Source: Gratitude in the darkness

Today there has been laughter through the tears.

We stopped off at the local village card shop… which is a treasure trove of village shops… from sweets in jars, to tinned soup and banks of funny cards.  It was good medicine to laugh out loud… I restocked our emergency card store for home.

We sat with Mum, each holding a hand, stroking an arm, her face, her hair… recounting funny stories of her, of us… My godmother arrived and joined in with more.

Bambi needed to practice using curlers (!)… she was rubbish, I was marginally better.  She looked like a Japanese Geisha … and we got the giggles. I am sure we may have seen a flicker of a smile in mum’s eyes too…

Over lunch Bambi tried to explain to us what she did – she had a slide show and everything.  Dad and I decided she does ‘crazy shit with straw and rubbish’…. Like new fuels and containers..  something to do with chemicals and microbes and things Dad and I don’t understand.

We avoided the agony of watching and hearing the suction machine and tubes clear Mum’s airways of mucus by laughing at the chronic name of it:  Flaem.

We had a race to see who could find the shark in the picture book that had been left for Mum ….  Dad was slow, Bambi was competitive… and I won! Ha!

We had knowing smiles as we heard another patient shouting at a nurse … adamant that she was being held hostage, that she was going to the top, going to tell her MP how terribly she was being treated, how bad the food was!  It could have been Mum 6 months ago…

Tonight Dad and I had a pyjama party, a cheese and wine party and laughed at the clownish, boyish, brilliance of Kris Marshall as he solved the latest murder in Paradise.

The waiting will continue.  The tears will keep on rolling.  But there will always be laughter to get us through it.
   
    
   

End of life is not pretty. It isn’t a pretty phrase. It isn’t pretty to look at. My initial glimpse had me stop and hide behind the wall and say ‘Dad, I can’t go in’…
The Big Man on arrival home had offered to drive me all the way back down again.. but I needed to do this for myself, by myself. The drive my quiet contemplation time. Preparation time to strengthen my resolve.
I turned to my ‘go to’ audiobooks – The Secret and The Power. Whatever chapter I turn them on at, is always the message I need to hear.
Everything can fall in to one of 2 states – positive or negative.
You can see things as hard or as easy.

You can feel happy or sad.

See a world full of possibilities or littered with obstacles.

Live with an attitude of abundance or see only limitations.

Believe in the best or the worst.

Take responsibility or apportion blame.

Remember the good or hold on to the bad.

Whatever happens tonight, or tomorrow, or the next few days or even weeks, I will remember saying goodbye. I will remember holding both her hands, holding her beautiful green eyes in my gaze saying ‘Mummy, I love you’, telling her about Tom’s bravery and his broken leg, about Willy and his angelic round face sleeping next to mine last night…

I will blank out the rest from my memory and focus on just that bit. I will remember holding her tight and breathing her in…
And I will remember being utterly surprised again by my legendary Dad…. As he presented from the fridge his ‘Hundreds and Thousands Trifle’….
  

Source: A Jumble of emotions

This time last week, I was having bread and butter pudding with my lovely Dad.

This week, we are both going to bed early, 250 miles apart.

It’s times like this I wish i didn’t live so far away from my Dad and my sister.

Will this be the first time we wait for the overnight phone call?  Will it be the first of many?  Or will it be the last of one?

My emotions are a jumble.  All over the place. Sad obviously.  Anxious. Nervous… Relief.  Guilt.  And then back around the merry-go-round…

Was that the last ‘I love you’ I will ever hear from my Mum?    Was my visit last week the last time I will see her alive?  I did wonder when I was there….Maybe that’s why I went back?

The home couldn’t find her DNR this afternoon.  There was an emergency meeting with a doctor to reinstate one….  As my Dad recounted the urgency and panic, I noticed my initial reaction reflected the panic.  Would they resuscitate her if they couldn’t find it?  Another feeling… despair.  Without one, they would be obligated to do everything they could to keep her a live, bring her back to life.

And there’s the guilt.

How can you want your mum to die, to slip away?

Do I want that for her?  for me?  for my Dad, my sister?

Is it because I want her suffering to end… or mine?

If that is true, then I am being selfish… so I feel guilt.

Is she in pain? Is she suffering?  She can’t speak to tell us.  She can’t communicate or show us… So is she suffering at all?

Was she saying goodbye when she managed to say ‘I love you’?  Is that why she held on to my hand for the whole time I was there?  Was she communicating with me then?   Should I go back down South again?  Now?  Tomorrow?  Next week?  Do I make plans or no plans?

So many questions.  So few answers.

The unknown is always one of the most difficult things to unravel.. the hardest to live through.  The question of when will only be answered in the moment that it happens.

And so I am drawn back to ‘The Power of Now’ and the concept of living in the present moment.  There is no point worrying, thinking, or imagining what it will be like or feel like when I get the phone call.   How can you imagine it?  It’s unbearable…so why prolong the pain.  There is no pain right now… only peace.  Tonight she is sleeping.  And so will I.  So will my Dad.  So will my sister.

