Shared memories

My brother came to stay on Saturday night and we had a brilliant time. It was so easy to be with him, there was no stress or bad feeling. He was genuinely wanting to know how I am and he was really pleased to finally see our house. It was lovely.

He's not coping well without our Mum and I'm concerned about him. It's stopped being a battle of who feels worse and who's struggling the most and actually we had a very open chat about how much we miss her. It's the first time we've ever spoken about when Mum died and her funeral without there being a row and it was really good for us to have done that.

Most of all I hadn't realised until I saw him just how important shared memories are. Me and my brothers are the only people who knew what it was like to have our mum and to lose her. It was so lovely to reminisce about silly things that had happened when we were growing up and things we used to watch on TV as a family. We listened to a few songs from when we were younger and both of us were straight away taken back to the same memory. I didn't know how much I'd missed sharing those memories with someone who was there until then. I talk about my Mum often with Paul but it's a bit different because sadly he never knew her; we met after she died. I now feel more strongly than ever before that the bond between me and my brothers is really important.

I now feel like I'm properly back in the role of big sister to two younger brothers. I want to make sure they're ok and I want to make sure we properly keep in touch. I hope Philip will come and stay with us again soon. And in the meantime I can't wait to see my youngest brother Gareth and his girlfriend next weekend.