A Lifetime Love of Little Boxes

Making Memories in a Box 

My family know that I never throw away a shoe box.  I use them to wrap up those difficult shaped gifts at birthdays and Christmas.  I keep all those tiny Sylvanian Family pieces in them, and I challenge any parent to deny that they have never needed a shoe box to complete that school project during half term holiday. 

Evidence of my shoe box collection can be found when you open the cupboard door of my craft room. There you will find floor to ceiling shoe boxes or similar shaped cardboard boxes full of keepsakes and photographs. Each box is carefully labelled and if I ever want a photograph to embarrass any family member then I know exactly where to find it.

Our loft is also full of boxes. These are mainly the square plastic type but they too all have a label, and they are all carefully organised. There’s one for Easter, One for Halloween, and several for Christmas! There’s a dressing up box, a box for all my hats and memory boxes for all my children. I’m sure you are getting the picture.

Just to be clear I don’t consider myself a hoarder just a keeper of the family memories that just happen to be in boxes!  Every so often I do go through the contents of the boxes and convince myself that there is no reason to keep every single birthday card I received when I was 16 or that painting that I did at school when I was 5 years old.  

I hope my children forgive me when the time comes for them to empty my loft because… guess what? Mum loved boxes too and there are no prizes for guessing where they are all kept now.

So, what is it about boxes? There’s something about a box that fascinates me. I see a box and I either want to buy it, paint it, play with it, or fill it full of stuff that apparently was special to me at some point in my life.

 A box just sets my imagination alight and for some reason fills me with joy and brings back lovely memories. We’ve all made a den from that big cardboard box and used a shoe box as a bed for a Barbie or an action man!

It seems that playing with a box is timeless. My dad used his dinky toy boxes to create a street when he was playing with his cars and just recently a huge box that once contained a fridge was a spaceship on Monday a boat on Tuesday and a place to hide the remote control on Wednesday!!

This week I have been looking through some of my boxes and I realised that once again fate has played its part in my life. If you've read any of my other blogs you will know that I am a big believer in fate or in coincidence, call it what you like.

On the morning that Harry was born, still and asleep, nearly 10 years ago my daughter Lauren was presented with a Memory Box from a charity we had never heard of called 4Louis. She has inherited my love of boxes  and she couldn’t wait to share her joy with me! Yes, the 4Louis box brought her joy at a time when her plans for the future had been shattered.

We opened the box together and we shared the love and attention that had gone into creating a box to make memories. Someone had been through a similar experience, and they had sent this box to help Lauren and her family get through the next few weeks.

She had something in which to keep her memories of Harry.  Although he never took a breath his box is full of memories of the day we met him and of the people he never got the chance to meet. There are photographs of his family. There are birthday cards, postcards, and poems. There are tiny baby clothes, wooden toys, and lots of stars. It’s not a sad box but a joyful box. A memory box for a little boy whom we only held for a moment but who changed our lives forever.

 
So, how apt is it that I am now a trustee of that charity. A charity that provides memory boxes for hospitals throughout the country to give to parents who have lost a child. A child whose memories will be days rather than years. I've been collecting boxes most of my life and I've always used them to store my memories. Now here I am working with a charity whose boxes give joy at a time when there is immeasurable sorrow. My love of boxes suddenly made sense.

Harry’s box sits with all the other boxes in my cupboard and a couple of times a year I get it out. October is Baby Loss Awareness Month so I will get out his box and remember the day he was born and the joy he brought to us all. I shall light a candle on 15^th October to remember Harry and all the other babies born still and asleep. I will be smiling and thanking him for introducing me to the 4Louis family and for confirming how a simple box can bring such joy.

 

Pebbles Pictures and Personal Messages

 

When Grief Returns

This week has been Mental Health Awareness Week so social media has been full of ways to manage our mental health. Now I have taken a step back from social media but someone sent me a personal message with a link to an interesting little article about grief.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/stories-43227108

It explained how in the beginning, grief takes over your life and fills every part of it. The loss you have suffered is there when you wake up and is still there when you go to bed.  Then as time passes it may seem that the grief has gone away. You don’t cry as much you start to make plans you start to think that that you have gotten over your loss. Then a song is played, a memory appears on your social media account or you visit a place with special memories and there it is, all that grief comes flooding back. It may be years down the line. The grief hasn’t gone away its always there, but our life has expanded around it.   

Harry was born on 15th May, but it is 12th May that hits Lauren every year. That is the day she discovered that Harry had no heartbeat. Every year that is when the grief hits her. As a mum I know that, and I too remember that day in every detail as if I am watching it back on an old video tape. That is the day she needs more support or to left alone with her grief.

Today is that Day

A private message from Lauren simply says

 “I’m OK. I’ll let you know if I need you. Love you.” Followed by a blue heart and a blue car. I burst into tears and for a moment all my grief comes flooding back.

For me it’s the memory of that day and how helpless I felt as a mother watching her daughter suffer such distress. It’s the unanswered questions and the agonising realisation that my grandson was not going home to his nursery but Lauren was. How does she cope with that? Moreover, how does she manage for 2 whole days knowing that when she returns to the delivery suite it will be to deliver a little boy who will not fulfil any of the plans they had made as a family.

I deal with my grief by putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.

Every year I imagine Harry as a young lad and share all the experiences that we have enjoyed, and I imagine him being a part of it.

This year he would hit 9. He has 4 siblings and one cousin. We often wonder if any of those little people would be here if Harry had lived. Maybe that’s his legacy.

Harry is talked about. His picture is present in every family home, and he will always be Laurens eldest son. The next few days will be filled with grief and memories but there will also be family gathering balloons and quiet reflection.

I have just returned from a lovely couple of days with my sisters in a cabin on the Norfolk Broads. There was no TV and limited internet just a blue tooth speaker and good company. We played the songs of our childhood and danced like no one was looking! How appropriate that we should choose the first few days of Mental Health Awareness Week to be together and count our blessings. We have all suffered loss recently and we talked about our parents our pets and our friends. We remembered them all as we walked on the beach and made pictures from pebbles and seaweed!

 I’m pretty sure our kids think we are all a bit mad at the moment but one day I hope they too will enjoy the simple pleasures of a walk on the beach making pictures from rocks and spotting images in the sky when they are in their 60s!