It was a week ago yesterday that you left us... and it's been a very odd 7 days. A bizarre mixture of sadness and loss, relief, exhaustion, dazed and confused, fuzzy thinking, floating, numbness, limbo, uncertainty, concern, worry... but interestingly today I felt a bit clearer, perhaps just a bit more accepting of our current reality. I don't know why exactly - is it because it's been a week? Because the sun came out a bit today? Because the kids and I decided it would be a good day to go to Cairns, do some errands and a bit of shopping, and just get out of the house? I don't know...
I thought about you a lot today - while driving, while shopping, while talking with the kids - I'm pretty sure that the full impact of your passing has not hit me yet. I know that I am still 'floating' through the day... but I guess I am beginning to make sense of the fact that you're not coming back. Or maybe it's just today and I'll go back to feeling lost again tomorrow.
Another thing about the last week that's made it all a bit surreal, and perhaps has also helped to ease the complete loss of you is the number of people that have stopped by on a daily basis, the flower deliveries (pretty much every day), the cards, and the emails, and the food (everyday a meal from one of the staff members at school - it's been so fantastic). While there's also plenty of quiet time, all of these things have been welcome distractions and somehow cushion your absence. I know (and have discussed this with several people) that in a month's time or so, when the visitors, flowers, food, cards, and emails have stopped that it will all hit me. I miss you now but I expect that I'll really feel your absence then.
Both from missing your presence, your hugs, sleeping (and making love) with you but also around this place... there are sooo many things that need to be kept on top of and done on a regular (and sometimes not so regular) basis. I had to get a replacement lock today for the shed as the plastic plate on the locking mechanism just came apart. And of course, they don't have just a replacement part, I had to get the whole locking mechanism because they no longer make the plastic ones (I guess they realised that they were a bit worthless because they so easily fall apart). Oh well... at least I got them to give me a trade price. Tomorrow Ethan & I will give it a go putting it back on again. I know I could get someone to do it but I feel like I need to try to do it myself (with Ethan's help of course) as these things have now become my complete responsibility.
Ethan had a bit of a prang - Toyota vs fence - I know that you would not have been impressed, I certainly wasn't. I expect that you would have handled it a lot differently than me (or at least a bit differently as I expect you would have gotten quite angry). While I didn't get angry (just annoyed) I did really try to impress upon him that it was completely the result of him not thinking, moving too fast, and not taking the first feeling of car touching fence seriously. While it's all fixable - and we found a replacement fence board in the shed - he will have to get the car fixed at a panel beaters (who knows what that's going to cost) as the paint has been scratched off to bare metal. It's a good little car and I want it to last for as long as we can make it, so it's got to be repaired and he'll have to pay for it entirely.
It's hard though because I know that none of us are thinking/working at 100% - I certainly know that I'm not thinking straight. I really have to think things through, and double check (especially my emails and my maths) to make sure that I am doing/saying what I had intended to. I'm pretty sure the kids are feeling the same way, they just don't necessarily have the wherewithall to know that's what's happening for them.
Megan made it to camp on Sunday but the camp coordinator called at about 8am yesterday morning to say that Megan needed to come home. I was happy to go out (to Murray Falls) and get her, and understood that being out there was probably hard. She made it through two nights, and it was wet and gray the whole time. The morning that I picked her up was the day of the overnight hike/camp and perhaps that was part of the problem too. But we're all feeling a bit more delicate and vulnerable than usual, and while I would have expected her to carry on under normal circumstances, this past week (and really the past several months) are nothing like normal, really they have been quite extra-ordinary, and I think it was all too much for her. She said that she'd had a feeling in her stomach and a bit of a panic attack when the teacher asked her how she was... but as soon as she heard that I was coming to pick her up she felt better. I know it was the right thing to do.
You know, when I reflect back now I realise really how extra-ordinary the past 7 months of our lives have been and certainly the past 3. The weird thing is how certain I was - really until probably the last 3 weeks of your life - that you would get better. Were we too confident in the Protocel? Should we have tried the Vitamin C regime? Should we have opted to do that first - would it have made a difference? Were we right to keep listening to all the people that said to stay confident, give it at least 4 months, that were able to explain the problems that you were having and the continued deterioration? I have to say, I have been thinking/asking myself those questions all week, and really probably all month but by then it was really too late to make any changes. You know I even ordered (and received) a new bottle of Protocel - I had thought that we weren't going to need it, I guess I knew we had passed the 'point of no return' but I just couldn't bring myself to consciously believe it, or even say it aloud or discuss it with you.
The other side of all that is I keep hearing what my father used to say (and probably still does) - 'when it's your time to go, it's your time to go'... so then I wonder did we get lucky with the time that we did get? Some people (I think it was Gaye actually) have said that we got 3 years more (you know from the first diagnosis) then perhaps we would have (I guess without treatment). But then that makes me think - what would have happened if you had just had the surgery and not had the chemo and radiation? Would your body have been stronger? Better able to heal itself? What if we had moved into the anti-cancer diet and lifestyle sooner? I know - hind-sight is always 20/20
Do you remember saying how you wanted them to put back what they took out? You were talking to me and Jamie, and definitely on the pain meds at that point, but you were talking about your stomach/oesophagus. I know it was hard for you after the first bout and treatment for the cancer, and that your quality of life was really never the same after that.
In looking back, while I know you were here with us which was really good, especially for us.. but if we consider the time involved in surgery, two rounds of chemo and radiation and then the healing time on top of that... and then the down-hill run of the last 7 months - it's been a tough/rough 3 years. And we probably only had 6 to 8 months that we could consider really good. You were really strong though, and you stayed strong and positive, and you just got on with it didn't you - one of your amazing qualities my love and one that I hope I can carry on for you.
It's been really lovely to hear/read all the wonderful memories that people have of you, and all of your qualities that people have mentioned and reminded me about. Greg sent an email and said that the thing he'll remember most is your smile, and how your whole face smiled... you know while I have never actually articulated that thought in my head, I knew exactly what he meant when he said that. And all of your photos are evidence to that...
I love you so much...
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