Today is a hard day. This past week has been a hard week. Friday was David’s birthday and unlike him, he seemed very down. We did what we always do, a funny cake, lots of gifts from everyone, animals included and he smiled but not a real smile. We had talked about going out but he had some kitchen ‘stuff’ arriving and so we had a quiet day, together, here on the farm. Went for along walk with the dogs, something I have not been up to for a while. That was good.
We are a small family, smaller now after being sadly betrayed by ‘family.’ It was me they were trying to hurt but as happens, my closer family also bear the brunt of this estrangement. None of it our fault and certainly not my husband’s, as the quarrel that started all of this was between me and my eldest daughter. I am known for my honesty, laughed at in the past for it by the 2 people who accuse me now of being a liar. My eldest daughter and my youngest sister. How easily people change the past to suit themselves in the moment. Keeping my integrity, refusing to lie on an Adoption form was the reason Lisa shut me out of her life. Should I have lied, pretended everything written on this legal document was correct? I don’t think so but I really wished I had been able to, because the result of not lying has been horrendous.
But back to David and the ‘c’. He is very pragmatic, he says ‘we are where we are’ more often than I can accept. Yes we are where we are, here, accompanied by this uninvited ‘guest’ cancer. I thought all of my anger had gone but I was wrong.
I don’t want to be here! Here in this sadness and fear. Here where I can’t comfort the man I love and tell him everything will be okay. Because I don’t know. No one knows.The other morning he came over and put his head on my shoulder and sighed. ‘Everyone is so down’, he said in a much smaller voice than I had heard before. I could have cried. I held onto him as tightly as I could. As you would a child who was desolate and afraid, although I had never seen either of these traits in my husband. But we have never been here before. Here in the ‘we are where we are’. In the world that has been rocked and shaken so that all the pieces of it have fallen out of place. Nothing is normal now. Nothing is okay now. Nothing is safe now.
Until this week, I had never thought of the ‘what ifs’ with any feeling. I had brushed them aside, didn’t want to go there. But now we have to. We have made new wills, necessary because he doesn’t want the people who have caused me such pain, to be able to have anything he has worked so hard for. We have written Wills before but the ‘d’ word was way off into the future. Not close or could be. Certainly not imminent and it still isn’t. But the fact that he wants to put his house in order is scary! Heartbreaking and necessary. I know that.
We lost one of our wonderful cats earlier this month and her brother is pining. The dogs are pining, none of them are eating, playing acting normal.
It is a very sad house to live in today. The sun is out, it is very cold but crisp and I pray for snow. When it snows it is as though Mother Nature has sent it to cleanse the world. Here in the beautiful Welsh countryside, it is amazing to see. We need cleansing. Our little world, needs cleansing. We need purifying from the horrendous year we have had, firstly at the hands of ‘family’ and then illnesses and death and now the dreaded ‘c’.
2016 has been the third horrid year we have had. All we ever wanted to do was love those around us, love our family distant and close. Love our animals and give them a good life and as a couple, spend quality time in retirement, here on this beautiful place we call home. Be happy. This has been stolen from us with the diagnosis David had. But also with lies, deceit, badmouthing and evil people or one evil person who has made it her life’s work to continue where the woman they ‘called my mother’ left off.
Perhaps this will teach me. Teach me not to make plans. Not to be hopeful for the future. Maybe I was becoming a bit smug about living here, with my wonderful man. I don’t know. What I do know is that David has not deserved any of this. Any of the nasty things some people have done to me, therefore affecting him. Done nothing to be where he is, in an illness that we have no idea of the outcome. Here ‘where we are where we are’ holding me while I cry at night. Not only for him but over the past 3 years for what my daughter has put me through.
In my Christmas list, which my children would have written by this time when they were small, will be this.
David’s cancer to be cured.
My little cat Luther to be happy again.
My ‘family’ to see the truth and wake up before they are damaged beyond repair and my daughter understands that accepting the truth is the way ahead.
Next week I hope will be a better week.
Maybe 2017 will be kinder to us. I hope so.
Thankyou for reading x
carolannwright 