RIP Uncle

Yesterday was my uncle's funeral. He had MS and lived a relatively short but laughter-filled life. Though the funeral was a sad occasion, it really did feel like a celebration of his life. We had a humanist ceremony because my uncle was not religious which meant we organised and led the whole event ourselves. My dad, who has terminal prostate cancer and is very ill himself, did a marvellous job at opening the proceedings and giving a speech about his brother's childhood. Someone else then talked about what my uncle was like as a young adult at university, then there was a short piece of music that he had originally chosen to be played at his wedding. After that someone talked about his work-life and the ceremony closed with a lovely letter from his wife to him. We then went to my uncle's favourite pub and had some drinks. My thoughts are with his wife and her children, and I am happy at least that we were all able to get together and find positive memories out of such sadness. My previous blog post explains why I was particularly worried about my dad at my uncle's funeral (his younger brother). My dad only got out of hospital a few days ago after an infection, and is at his lowest immunity after his 5th chemo session last week, but still spoke amazingly and wrote a really nice piece for the funeral. He didn't actually cry once but he doesn't always show much outward emotion and says the Prozac is helping him too. After the funeral he stayed outside most of the time to help avoid germs so hopefully he won't get another infection in the next few days. I was very proud of him speaking anyway. Unfortunately my sister has been very bad the past few days and this morning ran away with lots of tablets, razor blades, weapons for self-harm, etc. and left a suicide note, so we spent all morning tracking her down and are currently waiting for a crisis team to assess whether she should be sectioned again. She has only spent four weeks out of psychiatric hospital this year and my dad looks stressed out. My mum and I are too of course; I can't stop shaking. Particularly wprrying is my dad of course. Every time he gets really stressed his PSA level shoots up, but luckily the sun is shining today so he's outside relaxing. I have probably fed him so many cups of tea he will turn into one soon. Will go and make another now.