Project 366 2020 Week 48 Day 327-333 A week that will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

Sunday 22nd November – Day 327

My son took us on a magical mystery tour of our local area.  Lovely cloud formation.

Monday 23rd November – Day 328

Work and school and Brewster deciding that he wanted to take over the work table.

Tuesday 24th November – Day 329

I’d agreed to swap my furlough day as one of the other ladies needed to be in the office tomorrow, so I walked my son to school and headed to work.  An hour later I got a text from school – a child had tested positive in my son’s class and I needed to pick him up immediately.  He would have to self isolate.  I cried.  The thought of school at home and work at home again.  If only I knew what was to come.

Anyway, I grabbed some work folders and headed home to pick my son up.  My OH was told not to come without wine!

Wednesday 25th November – Day 330

We’d had a good day.  I wasn’t working today so for the first time, we got to experience a school at home day without that added pressure.  It had gone well, I’d even posted on Facebook to say how well it had gone.  Ten minutes later I took a phone call which would shatter it all.

Paddington had gone out an hour earlier.  A local vet was on the phone telling me he’d been found by a dog walker and had been taken in to them.  He was already dead. I couldn’t take it in, my son heard every word.  We couldn’t go and see him, my son was self-isolating.  The vets told me that Paddington didn’t have a mark on him, I knew we needed to see him, so my OH went to pick him up.

Grief is never easy, watching it through your child’s eyes is on a whole other level.  When your child tells you that all he wants for his birthday in a fortnight, is for his cat to be alive.  What do you do?

Thursday 26th November – Day 331

My boss owns Paddington’s mum and she’d bought me some flowers over as soon as she heard the new yesterday.  A little colour.  We’d had little sleep, and I was surprised that my son did any of the set school work.  At least it was a bit of a distraction for him. But it’s so hard coping with the loss of his beloved pet when he can’t escape the house, memories are everywhere here and in the garden, there’s no escape.

My son had decided he wanted to have Paddington cremated so we spoke to our vets to arrange this and my OH took Paddington on his final trip from home.

Friday 27th November – Day 332

My NCT group sent me a surprise to cheer me up which was lovely.  I was working from home and school at home was back to being hideous really. Not helped by one of his work tasks being about his identity, the first heading was pets – the day was a washout from that point onwards.  I’d been rather disappointed by the lack of response from his teacher regarding what has been happening here.  A little empathy for a child experiencing grief in these very unusual times would have gone a long way.

My brother’s oldest daughter shares her birthday with my son and she’d sent him a letter which arrived today. It was a lovely thought and was nice to see my son smiling for a few minutes.

Saturday 28th November – Day 333

One of my friends at work owns Paddington’s brother, we really are a cat family at work!  Anyway, she’d arranged a present for my son and her OH dropped it round – a soft toy, black and white cat and a lovely keyring with a cat and angel feather.  It made him smile and was such a lovely idea.  He turned the box the toy came in into a bed, just like Paddington would have, and they’ve been inseparable ever since.  The keyring is now on his backpack to go on his adventures with him.

One of my friends had messaged me the night before about joining her on a walk today.  I’ve been trapped indoors with my son since Tuesday, so it was lovely to get outside and think about something else for a couple of hours.  The tree kind of sums up how I’m feeling right now.

We are all rather broken at the moment, even Brewster seems totally lost and has been acting very strangely since Wednesday evening.  The thought of having my son’s birthday without Paddington is rather hard for us to envisage, let alone Christmas. If any one has any ideas of how to make this easier for him please let me know.