Tye Snooze

We often spend some moments wondering how Tye would have looked and behaved, and if he would have been well or poorly all the time.

One thing is clear, though, and that is how much we would have loved him and taken care of him, however he had turned out.

We would have been safe in the knowledge that there would have been Phab for him to go to on a Monday night (in a couple of years time), and we would have been supported by so many people who knew, or would have come to know Tye as he grew up.

Still, all this wasn't meant to be, and we know how hard Tye's life was when he was alive, and in the end it was all too much for him. At least we did the best we could at the time and gave him all the support and love we could while he was in hospital for so long.

In the end, something had to give, and it was his heart and lungs that couldn't take the strain any more.

It almost ended up with the two of us breaking apart, but we went to Relate to sort out our little problems and came to realise that we were quite strong and supportive of each other really.

Well, two years on from when Tye was born, and a year and a half since he passed away, the memories are as strong as ever, and we are so glad for those. Lots of stuff has gone on since Tye came and went, and we're doing the best we can with all these issues as and when they arrive. Oh, and Christmas is just around the corner, which is always a pleasant time of year, and something to look forward to.

We will be letting a balloon go later, with a little message on it for Tye. We'll put the website address on it too, so if you find it, get in touch.

That's all for now,

Simon & Belinda

What an eventful few months we've had.

The house is having adaptation work done to it to create a bedroom and bathroom downstairs, and it's been going on for two months now, and the web site went down due to a problem with old hardware at the hosting company.

We are glad to say that finally, the hosting issue has been sorted out, and for not much extra per month, a new virtual server has been provided, which will now be backed up more frequently.

We'd love to hear from you all, so let us know how you've been, and if you've missed the site.

It would be great to hear from you all again, so let us know you still visit.

It's getting ever closer to the 5th December 2009, which would have been Tye's 2nd birthday if he'd survived. This will be a potentially difficult period for the both of us, so any words of encouragement, strength or hope are most welcome.

That's all for the moment, and do remember to keep in touch.

Thanks for your support

Simon & Belinda.

Prior to a routine upgrade to one of Daddy's computers, he tried to sort out some things that weren't quite right with the configuration of the machine and unfortunately lost everything on it. This included all of our emails, contacts, videos and much more.

Luckily, we had made a backup of most of the important stuff in November last year, so we haven't lost any of Tye's photographs, but we have lost some of his videos. Oh well, he always looked so unwell in them anyway.

The reason that we are mentioning this to you, our dear reader, is that we have lost any contact details you may have provided us with in the past.

This story, therefore, is a plea to you to provide us with those details again.

Rather than post them here (which you can do if you like - just remember that anyone can see them), please either send an email to Belinda at beli...@needanother.co.uk or Simon at sim...@needanother.co.uk (click the dots and follow instructions in order to reveal the full email address).

It would be so lovely to hear from you all again. Let us know how you're getting on, too.

Good to see that Daddy's still got the attention-grabbing headlines :-)

Well, what's been going on in the first year since Tye passed away? Let's see - Mummy and Daddy's relationship went through a rocky phase, but we've managed to stay strong and keep together. If anything, we've become stronger because of it.

We've become board members of various groups and committees within Castle Vale where we live.

Daddy hurt his left arm/shoulder in January this year, so he's been walking around wearing a sling to rest his arm when he's not driving around, and this has meant that not much DIY or gardening has been done this year.

Last year also saw other bereavement in the family, so it was particularly sad at times, but there were also several times of fun and frivolity too.

We visited relatives in Scotland this year, we've just received a huge Peugeot Boxer van converted into a wheelchair accessible vehicle for Mummy to get out and about in, and we are pending building work to create a bedroom and en-suite downstairs (which will involve lots of builders knocking down walls).

Back to Tye, the memories of him are as strong as ever. Sometimes is feels as if that stage of our lives was just yesterday, other times it feels like it was an eternity ago, and we still miss him like crazy. We've had lots of support from friends, and people who knew Tye during his short life.

We've still got all his baby equipment, toys, clothes, etc, etc, and lots of 'memories' from his life, and we will be creating a 'memories box' full of those at some point in the future.

Well, shame the weather isn't better, but that's a small detail.

That's enough from us, let us know what's happening with your lives. Don't be strangers :-)

Feel free to contact us, and provide contact details for yourselves too (we get free calls to 01 and 02 numbers, so a landline number would be excellent.)

This is a quick update to say that not much has been happening in our little world since our last post. We're doing ok, and the site has had little interest, but that's our fault for not updating it as much.

Just thought we'd let you know how things are doing. Hope you are all well too.

