The boys usually woke up for school at around 6:45am. They would have their milk, watch a little Rescue Bots and get dressed for their day. I would take them to their childcare, Continue on to work and Dan would get some sleep.

That obviously didn’t happen and they didn’t wake up at 6:45am. Waiting for them to wake up was absolute torture. I had this huge thing to tell them. This awful thing that I had to try and put into simple terms whilst holding it together. But I also wanted to make the morning as normal as possible for them.

All of a sudden, they came down the stairs. There were more people in the house than they were used to so they instantly had a look of confusion. My heart started racing. I followed our ritual as closely as I could. Sit them down, give them their milk.. and stalled when they asked for the TV.

How do you tell a child that their daddy isn’t coming back home? I had always told them that when Daddy was on a night shift, he was keeping us safe whilst we slept but we would see him in the morning. Now, that was a lie. A big, fat lie.

I don’t remember how I started to tell them. I do remember what I said. It’s still what they believe and any other child who happens to ask is told more or less the same.

“Last night, Daddy was trying to get a bad guy. Daddy got the bad guy but the bad guy also hurt Daddy’s heart. Because his heart was so badly hurt, Daddy decided that it would be better to go to heaven and watch over us from up there. Rather than being really poorly here in earth with us.”

Then those words.. the ones that I can never remove from my memory, nor the image that came with it. The ones that told me Gabe understood. His beautiful brown eyes widened and glazed over with tears, his chin quivering.

“So, we will never see him again?”

He was only 6 years old. He comprehended the enormity of it all. It was heartbreaking. I held my breath and tried to keep it together.

“Gabe, we won’t get to touch him anymore, but we will feel him in our hearts. He’s an angel in the sky now. When we close our eyes, we will see him in our mind. When we go to sleep we can dream about him. Dream of all the fun things you used to do together and how much he loves you. I want you to know that it’s OK to be sad. We can’t be sad forever though. We are very lucky that we had Daddy in our lives.”

Callen shrugged it off. He was only 4 after all. He was just a little too young to understand. This day wasn’t much different to others. Dad wasn’t home yet. No big deal. I’d said that he was going to heaven soooo, that’s where he was. Simple as that.

I couldn’t say anymore. It was too much for them and it was too much for me. A friend was sat with them and took over. The sad thing is, I don’t even remember if I hugged them, I hope to God I did.

Walking away from them was my opportunity to breathe. When I was talking to them, I’d felt like my lungs were craving air that I couldn’t provide. I needed to be strong for them. I needed to show them that I was proud of their dad for “getting the bad guy” and making the choice to go to heaven.

In reality, I know he had no choice. I know his heart was untouched. I couldn’t tell them that though. It would be too hard for them to comprehend. It was too hard for me to comprehend.

I turned my phone on. BEEP, BUZZ,RING…A continuous stream of messages, voicemails and social media messages continued to appear. With phone in hand, I walked out to the back garden to face the days ahead.

Cx