Sunday 23rd November

I went to 55 today and had a good old cry. Partly because I cannot truly believe that Mum has actually gone. Partly because I am really not looking forward to the aftermath of chemo. Partly because it is really close to 55 being transferred and we lock the door and walk away forever. Partly, too, because It’s so hard not to have my mum and dad around while going through all of this.

It was raining consistently while I was there. Almost like Mum’s garden was weeping too.

In church today, Hansie preached about how we all have these really bad moments and really good moments in life and that we all have to find some way to deal with them.

Sometimes it feels as though God has just given us too much to deal with – but, somehow, we find a way through. And life goes on happening to us.

Someone I know said that she plans to point out to God one day that His version of what she can deal with and her version of the same thing are clearly not compatible.

I don’t know. I think we have just about no idea what we are capable of until we are faced with things that happen.

Losing a parent must be one of the hardest things to cope with. When Mum went, I think we all struggled to cope and to even think about how we would move forward without her. So much else has happened to us this year that I think would have totally shot us out of the water anyway. On top of losing Mum, it’s been almost a situation where one gets punch drunk.

And time does change things, but it does not make it any less of a loss.

In some ways, having lost Mum and then having to sort out 55 have made the cancer thing easier and harder to deal with. So many times I’ve needed to have my mum with me, to pick up a phone and talk to her, to hear her wise words.

As everyone says, she is with me – with all of us. Sometimes, though, having someone in the flesh is what we need to be able to move forward.

And so we struggle ahead. As Hansie says, we cannot escape the bad things. Similarly we cannot escape the good. The aim is to just try as hard as we can to make the good count more than the bad.