Just a quick note to say Merry Christmas to everyone and a Happy New Year.

We've been having a hectic time of late getting ready for Christmas, and it's even at times got to the point that it feels like we can't be bothered with putting up decorations, getting special food in, etc.

The house is tidy and the decorations are up and there's a Duck in the fridge, yes Duck. Just heating up some Shortbread for breakfast, Simon's Tradition. Then stuff ourselves silly.

We went to watch the latest James Bond last night and Belinda kept jumping, then the credits came up and she jumped again.

We got a lot of cards and thankyou's. We don't have a lot of return addresses, so please use the 'contact us' on the menu and we will get them to you. Thanks again for all your support.

I hope you all have a great day.

We took a moment to reflect on what fun we had with Tye last night, and sang happy birthday to him in our heads this morning when we first woke up (if we had sang it out loud, that would have been a bit too weird and too hard even for us).

Its been a hard 6 months just trying to get on with normal things, and then just duvet diving instead. Grieving is so hard to do. But it has to be done so we have to bubble a bit at night, and there is laughter through the day. Someone just says a little thing and Belinda starts bubbling, then she's alright again. The good days are becoming more frequent than the 'duvet diving' days. We just miss him so much, the next 6 months is going to be harder, because we will now have 'remember when...' days, and as we never had those before, hopefully we will remember the good times. I have so much guilt around not being there for Tye enough. There are also memories of when he cried and we left him so he would fall asleep. Times we left him in hospital to go and do an errand or to D.I.Y. to get the house ready for him when he came home.

We remember all the cuddles, the looks he used to give us (especially those "Oh mummy..." looks), that the time would get later and later to leave him each night, because there was one more thing to do or another kiss bye bye. The fun time we had creating and sharing the Tye Snooze newsletters when he would do something funny. We have great memories in those news letters (see Newsletters in the menu on the left).

How much joy he bought us both will never be replaced and how blessed we were to have Tye in our lives for such a short time was precious.

We're off to visit friends across the road this morning, to have a cup of coffee with Tye's Godparents, and we are visiting his grandparents this afternoon. We'll try to remember all the wonderful times - oh, the tears have started today so let them flow.

It's been a bit hectic around here the last few weeks or so. So much to do, and we wanted the house to look lovely for Christmas, but there's just loads of D.I.Y. and tidying left to do, and we're going to watch the snooker in Telford in a couple of weeks too.

So, let us know how you're all getting on, as we think about you all, often, all the wonderful people that we meet through Tye especially all those other lovely babies. We'll be back in the real world one day to speak to you all. As its just to hard to be around other children at the moment we started to shop at night so we don't see any but we've been out during the day so things are getting better. I just keep thinking it only hurts so much because we loved Tye.

This message (now that I've fixed the problem we were having that stopped people from leaving comments or contacting us) will, I'm sure, be read before too long by most of you who visited our site in the past, so we just thought we would let you know how we are.

It's nice to know that so many of you are thinking of us at this time, as we are for all of you who knew Tye.

Thanks for visiting the site. It means so much to us (Simon might even finish uploading all Tye's photographs one day...)

Simon & Belinda

...what's been going on since you last took a look on the website, we thought we'd just add a quick update on how the two of us are.

We've had good days, we've had bad days, we spent about three weeks in Scotland where we scattered Tye's ashes and we've been down to Portsmouth to visit family and spent a week there.

Apart from that, one of the rooms of the house still has lots of baby stuff in it. We've also popped back in to the Hospital to see another mum and dad with their daughter, and we've also been arguing - well they say that it is part of the grieving process.

We've got to be there for each other, and that's where it is going to be hard. But, we'll try to do it one day at a time for now, and see what happens.

Many thanks for all your lovely comments, emails etc. We have had so much support from all of you. It would be great if you all could stay in touch with us. We'd appreciate that.

Well, that's us for now, speak soon.

Tye's ashes and those of his Grampa Willie have been scattered together on an island on Loch Lomond (near Balmaha) in Scotland.

They were scattered on the 5th July, the day Willie would have been 70.

It was a very sombre day, with many tears from all who were there.

Hi

It's been lovely hearing all your thoughts, views and comments on this web site, Tye's life and his passing away.

We'd like to get you, the dear visitor to add some lovely stories to the site. How? Well, what you could do is add a comment to this story, giving your memories of Tye. What I'll then do is either leave them here, or put them in a story all of their own.

Therefore, you get to put your literary skills to the test.

So, take a few moments, gather up your thoughts and let us have them.

Simon & Belinda.