26 August. I am grateful for a wonderful family day spent with our child. How beautiful to be with her after three weeks away. Away from life as we all know it. How wonderful to see how much she has grown, how much she has learnt, how full of gratitude she is and how free she has become.
I have been getting many we care about you but we are starting to wonder because you are obsessing a bit and maybe a little odd writing to your daughter every single day looks from my friends. Seriously, every day? Well, I am grateful today to be able to say nah nah nah nah nah. I am so grateful I have written most days (Jem and B did on the days I didn’t) because Kate feels loved. Feels acknowledged. Maybe I should write twice a day?
I am so very grateful to Kate for surprising me by changing my mobile wallpaper to this photo of her and I. I love seeing her everyday. It makes me smile. I’m also grateful no-one has caught me chatting to her yet.
Our local supermarket now has a small South African section. I am grateful for this reminder of when I was little. These caramel creams were my favourite. The funny thing is when I was still in South Africa I hadn’t had them for years, despite them being available. Yet discovering them here, so far away, I ate the entire pack. It seems I’m allowed to here. Because it reminds me of there. And then.
I am grateful for sisterly love.
18 August. I am grateful for a wonderful day punctuated with another serendipitous meeting with fabulous friends from a lifetime ago. For moments that allow now and then to overlap, reminding me how small our world really is. Reminding me to continue to slow it down and rejoice in the little things. Little things like the naughty glint in B’s eye at lunch on realising we were childless on a saturday night.
17 August. We have always been close but I am grateful for the increased intimacy between Jem and I at the moment. It seems she is also feeling the space left by Kate being away and wants to be even closer to B and I. I am grateful for this little reprieve from time. I know how fleeting it can be and will cherish it. I am loving the little air of fragility about us all, and the awareness it brings. Life is precious.
My husband really must love me. I am completely and utterly impossible. Arrogant and self absorbed and really really lucky. Lucky because I have a partner who just gets me and really does accept me. Warts and all. I thought about this particularly this morning as I walked into the bathroom while B was showering to get something. I can’t remember what. Anyway, B loves to chat in the morning, especially when he’s in the shower and he has been sensitive to my feeling a bit off colour the last couple of days. Sooooo, sweetie, he starts. I simply shake my head, without even looking at him. Fetch what I need to fetch and walk out. As if to say, no, not now. Don’t talk to me, don’t engage with me on any level. Not now. He simply carries on with his shower, not offended, not even bothering to comment, not even muttering, bitch under his tongue. Which if I were him I would have. As I walked away I actually thought, bitch, who do you think you are and burst out laughing. Tail between my legs I went back into the bathroom and asked B how the hell he put up with me. He just shrugged. It must be love.
This exploring oneself stuff is very uncomfortable, quite unsettling and very liberating. My focus has been on healing myself, and doing whatever it takes to do that. But its been mostly external. Surgery, medication, whatever it took. An enforced slowing down, being still (ok, well a bit stiller), attempting to reduce my overachievement stress and focusing on all that is beautiful and here and now has helped me heal. But I have very neatly avoided dealing with the why. B knows how wonderfully I deal with things that make me uncomfortable. Not now. I’m too busy, too tired, too whatever. Ignorance can be bliss. Fear is not. I do believe an accelerated growth of cancer cells is triggered by something. I also do believe that with a depleted immune system due to excess stress, lack of exercise, an A type personality, control freakish tendencies, putting others first, a lack of focus on myself created a fabulous environment for the cancer to thrive. And then some. But still there is the why. The pull the rug from underneath me thing that set it off. Because I do believe it is conflict about something. Something that mattered the world to me.The point for me about exploring the why is not to dwell on it but to understand and release it all and move forward. So in the words of another I lovingly forgive and release all of the past. I choose to fill my life with joy. I love and approve of myself.
I rushed in to do a quick grocery shop today and found myself mesmerised by this wonderful older couple. They chatted and discussed every little purchase with much intensity and care. I overheard as she told him she’d found some of his favourite mints which she thought he’d enjoy on the journey home. He thanked her. He wandered off on instruction to return a packet of fresh beans to the grocery section. I must admit I was loath to leave their sweet presence but I had to make my selection and move on. I was down the next aisle when I noticed the gentleman shuffling past heading in the opposite direction looking down all the aisles for his wife. I went back to where she was and told her he had gone past looking for her and should I get him for her. She sweetly told me not to worry and headed off after him. Next I saw them it was whilst unpacking their trolley at the checkout and I had to capture them. I didn’t want to intrude by asking for their photograph. Hence my slightly voyeuristic shot. But it was more my observation of them that I was grateful for today. For a little flash of hopefully how B and I will be one day. They were so caring of each other, it genuinely brought tears to my eyes. On leaving the centre I spotted them again, in a little sedan with the elderly gentleman in the driving seat, as he very cautiously backed out of his parking with his precious cargo. Too cautiously for the lady in her 4×4, who rushed past, hooting at him. This threw him a little. I wish everyone would realise that they too will be elderly one day and hopefully somebody will treat them with care, patience, tolerance and respect. I am so grateful to this wonderful pair for unknowingly sharing a bit of their lives with me today. I will hold it dear.
grace and dignity 