In one of my Mosaic Classes, we worked with the children to help them move from negative emotional states to positive ones.  We asked them to draw around their hands and in each of the fingers write or draw some things they could do to refocus their feelings. They picked sadness, anger, guilt..I did grief… I just found them in my photo archive… perfect timing.

My Tom Tom.

He is an angel.  A gift from heaven.

Apart from gaining 4 stone during pregnancy, it was pretty relaxed pregnancy.  He started to make his imminent arrival known on his due date.. he took a couple of days to come out.  He came out with one arm ahead of himself in the superman pose – this caused some issues with actually coming out fully and easily, so he was yanked into this world by an army of paediatric consultants suddenly arriving in my delivery suite and then brought back to life by the human angels in Jimmy’s.

Maybe it was that very brief moment in time in the presence of angels that made him as he is.

He was an angel baby.    He slept through the night from 10pm to 6.30am from 7 days old.  He fed for 45 minutes every 2 hours.  He smiled, laughed and never lay down… always on his feet, wanting to run… see everything, smile at everyone.  He eats everything, goes to bed on time, does as he is told (80% of the time)… kind to his brother, kind to everyone to the extend of wanting to make them happy… Joins in with everything.. Loves life.

As I arrived at school, there he was.. on the edge of the astro turf, with his mop of yellow hair, a massive beam on his face waving his crutches high above his head – ‘Mum!!!  OVER HERE!!!!’

He is a glass half full kind of child.  Even with a broken leg which means he can’t do all the sports he loves – football, rugby, swimming.. and maybe even skiing!!!… he still has a massive smile…   As I reach him, he tells me excitedly that he has 8 new names on his cast today and that his new mate Tom is awesome and being so kind to him… he sits with him at playtime when he isn’t allowed outside.

He tells me he can carry his stuff and he knows a short cut back to the car… and off he swings at full pelt down the path… singing to himself.

A fractured fibula doesn’t seem to be bothering him at all!  Glass half full he is making the best out of the situation.

If I was told I couldn’t run, swim, go to the gym, have a shower, drive… and do all the things I love to do and am used to doing on a daily basis, I am not sure I would mirror his great spirits.  I imagine that I would be glass half empty, focusing on all the things I couldn’t do… getting more frustrated, grumpy, scowly by the minute.

Having seen Tom respond so well to his situation, makes me so proud.

I was so worried last week about the escalating rough play towards him.  Despite Tom declaring that the head collision, the tooth imprint in his forehead and the slide tackle in to the railings were accidents… I was convinced there was something worse going on.  I was worried Tom was being kind to cover up what was happening so that football woudn’t be banned… or so that as the new boy he would be liked.

I saw the worst of the situation.  I saw the glass half empty.

Seeing through Tom’s eyes – I will see the glass half full.

He is having fun on his crutches.  He is young, he will mend quickly and be back on those pitches in no time.

He is getting lots of attention and having time to bond outside of the football pitch with other boys in his year group.

He is going to get a bigger playground at some point in the future!  If he doesn’t benefit, then at least Willy will…

As parents, we have put the school under pressure, under a magnifying glass and they have responded accordingly, appropriately, calmly and reassuringly.

After a week of glass half empty… I am half full again.  Thanks Tom.

Writing.

Writing and Running.

Writing and Running and Reading.

One of the most thoughtful presents I received for my birthday was a pair of bookends.

They are beautiful wooden bookends with a space for a photo at each end.  My friend had gone to lengths to find photographs and printed them out to put in each of the ends.  At one end there is a photo of my beautiful boys cuddling and the other a photo of James and I laughing together in woolly hats.

I immediately cleared a ledge and filled the space between the two ends with favourite books I have read and the books I am looking forward to reading, based on recommendations.

I have always been a keen reader.  One of the Big Man’s earliest pet names for me was ‘Wormy Wormy’… Bookworm.  I always had my head in a book… A fictional book.  Usually a murder mystery, forensic science… and the odd period drama or romance..but it had to be a good one – like the Kate Mosse novels – history, love, tragedy…   Even with the start of a family, I still found the time, balancing a book on the feeding pillow (I fell in love with hardbacks during this time, having always been a paperback lover).

As I left Asda to pursue the world as my oyster, a friend recommended I start reading books to grow and develop personally.  Broaden my mind, learn new skills, leadership, mindfulness.

I was dubious.

I was successful, a leader already… I knew my mind!  What was a book going to tell me???!

Oh my ego.

It took me a while to listen.

It took me a while to hear.

It took me a while to actually be open.

And when I did, that is when I found that the world really was my oyster.  My oyster shell opened up and whole new pearly world was lying in wait.

I started with ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne.  I opened my mind to the concept of the universe and the law of attraction… I took it for a test run. Applied it in my life.  It worked.

I was hooked!  If this was a concept I had never heard of in school, in business or in passing… what else was there to learn that would enhance and improve my life?

In just over 2 years, I have switched my fiction for factual, biographical, thought provoking reads… paperbacks and audio books, sometimes both.  Sometimes a Ted Talk or YouTube clip..  A day doesn’t feel quite right if I haven’t done at least a chapter or 10 minutes.

