Josh Clayton's Blog

In just over two weeks time I will have been in my job for a whole year. However around this time it will also mark another anniversary the night that I found out my mum had incurable cancer. I can remember the day well I was at work at the time and my mum had gone to the hospital with her friend to get results back from her doctor she had been ill for quite some time however we didn't know the seriousness of it and she sent me a text whilst I was at work asking if I could come home early that was really out of character for her immediately I knew that something was wrong. I went home with a feeling that the world as I knew it was in flux and changing rapidly by the hour. when I got home the atmosphere in the house was different to how it was when I left in the morning. I said hi to Mum we chatted for a bit and then she sat me down and delivered the biggest blow I have and will possibly ever have in my life again. She told me what the doctors had told her the cancer she had was

I love to celebrate! I love to celebrate birthdays, Christmas, Easter, weddings, friends and family getting new jobs, job promotions and losing weight(not so much of that lately) in fact I'll celebrate anything good. Something that I have been thinking about lately is celebrating birthdays and Christmas. As I write it's only a few weeks away till my Mums birthday it will be the first since she has passed away. This November she will have been 57 years old. Writing this I can't believe what I am writing it still doesn't feel real instead of writing would be I wrote will be. Last year we celebrated what would be mums last birthday we went out shopping and I treated her to some new clothes by then she had lost some weight so we went out to get her a new wardrobe then in the evening we had a little celebration at ours. We always have the same tradition in our house when it comes to birthdays and Christmas we always open our presents in the morning. Shortly afterwards

For my second post I thought I would talk about something that is seldom talked about when people lose some and are going through bereavement the physical effcts and the toll it has on your body. When my Mum first sat me down last November and told me that the cancer that she had was incurable it was my physical self as well as my mental self that suffered. I can remember the weeks after that night I went off eating a lot. When I'm anxious I have a tendency to vomit it has been like that on and off now for the last seven year.  I can remember that it got so bad for a week or two that I would only eat a little bit once a day it took a lot of strength just to eat something. However I was very fortunate that I had a great team of friends, family and colleagues around me that helped me through it. As well as losing my appetite another thing I lost was my hair this was a little bit harder to deal with than losing my appetite. as well as having vomiting induced through anxiet

As I write it has been just over two months since my mum passed away and in that space of time my life has changed dramatically. There are two types of change that I am getting used to. The first change is not having mum here which is the biggest change and the second change is how to grieve. There isn't a one size fits all approach, training guide or instruction book on how to navigate through the mental quagmire of grief I've leanred over the past two months since mum has passed away to make up a strategy as I go along I'm not sure if this is common way to deal with it I've learned that there are multiple ways to deal with grief but the main thing is embracing your way of grief. When my Dad passed away I was always hard on myself for not crying but I've since come to learn mostly from my mum telling me that the way I feel at any given time is normal. I've taken that strength that Mum taught me and am applying it every day. Losing my Dad when I was litt