Author: Oana

On Death

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I have been talking a lot about death this week. And to me, that is natural now. I do not talk about death in a morbid and obsessive way, as some might think. Death pops up in my conversations. In my blog posts. On my Facebook. And since my son is dead, I do not mind talking about the subject. It is my way of keeping my son alive, paradoxical as it may sound. This week, Lexi, another beautiful bereaved mummy, agreed to publish Georgie’s story on her baby loss blog. Of course, death was part of the story, as it is part of every baby loss story on her website. This week, I had lunch with an amazing woman who had spent some of her youth nursing abandoned Romanian AIDS babies not back to health, as she would have wished but onto death. And of course, we talked about pain and death and the great privilege of looking after precious souls so close to their passing into eternity hour and the love we feel …

How Heaven will be like…

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Thoughts of Heaven have been filling my head lately. Following Georgie’s death, I deconstructed everything that I was told to believe in. Slowly, slowly, a new perception and world view have emerged. I have reconstructed the world through the prism of our loss. The world needs to make sense to me as it stands now, a world where loss and pain are very real. There is a word we have in Romanian, “dor”. A word very hard to translate. It is more than missing. It is more than yearning for someone. It is that deep, deep longing in one’s heart that can never be satisfied once someone you love passes away. I miss my son. I yearn for his presence. I long to be with him. My being is at times struck down, literally, with the burden of loss. So Heaven as it was portrayed to me in church, as I was growing up, does not make sense anymore. We were created unique and savagely independent and in need of expression. So you know what …

A weekend in Bray, county Wicklow

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We are definitely enjoying our weekends together at the moment! To the point that we plan the following before the present is over, sort of thing :-). We enjoyed our Armagh trip so much so that as soon as we got home, we had to book through our next one straight away, through Lidl breaks! This time, it had to be the south of Ireland and Bray. Alex has particularly enjoyed the challenge of putting together fun things we could do and this time, he had a whole list, bullet points and all! Very organised and much appreciated, as the homework saved us a lot of legwork and stress upon arrival and pointed us in the right directions. According to his well-documented research, Bray’s Saturday farm market was worth a visit so that is where we started. Alex’s research was spot on accurate, loads of organic and sensibly priced local produce and lovely treats to be had! We loved the brand new, homemade hot chocolate stall: the Madagascar cocoa, the organic local milk and the …

A day out in county Armagh

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We really enjoyed the last weekend. So much so that we couldn’t wait for this one to come around! This time, we decided to head towards Armagh, it has been ages since I was that way and Alex came up with a very well-documented plan of action which we followed loosely 😉 Our first stop was Portadown, I hadn’t been before but I was really keen to go as that is where BittyButton has its shop. I had known of BittyButton since it was a one woman operation with a small Facebook page. Emma had a personalised hat made when she was two by the very kind grandma of the owner. I haven’t taken a photo of what I bought as they were mainly gifts but I would highly recommend a visit, especially if you are into stationery, easy crafts and Christian artsy things. Oh, and buttons, of course :-): We continued on to Armagh after our delightful stop and we took the scenery route as we wanted to show Emma the apple orchards. She …