My friend is alive but ..... there is a part of me that wishes he wasn't. He had a terrible motorcycle accident on Sunday. He's 73 and rides his motorcycle A LOT! He has over 350,000 miles on the bike (named Boomer). This accident caused by another driver, not fault of his own. It happens. Not being seen by motorcyclists is something that is relatively common. This accent has left him very broken and in a state that could be..... vegetative. We don't know yet. His body is broken. Shatter pelvis, shattered wrist. Bleeding and swelling in the brain. So I am grieving. We used to be partners. We dated for 2 years. We did not end our relationship badly, we just wanted different things. We have remained friends. I am grieving someone who is still alive. These pics are from our many cross country road trips in 2012 and 2013.

Why I Created The Lantern Room. 🥰 People often ask me why grief feels so important to me. I think it’s important that I tell some of my story for context 🥰🌱🏮 The truth is, grief has been woven through my life from a very young age. On my thirteenth birthday, my mum married her second husband. Just a month later, he died. None of us knew that years of alcoholism had caused so much damage to his body. Within weeks of their wedding, he was in hospital. His leg had to be amputated, but it was too late. A blood clot travelled to his heart, and he died. Overnight, my mum became a widow. I was just thirteen. What followed shaped me in ways I wouldn’t understand for many years. I found myself carrying responsibilities no child should ever have to carry. I helped organise the funeral and was expected to be the strong one, supporting the adults around me while trying to make sense of my own grief. I was taken to view his body because I was told I was needed. It was an experience that stayed with me long after everyone else had moved on. Just over a year later, my mum remarried and moved to Spain, shortly before my sixteenth birthday. It was another profound loss, and one that left me navigating much of my teenage life on my own. By the time I was sixteen, I was already working in care. Not long afterwards, I was offered a role on a palliative care unit. Looking back now, it feels as though all those difficult experiences had quietly prepared me to sit beside people during the hardest moments of their lives. It became work that I loved deeply. Grief, however, continued to find me. My sister died at just thirty-six from alcoholism, leaving behind her teenage daughter. The grandfather who had always made me feel loved passed away, and I wasn’t told until after he had been cremated. Then, years later, my mum’s third husband died suddenly while they were living in Spain. At eighteen years old, six months pregnant, I flew to another country to organise another funeral. It felt as though I had stepped back into the same role I had been given as a child.

Firstly let’s welcome our five ! New members @Helen Lawrence @Helen Michelle @Bethany Elle @Ana P. @Danielle L 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻 Also thank you @Caroline Fransz for referring i appreciate you taking the time 💜 I genuinely can’t believe how much this community has grown. 🌱 Over the last six months, I’ve learnt so much—not just creatively, but about people, connection, and what can happen when we create a space where everyone feels welcome. 🥰🙌🏻 You’ve been here cheering me on, encouraging one another, sharing your work, your stories, your victories, and even the days that felt a little harder. Watching this community champion each other has been one of the greatest joys of my year. ❤️✨ Smidgen of Calm has become something so much more than I ever imagined. It really does feel like a little pocket of safety on the internet, and that’s because of every single one of you. Thank you for believing in this little idea. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for making this such a kind, creative, and genuinely special place. Here’s to the next adventure together. 💜✨

Oh we are so close to 100 🙈 ❤️ and I am very happy to welcome @Donna Holmes to our wonderfully creative community 🙌🏻 I am excited to hear about how your creativity shows up ? Your welcome to say hi 👋🏻