Learning to write again

When I was younger my dad always told me I was going to be a writer. I loved to write. I used to write him and my mum letters and stories.  Each time no matter what I had written whether it be good or bad he would say 'Your gonna be a writer!'.  So that was my plan. A writer who would travel the world. Kids were not on my agenda at all. My dad was a great man for giving me life lessons even from a  young age. We used to take walks together and I treasured that time together. Dad used to say 'Life is what happens as your making plans'. It was May 2003  and I was loving my teenage life, no responsibilities, out with friends constantly partying and planning to start college in September. My mum and dad were teenage sweethearts. We always looked up to them and I always wanted to marry someone like my dad in some ways. He adored my mother and she him. They had given us the happiest of childhoods and  shown us what unconditional love was. It was their time now for themselves. I remember lying in my bed and my auntie coming in to wake me to say my dad was in hospital he wasn't well.  He had been pushing himself to hard in work for months trying to save up to take us on a trip.I was instantly annoyed at him for working to hard. Straight away that feeling was followed up by fear. My dad was never ill.  As we drove to the hospital I made my auntie stop so I could get credit and text him, I told him he was so silly for pushing himself to the point of ending up in hospital and that I loved him and I couldn't wait to hug him and had bought him credit as he never had any. When we drove into the hospital I will never forget my mother sitting at the hospital. That was the moment my life changed forever and my life came crashing down around me. No one needed to say it because I saw it written in her face and I still see it now in her face 13 years on. I heard someone let out such a scream that it frightened me but it was me as I met my brothers eyes across the car park . There is no words to describe it.  My dad suddenly died of a heart attack when I was 18. 4 weeks after my birthday. In that moment I felt more 8, Like a small child frightened and just so full of pain. The night of his death I sat and wrote to him and just like I had when I was little and I poured out my heart to him. I read at his funeral. I felt I needed to read to him one last time. Loosing a parent is the most painful and heartbreaking thing life can throw at you. It changed our whole lives. We all had to learn to begin all over again as a family of 4 instead of 5. Those first years were sad, dark and lonely for us. Without family and friends who knows how we would have coped. Loosing dad made us all so much closer as a family and made us appreciate each other all so much more. It made us learn the hard way that life is not a dress rehearsal and you only get one shot. Something dad said a lot. My mother has to be one of the bravest and strongest women I know,  she has come through life's battles  and is the most caring and loving mother and Nana to me and my children. Often when she is with us I picture dad beside her and know he would adore all his grand kids now. You never get over loosing a parent and so really it is only now 13 years on that I am finding the strength to sit and write properly again and try be the writer he always saw in me.
Now that I have 3 beautiful children of my own I feel that time is right and to share my experience of being a parent to children who all have their own challenges and adventures.I want my experience to help others in similar situations and know they are not alone.