Support

Yesterday I learned a wonderful lesson in support and I wanted to share it with you. You see it was just any other normal day, we were heading up to the summer fair at our church, my mum was going, my sister, her family, my cousin and her family, it was going to be a fun day out. 

As we arrived I headed straight to the rectory with my youngest whilst my hubby headed into the fair with the 2 eldest to meet up with the others. At the rectory we were directed over to the fair instead and as we reached the gates I spotted my hubby rushing towards me. I wanted to go off to see everyone but he wanted to pull me over to a quiet corner to talk to me. By this point I'm puzzled, intrigued and also a little bit worried, wondering what on earth he needed to say to me that I needed to hear "out of the way". 

His words stunned me, "m's here, we wanted to pre-warn you, your mum told me I had to find you and tell you, are you going to be ok?" 

My heart sank to my feet, but I forced myself to lift my shoulders and act nonchalant as I replied to him "let's do this, I can't ruin today for the kids because of this" 

I won't say I wasn't scared and I won't say I wasn't worried, I was petrified, I felt sick, I wanted nothing more than to run away and hide. I don't even know what it is about seeing him that hurts me so much. All I think it is, is that seeing him forces me to relive memories over and over in my head. Like watching a horror film that terrifies you on replay and having no control over it. 

But knowing that my mum knew this would affect me and my hubby knew this would hurt me and they both did their best to protect me by pre-warning me of what I was facing gave me such comfort. They were a great force of strength for me because physically I came closer to M than I ever have since then, I didn't have my checkout for 'protection' instead I had my husband and my mum flanking each side of me and 'protecting' me. 

For the first while I just stood around, nervously scanning every inch of the crowd for his face, knowing I'd be confronted with it at some point during the day. Once I'd found him my eyes followed him for most of the day, simply because I needed to know where he was in proximity to where I was so I felt somewhat safe. 

When my sister arrived at the fair the first thing she said was "where is she, does she know, is she ok?" I was so touched by the genuine concern from the people I loved, and I guess if I hadn't shared my feelings with them over time then they might not have realised how yesterday would have affected me and I would have suffered in silence instead. 

Having the support of my family made the world of difference to me yesterday, they gave me the strength to get through a difficult day, I might have turned around and walked away had they not been there supporting me. 

I never realised how much it means to have that kind of support and I'm so grateful that they were there for me yesterday. X