Opening my mind to learn new concepts has been enlightening, fascinating… and by implementing what I have learnt, fundamentally one of the reasons I strongly believe I have been able to deal with the life changing events of the last 2 years – personal, professional, private and public.

Writing as a form of journaling.

Running as a form of meditation.

Reading as a form of growing.

There is something metaphoric or symbolic that the bookends are our family – the parents and the children and in between there are the lessons to be learnt through the written word… of reading, through growing and implementing the lessons…

I fear for my Mum.  She took a turn for the worse last night, her chest infection worrying the medics.  My Dad by her side… she rallied.  She sleeps…   She is safe here and now.

I fear for Tom returning to school tomorrow.  Although I needn’t.  He is having far too much on his crutches…

With no football or rugby or running about allowed, we went to the cinema.

A sweet film with a message I am sure purely for me.

The Good Dinosaur… made the boys laugh… made me reflect.

The little dinosaur, Arlo, is born timid.  The little dinosaur is kept timid by the actions of his parents to protect him.  It is only when his father is swept away by a flood and the little dinosaur is left lost in the wilderness to defend for himself, does he learn determination, strength and the ability to fend for himself.

He faces his fear of the unknown, overcomes obstacles to get food and find his way home.

Before he died, his father had gently coaxed the frightened little dinosaur in to a wide open field and said to him words that have stuck with me..

‘You need to get through fear to see the beauty on the other side’…

As he said that, he swished his tail and out of the grasses floated up millions of glow bugs that lit up the sky… and lit up the little dino’s eyes.  A powerful message and image.

On his adventure to return home, he befriends a family of T-rex who save him from the pterodactyls.  Big Daddy T-Rex had some good fireside advice too…

‘If you aren’t afraid, you aren’t alive.  You can’t stop fear but you can use it to find out what you are made of…’

So while I am worried for my Mum… worried for her fearing what is next… I hear Daddy Dinosaur’s words and imagine my mum in a field lit up with glow bugs… That is totally her kind of heaven…

And while I worry for Tom and the current battle of the boys in the playground, I hear Big Daddy T-rex… this experience will show Tom what he is made of.  I know he is made up of part Mortimer, part Brooks… In my book, there is no stronger character…   But just like the film, I / we have to let Tom overcome his own fears, face his own battles, harness his inner strength and determination and stand up for himself.

Every nasty word, taunt, punch, kick to the goollies and broken bone will make him in to a stronger man.  Stronger in compassion, stronger in will and determination.   Each time he gets back up and gets back in the playground will show him and others what he is made of. It will make him a warrior.

Fighting talk from me… Watching won’t be easy…

I think it is pretty fair to say that this has been a pretty trying week: seeing my mum disappear before my eyes; having the strong suspicion that my son is being victimised in the school playground to the point of suspected bone breakage; and a whole bunch of stuff that will remain in my private journal until the point I feel vulnerable enough to share with the world… It’s been an overwhelmingly emotional week.  The anger has subsided, but I feel on the brink of tears quite a lot of the time…

Life, marriage, parenthood isn’t perfect; as much as the beautiful show-reel of Facebook likes to portray a wonderful world, couples and families… behind closed doors, behind the scenes, there is heartache, shouting in to pillows, at the universe and tears… There are tax returns, bills to pay, dinners to cook, beds to make, piles and piles of laundry, homework and work to do, and even cars to clean.  The dull and the necessary.

But does that make Facebook or social media a bad thing?  This was the thought I contemplated as I ran this morning. (Running and writing – they seem to be my main coping mechanisms at the moment… once upon a time, it was wine and chocolate…)

You can look at the happy smiley faces on Facebook, Twitter, Instragram and other social technology mediums… and you have a choice.

You can look at them and think – they have everything, I have nothing; they are happy, I am miserable; aren’t they lucky, I am so unlucky; they are so gorgeous, I am so ugly; they are so successful and I am a failure; they have everything and I have nothing.

You can look and watch from a place from lack, of negativity and fuel your despair and despondency.  You can compare and see what you don’t have … and keep digging yourself in to a bigger pit of unhappiness.

Or you can look at the gorgeous blue skies of someone’s holiday and think – hell yes – I would love some of that! Let’s plan for it!  You can look at someone’s romantic embrace and think – I would love that in my life, I am ready – how can I make room for it in my life? You can look at long bronzed legs, toned arms and think – I can be like that!  Let’s get to work…   They have an amazing life, how can I get a slice of it?

You can see what your life could be like, you can feel what it would be like to have what you want and embrace positivity, send out the right vibrations and feel good…  focus on making a plan to take you to an abundant life, by being abundant.

Or you can get involved and share what you do have!  See the greatness in your life and share with others to make them feel good… spread your happiness… share your delight in being alive.

Or you can turn it off.  You can live in the moment.  Live in your own space and be grateful for the small things without sharing socially.

I am off to have some family fun… including baking brownies with my boys… we are back on the entertaining scene!