This morning is a most beautiful morning indeed. The sun is high and is centred in a sea of clear blue skies. There is a gentle warm wind blowing and as I sit here at my laptop facing into the garden I can see our small grey cat, poised behind a flower pot on the decking, ready to chase an unsuspecting thrush who is hopping through the freshly cut grass. Yes there’s no doubting that it certainly is a beautiful morning. The scene before me is so simple and yet so wonderfully idyllic.

Only a few moments ago I was standing out in the garden taking in all the sounds and smells of summer and looking at the richness and bounty around me under the brilliance of the morning sun. I stood there with easiness in my heart and a smile on my face. A warm southerly breeze gently swept across my face, filling my soul with a sense of peace – a peace that nature seems so uniquely adept in giving. My senses were soaked in nature’s simplicity and for that wonderful moment of time I was part of it. I was the rustling leaf; the swaying blade of glass. I was the light on the cherry blossom and the shadow beneath. I was just nature and it was me. I moved to its rhythm without thought or agenda. I was gloriously reactive and carefree. I was NOT Neville Sexton – that troubled man. I was outside of him. I had shed him and the lightness was incredible. I was but a feather on the wind.

But then his ghost appeared. I saw him before me, calling me. “Daddy . . . pass the ball! Daddy . . . You can’t catch me!! Daddy . . . . . . I love you.” I drowned in the memories of those heady days where the back garden was our refuge. Where summer evenings, after long days, were spent having BBQ’s and playing in our private little paradise. Games of football, badminton and horseplay. I saw him before me and the tears came. They always came when nobody was around. With the tears the beauty of nature quickly faded from my senses and I stood apart from it. I was outside looking in. The breeze felt chilly and the sun not so warm. Without Craig the good in everything was simply gone.

And so the struggle goes on – the pull of emotions and the tyranny of grief. But like today, there are moments. Moments of reprise. Moments to catch one’s breath and to escape yourself. And of course there will always be those moments. They will grow and become more familiar and the struggle will perhaps not be so intense. There is joy to be had and peace to be found and all I can hope, all any of us grieving parents out there can hope, is that we can find it and embrace it in the face of such overwhelming adversity. All we can do though is take each moment as it comes . . .