Once the funeral service was over there was a buffet laid on at the Burns Monument Hotel I had asked them to cater for about 100 people but they had to open up another room as almost 200 came back to the hotel,I'm really glad that so many of his friends turned up, there were also some of the lads from his regiment came over from Germany it was really nice to meet them. Three of them Nick, Kyle and Denzil said they would come back and visit, I thought at the time they were just saying it to be polite but true to their word the three of them came and spend New Year at my house, but I'll write about that later. With the funeral over I was at a loss as what to do, I had kept myself busy for the 2 weeks prior to the funeral making sure everything was being organised constantly on the phone, to the army, the funeral director, the florist anyone just to keep me busy so I didn't have to think about what had really happened, but now the funeral was past the reality started to hit home. I tried so hard to keep it together for the sake of my kids as they were finding it hard enough without having to cope with me as well, but sometimes when I was in on my own the fear and the panic was overwhelming, the fear that if you let go of what you were feeling that you would lose your mind, the panic when your heart is so sore it feel like someone has stuck their fist in your chest and you can't catch your breath. They say that grief is an emotional pain but whoever thinks that has never lost a child, yes it is emotional but I can assure you grief is also a physical pain your whole body aches, your heart hurts, your head feels like it is going to explode, you can't sleep because you can't switch your thoughts off so you keep the T.V.on all night to try and focus your mind on something else,(14yrs down the road I still sleep with the T.V. on as I never allow myself to be in total silence for fear of where my mind may take me) which leaves you Physically exhausted. Unless you have been there nobody can understand that black hole you are in. You watch the world going by and you get angry because you can't understand how everything can just keep going when your life has came to an abrupt halt. You don't want to be in company because you feel you have no right to act like a normal person, because if you smile or laugh or maybe just let what happened slip out of your mind for just a second you feel so guilty and usually end up in tears, and other people don't know how to cope when that happens, so you start to avoid people and end up shutting yourself away from friends and family.