(the child is this image is alive) Seriously proud of my people. No one in my feed tried this on today. I’m thankful for friends who are helping out, for sympathy cards, for tokens and gifts, for people sending in something heartfelt for the cremation of our Tamlorn, for those who offer something specific instead of asking me what I need, for people calling to say “I don’t know what to say but I’m here and I’m not avoiding you” so I can say “I don’t know what to say either and I’m sort of here and some days I may be avoiding you and other days I need you, sorry”.

Today was a little better, only 2 near hysterics. Rose bought some sinus meds on special for the meds box and I was tempted to take them just to shift the sense of being dead. I’m pretty sensitive to sinus meds, they’re a serious upper for me. That impulse didn’t feel good. Friends came round for dinner and played board games and we all got silly and ate chocolate biscuits and made each other laugh at dumb jokes and silly voices and my mood shifted anyway and I remembered I didn’t need the meds to do it, just hang on a bit and something will come along where I can breathe again for a bit.

Today Rose and I looked after a friend’s little girl. I’ve been watching the pain and the recoil in myself, looking for a moment when it doesn’t hurt too badly and the desire to connect is there. You have to look for such moments in times like this, to stop the aversion settling in. Like a wall that gets a brick higher every day, it gets harder over time. But if you push it too early it gets harder too. There’s a moment where its right and you have to look out for it and try to catch it when it happens. So today we went off and did baby wearing with a sweet little girl and got to smell her hair and wipe yoghurt off her hands and blow bubbles for her to chase on the lawn. And it hurt, but my arms weren’t empty and my heart wasn’t cold. And her Mum knows we’re hurting but she trusts us with her little one and that’s such a precious gift, such a generous act.

There has been so much bad news lately I can’t take any more in. I’m numbed, which is a relief. Today’s dose didn’t even raise a tear, just a sense of fatalism, a bowed head. We’ll get through it all, as long as I have her, lovely Rose, there’s still a future here, still hope. We’ll unpick the knots and fill in the pit traps and find a path through.

Only my hand aches, psychosomatic pain where the drip was badly placed. And my womb, cramping, pulling on ligaments, settling, taking my breath away in small bursts like labour pains.

I’m doing a lot of maths and admin, figuring our way through a couple of grand of debt we just found out about a couple of days ago. Stupid auto system errors like welfare changing the fortnight I get paid to match Rose’s and simply skipping payment of a week of rent. I’m making progress, it’s coming together. I can see where the errors are and I’m undoing the auto system and taking it all on myself so I can monitor it for the future. We’ll be okay. We’re not going to starve, we’ll be okay.

The funeral home sent a text to let me know Tamlorn is safe in their care, collected from the hospital. We can go ahead with the cremation any time. Doing it feels like willingly putting my hand in a fire. Not doing it feels like there’s no air left to breathe in the world. I guess at least burns heal in the end, hey.