am at ease in there company speaking to them about the most personal part of my life. We know so little about each other but we are drawn together because of the unspeakable agony that we all live with. Many of our usual friends will try to understand our pain but they never can & as time goes on people stop asking, but once someone has walked your path they understand and will always understand in 2 years or 22 years they will still get it!  We are not alone, and sometimes that's all we need to hear.
My love & strength I send to you all my friends , who knows maybe one day we may all actually meet!
www.http://www.giftsforangels.co.uk

Gifts for Angels & You Magazine Sunday November 24th 2013

Website of the week:giftsforangels.co.uk

Michelle Rice’s little daughter Lola died of a brain tumour in 2006. The sadness of visiting her grave was compounded by the lack of grave ornaments that were ‘bright, beautiful and fun – like Lola’, as well as durable and inexpensive, so Michelle started this website to give her family and others ‘a little piece of comfort’. Find funky cherubs (£21.99), coloured stone vases (£16.99) and handmade seed cards (£4.50) in this small, sweet range.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2510507/Health-This-weeks-issues-advice.html#ixzz2lhCC2dRk 

Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Was so please with our write up from the very lovely "Sarah Stacey" at The Daily Mails "You Magazine" We have been really busy with orders since, happy? yes, but it is always a double edge sword! http://www.giftsforangels.co.uk

Grief at Christmas time www.giftsforangels.co.uk

So I have decided to do a small Christmas range, this consists of Gold & silver grave vases and personalized Christmas tree baubles. While the reaction has been lovely, I'm constantly aware of people's opinions. For instance my lovely photographer is always worrying about my products been photographed looking "too cool/beautiful" and I have to constantly remind her that this is what I want as a bereaved parent. Another friend is worried that by me promoting

my Christmas range, it's too, "in your face" ( her words, not mine) .... It's hard to know what is acceptable when advertising it on FB and twitter..
.. " you don't want to look like your making money from people's grief"  was another persons comment.
While I do make a small profit on My products, I am also trying to support the charity "Brain Tumour research", and most of all I started this whole thing for me, it was always about something I could have to put down for My Lola. Why could I not make her grave side look pretty? Especially on her Birthday.... And now Christmas. Every year I have a bag of Christmas ornaments that I place at her grave side. Now I am over the moon by the fact that I have gold & silver vases that I can fill with Holly and hang little decorations from the branches. So please believe me when I say, "Yes, it does make me happy" , to know that after I have finished decorating my tree at home with my other children I can then go to the cemetery and decorate Lola's & my Dad's grave side and this is the exact feeling I want to be able to offer to other bereaved people.
Christmas is a lovely time of year, but also a very hard & difficult time for any person who has Lost a loved one. Knowing that I can't celebrate it with my beautiful eldest daughter and my wonderful Dad, is the worst feeling in the world and Nothing can take this away, but I do get some comfort from knowing I can decorate their grave sides, and on Christmas morning when we go down to the cemetery their grave's are looking festive and lovely, this helps Me..... That is why I do what I do, I am not a Saint, I'm not a business woman I am simply a bereaved Mother & Daughter, trying to cope the best way I know how.
Any comments would be much appreciated.

www.giftsforangels.co.ukhttps://www.giftsforangels.co.uk