Wonderland Wanderess

  Trigger Warning: this short memoir contains graphic and candid recollections of a traumatic death.  It also discusses suicidal ideation and explores the darkest crevices of grief.  Some may find this content distressing.   Disclaimer: while the events and scenes of this memoir are all factual, the letters and dates have been fictionalised.  The dates are, however, my best estimate at the approximate point in time when each of these pivotal stages of my life occurred.     "The world was rumoured to be ending in 2012... in many ways, mine did."     05/02/2012 Surely this is a nightmare and soon I will awaken; you cannot truly be gone. I close my eyes and try to envision your once handsome face — those luscious lashes, twinkling brown eyes and gorgeous smile, framed with perfect olive skin—but that face is now gone, replaced with horror and gore. When I think of you, my mind conjures only the image of your battered face, bloody and disfigured; eyes closed, their sparkling ligh

People say, " you don't know what you've got until it's gone" but the truth is, with Brad, I always knew.  The statement,  "True friends are like diamonds, precious but rare..." is so, so very true and it was never lost on me, that Brad was one of my diamonds.    2012 was, undoubtedly, the worst year of my life and the final kick in the guts, just one day before it ended, was a phone call during which I learned my best friend had left this world.  I will never forget the crashing in my ears, the sinking pit in my stomach, my knees hitting the floor as my legs gave way, the unshakeable belief that every person I loved seemed cursed to die.  Life seemed hell bent on slamming me back to the floor again, every time I found my feet. ~ To go back to where it all began, Brad was originally close mates with Dean, the biological father of my eldest son.  Early on in my pregnancy, when Dean and I were still together, Brad often looked out for me, ensuring