Things to be grateful for

Although Kayleigh has passed away, I can't help feeling a little grateful about things, even though I want her back more than anything in the world.

1. I know that she is no longer here
I am grateful that I know what happened - think about the high profile stories like Daniel Morcombe and the hundreds of families each year that have children and teenagers go missing. They don't know if their kids are alive or dead. They don't know what was happened to them. I can grieve over my lost girl, they can't. They have a sense of loss, but not knowing what has happened means they can't grieve properly or really move on - they have a hole in their lives that had huge question marks around it.

2. She wasn't in pain when she passed.
By all accounts, because Kayleigh heart failed, she would have been completely unaware that she was dying. and if she was it would have been less than 10 seconds of possible awareness - to her it was probably like going to sleep. For all the kids that have died in horrible car accidents, house fires, beaten up by others - they would have been scared, frightened and in pain - maybe for hours before they died. I am grateful in a way that Kayleigh did not suffer before she died.

3. We got to say goodbye
Those 36 hours that Kayleigh was on life support was hard, but it give give us, the other kids and the family a chance to say good bye, to be there when she breathed her last breath and to listen to her fading heart beat. So many people do not get that chance, they go to bed at night and find their beloved child gone in the morning.

4. We got to know her
So many people that I know have lost children as an infant - some a couple of days after birth, some a little later. We had Kayleigh for 13 1/2 years and am I grateful that we knew her that long. Yes I would have preferred that I was old and grey before she died, but we saw her grow and got to know her personality and watch her as she struggled to make friends and be happy with herself. So many people don't even get this opportunity.

5. She was happy
Kayleigh did not want to die. She had finally got to a place in her life where she was happy at home and at school. She had friends that cared, she felt like things were finally on track for her. There are many suicides each year by teenagers that are depressed and not coping. Suicide is a tragic horrible loss for everyone. Kayleigh had been depressed in year 6, she struggled daily to be happy, but she found what she was missing when she went to high school. I am grateful that Kayleigh wanted to live, wanted to experience life - she didn't want to die.