A sad time...........

Hello All

Many readers will know from my past blog enteries the issues I have with my family. My life has always been very unstable and I was practically taken in and raised by family friends since the age of 4. I did live with my parents but with a dad in the RAF who was never home and a mother who had no maternal instinct whatsoever. When they divorced 11 years later it was a god send and I found my independence. The family friends who took us in years ago have followed us around RAF bases and raised us.

Their names are Chris and Barney and their 3 sons became like mine and my sister Abbys adoptive brothers - their sons are Dean, Stuart and Mark and I absolutely adored them.

In total I have 6 siblings, 4 brothers and 2 sisters.
Mark - 38 ----- dear friend who I look at as an adoptive brother
Stuart - 33 ----- dear friend
Dean - 29 ----- best friend and adoptive brother
Then there is me
Abby - 26 ----- actual sister
Jessica - 21 ----- step sister
James - 18 ----- step brother

Well on April 1st I had a frantic phone call from my sister to tell me that my brother Dean had gone to pick up our brother Mark to take him shopping, he had walked in and found him dead on his sofa. He was 38 years old. Dean phoned his parents and 999 and had to wait for them to arrive.

He was pronounced dead and from what they could tell he had been gone a few days.......so we have been picking up the pieces ever since. Dean and his family were in a bad way when I saw them the following day, understandably so and it really has rocked us all to the core.

The coroners report came back as 'unexplained death', they have no idea why he passed away or what took his life. Dean said he found him it was a if he had just laid down to have a cat nap because it looked as though he had been moving his living room around.

He was 38. An amazing man who pledged his life to the RAF. He has served 8 times in Afghanistan at Camp Bastian and some of the sights he had to see and witness Im sure must of haunted him to this day. His dad always says if you were to cut him in half he would have bled Blue. He loved his job, his family and his life and we are devastated to have lost him.

He is being laid to rest on May 3rd so at the minute we are all sort of in limbo. His family are having him cremated and then once they receive the ashes back they are going to have a private moment and scatter his ashes in the memorial garden......

He was always the one when my parents divorced who was waiting with open arms whenever they had argued and I need a cuddle to get away from it all. He was my sanctuary and my strength. His kind words, love and wisdom are what got me through some of the worst years of my life.

He will always be my hero and He will be sadly missed

Love you Mark

x x x x