I have never been a huge fan of new year celebrations. The only time I ever got tickets for the Edinburgh celebrations was the first time they ever cancelled it due to high winds and when the bells rang in the new year I was sitting on the A71 heading home in a traffic jam of folk who had just left Edinburgh.
The one thing I do stick by every hogmanay is that my house is cleaned from top to bottom, I have money in my purse, food in my kitchen and fuel in my car. Start the year the way you mean to go one is something that has stuck with me and been drummed into my own kids. The food and money thing is to ensure your pocket is never empty and you always have food. I break tradition by not opening my window and door to let the old year out and the new year in but I figured that's ok.
What worries me about the new year is the firsts. Somehow we got through the first Christmas and new year, by supporting each other and trying to do what we could to make everything happy for the kids. Its the first anniversary next month which I'm dreading. We have decided amongst ourselves on a low key tribute to Mark involving the kids followed by a snack at my house. We also decided that an online tribute to mark would be good and would be something that others could post on and would be there for his children in the years to come. That is still a work in progress but will be released or unveiled or something like that, on the anniversary of Mark's death. He didn't have an online presence, despite spending as much time as life allowed playing video games esp champ manager. He detested Facebook or shitebook as he called it but I felt somewhere that others can contribute to would be nice as it would also show a different side to him.
Apart from that we are all muddling through, sometimes it is so painful that it overrides everything else, other times it doesn't feel real at all and there are times when he isn't at the forefront of my mind, but that isn't too often. Mark was a flawed person with a lot of significant mental health issues but he was also the sweetest, kindest and most helpful person there was and he was my son.
