I’ve written this intro way too many times, trying to get the words out, trying to explain the past few months.

I write, then stop, then try to start over, then stop again. I feel like now is the time for me to get back to it, to use this blog as the creative and emotional outlet that I have always intended it to be, to be a place for me to write everything I wish I could say, when the words just don’t come out, so here it goes…

In October, the woman that has been in my life for well over a decade, the incredible mum to my husband and the wonderful nanny to our baby boy, was diagnosed with bowel cancer, and that’s when our world fell apart.

Tracey was the kind of person that would immediately welcome you in to her life, she was a second mother to me. She ran down the driveway screaming with excitement when we got engaged, she helped me and Shane decorate our little room when I moved in to their house, she was the first one at the front door when we bought our first home, she beamed with pride as we got married and she pretty much skipped to the hospital when Jack was born.

To me, she was so much more than Shane’s mum and I feel so lucky that I’ve had her in my life for such a long time. I was only 16 when I first met her and I remember it like it was yesterday, straight away welcoming me in to her home with open arms. I’ll be forever grateful for what she has done for me, for being a shoulder to cry on when times were really tough, giving me a place to get away, for always being there with a tub of Pringles or a bar of Galaxy. We’ve had so many laughs, so many happy times that I can’t list them all, we’re so fortunate that those good times really do outweigh the bad.

But right now, it hurts, it really, really hurts. How is it fair that we were told that we had a year to make memories with her, only for that to be so cruelly taken from us in just two months? How is it fair that we now have to live without her? And how is it fair that no matter how hard I try, I can’t take Shane’s pain away? How is it fair that I had to google ‘explaining death to a two-year-old’?

She asked me to look after her boys, that they were her world – my god I’m trying my best but it’s so tough. Some days the realisation that she’s gone takes my breath away, and when Jack asks where Nanny Tracey is I feel like I’m being punched in the stomach.

I hate that I had to tell Jack that his nanny isn’t here anymore. Nothing can prepare you for when the words finally have to come out, watching a toddler take it all in.

Sometimes you feel guilty for trying to carry on, but we’ve got to try and get used to life without her. At night Jack shouts up in to the sky to her and it’s starting to get easier to hear her name. I know that she wouldn’t want us dwelling and would want us to get on with our lives, so I suppose that’s what we’re going to have to start doing…

So that’s it, that’s what’s been going on; and if there’s anything I have taken from this, it’s that life is really unpredictable and sometimes really bloody unfair. Grab each moment while you can, and make those memories that will last a lifetime.

WRITTEN BY KARA LONG FOR HER BLOG, MUM WIFE LIFE.

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