Five and a half months down the line and the numbness has worn off with a vengeance. Reality with a big R. This is it, girl. You are well and truly on your own.
I find myself in such a weird place. I had thought I would be glad to see the back of this year. It's been so very very tough. But now it approaches, I'm afraid, sad and wistful. I'll be further away from my time with D. In moments of painfully blinding clarity, I understand that I am very slowly starting to let go of little things. I'm starting the process of letting go of D, the love of my life, my soul-mate, my best friend, my mentor, the father of my kids, the larger-than-life wild colonial. And oh how it hurts, oh how the knife starts to turn again in my guts. It isn't even a year since he started his first treatment.
And that's another thing. Why do these bally doctors recommend these treatments which we know they would never ever undergo themselves? Why? What is the stupid point? Who wants to spend the last few months of their life plugged into a line of chemo poison, being fired at by a radio beam, having their pain relief tweaked till it starts to play havoc etc etc Who wants that? Am I a ball of fury? Yep, you bet. And it does me no good. It was my man's choice to go through all that, because .........
It is what it is. A crap s****y situation. And it's done. And I have a choice, and I've chosen it. It ain't what I want, to be without my man, but it's how it is. And if it weren't for the kids, I would not be here now, believe me. That and the knowledge that it would be an insult to D not to carry on, that's what makes me put one foot in front of the other.
I never thought I'd survive this far, but here I am. So perhaps in 2/3 years, I will look back and think, 'Well here I am, and I never thought I'd get this far.' And maybe I will find some sort of contentment, and thanks to kindly strangers and a few good friends, I will be properly back in the land of the living.
But just for the record, know this. My D was truly the love of my life. And I will always carry him with me and be grateful for the great times we had, and for his being a one-off, pain-in the-backside at times, stubbornly single-minded, crazy colonial. But, as it said in the hymn we sang at his funeral, 'he was gentle and brave, he was gallant and bold.' And I might even have that put on his headstone.
Little Jen
