Nell’s spirit will live on
IT’S the little things in life that Nell Jones’ family miss. The constant reminders are what hurt.
For them, time is no healer. Things only get worse. The grief has been unbearable.
But Nell’s older brothers, Sam and Joe, and father Earnie have unveiled plans for a Garden of Memories at her former school.
“Nell’s passing has been a massive loss to us all, and the more time goes on the more we remember all the little things she did that we miss,” said Sam, 30.
“It’s the silly things, like when you’d tell a joke that you know she wouldn’t laugh at and you’d tell it just because you know she wouldn’t laugh and it would wind her up.
“When you go places Nell hadn’t been to, and you know she would’ve liked them, it’s just a constant reminder that she’s not here to share them.”
Sam added: “School’s starting back soon, she should’ve been going back into the next year and she’d be doing her options and then coming home and telling us all about them.
“It brings this tremendous sadness. You go to her grave and you think ‘How has this happened? How have we ended up in this situation?’ “The realisation of what you have lost becomes more real, but you still don’t believe it – you still can’t believe it. “With time it doesn’t get easier, it gets harder. For the first six weeks afterwards there was always something going on, but now it’s quietened down. “It gives you more time to think about what’s happened and to come to terms with it.” Sam said his family has taken comfort in the kindness and support of others since Nell’s death. But being unable to see her grow into a ‘superstar’ is painful. “We miss what Nell was growing into,” Sam added. “Every time you saw her, she was growing up and she was maturing into this young woman who you couldn’t help but feel was going to do something fantastic. “The greatest sense of loss isn’t what we had, time has already taken that away from us, it’s what we’re not going to have. Sitting there thinking, ‘what would she have thought of this? Or what would she have thought of that?’ That’s what’s hard. She would have been a fantastic individual, she would’ve been a superstar.” Sam, Nell’s brother