Your 35th birthday is coming up on Saturday 23rd April 2011

Hello Matthew,

Here I am again! Not doing too good this week, but that is how it goes some times................

I love this photo of you.

I can see your eyelashes and your fine hair.

And almost rub the stubble on your chin.

Feel the warmth of your breath as you give me a hug...............................

I miss you.

Sometimes something triggers the underground well of grief, and on Sunday evening I was in church with your dad, when I became aware of the blue flashing lights of emergency vehicles shining in through one of the windows.

It was a trigger.

8.40pm on a Sunday evening is the time we will never forget.

And we were in church then too.

So seeing those lights, suddenly brought the memory of that other fateful night back to the fore....

And as the last song began, it happened to be the one we sang at your Thanksgiving.

I simply felt the whole floodgates open and I sobbed, until I could sob no more. The pain was as overwhelming as it had been in the days and weeks after you were killed.

It was so immediate and real.

I love you so much, and miss you so much it cannot be measured.

So as always after that happens, and the pain has burnt itself out for awhile, I am exhausted. Even now, after 4 and a half years.

But I know it will always be so.

Most of the time I can get on with living, and remember you with a smile, and enjoy the world around me. Meeting friends, gardening, reading, the everyday routines which are part of daily life, still making progress with my French, which I began when I thought one day you would end up working in a French speaking country.

You would be amazed now Matt, at how well I can converse!

A lot has happened again since your last birthday.

Grandad's funeral, James's wedding, your Uncle Andrew's Ordination as a Baptist minister, and now your brother is going to be a dad!

And I am going to be "Granny Sellers" !!

And your dad a grandad!!

You would've been a brilliant uncle.

Next week we will all be at the wedding of your cousin Sarah in Skipton. Another special

day without you.......................................

And oh, Matt, how you would've loved the spring sunshine we are having just now. The cherry trees have never looked so beautiful, the back birch tree is in leaf, and in the grounds of the school opposite here, a lovely white flowering cherry planted in your memory, blossomed early.

The birds are in full voice.................................

I miss you. Forever

Your mumxx