Wednesday, November 23, 2005


I'm Back!
Not sure if I'm doing the right thing by coming back, but equally it doesn't seem right posting on Ian's site. I don't see myself posting regulary but at least its somewhere to share.

As you can imagine, things have been very much like a roller coaster since my last post. I was talking to my friend the other day and she told me she thinks you never get over losing somebody - it just becomes bearable. I have to agree. I still don't think a day goes by that Donna isn't in my thoughts.

When Donna died we asked the children what they would like to do with her ashes, and they decided to have a memory garden in my Mum's back garden, as that is were they will be living. That way they, and anybody else, had somewhere to go and remember Donna. The garden is beautiful and the children love it being there.

The point to this was that my Mum took some of the ashes to keep, her bit of Donna. Well last week Mum and her sister and niece went to Rome to scatter the remaining ashes. As you can imagine it was an emotional time for us all, but seemed fitting as it was our final goodbye.

We were horrified when Mum phoned later on the day she arrived, to tell us she had been mugged. When she was on the airplane it was annonunced that there was a free bus to take passengers into the middle of Rome as it would be easier for people to get taxis to their hotels. So this is what Mum did - they got off the bu,s had a cigarette, then walked a few feet to get in the taxi. Suddenly Mum was surrounded by at least 7 people, some being teenagers, the others adults. They got very verbal in a foreign language so Mum didn't understand, but got the gist that they weren't happy. They tried to get her case and handbag but Mum would not leave go of them. At which point they began to hit her. People quickly came to help, as Mum thought, but it was the Police. They had been sitting waiting for the attackers to strike, as they had done it before. They were arrested and Mum later found out they were Croatian asylum seekers.

Mum rested for the remainder of the day, and the next day scattered Donnas ashes.