Tag Archives: death

Learning to live with Change

by . Posted on
02 May

It’s been a long, long time since I have written here.  I couldn’t bear to replace Phee’s gorgeous pic.  It meant admitting that he was gone.  It meant moving on.  And how do you do that?  How do you accept that your best friend is no more?  How do you face the world when someone you love so deeply and wholeheartedly isn’t there any more?

Phee had been my partner in all things for 12 years.  He went almost everywhere with me.  He slept on my bed, curled at my back or feet.  He snuggled under the duvet every morning when I drank my tea.  He ruined countless sheets and duvet covers with muddy paw prints.  He welcomed me at the gate every night when I came home from work or town.  He loved me.  Unconditionally.  No matter what.

And when he died it seemed like a part of me died too.  Because only he had shared all those years before Ged with me.  Moving to Australia, Tamworth, Kangaroo Valley.  He was not just a part of my life, but a part of me.  The better part.  With animals we can truly be ourselves – raw, unfiltered and vulnerable.  He saw my insecurities, grief and loneliness and comforted me.  He shared my soul story and healing.  He was a pivot around who my life turned.  He tethered me to the planet when the darkness threatened to consume me.

He, Baby, Tom, Tinkerbell and I were family.  Now only Tinkerbell is left (and she is cranky, not cuddly!) and I am alone.

Not really.  But the fabric of my family as was has been ripped apart and there is a deep loneliness in that.  Daisy gone too.  When I go for walks now I don’t have the joy of looking for her and seeing her head raise at my call.  I miss laying myself against her flank and smoothing and stroking the short silky nape of her skin.  She brought me so much comfort,  joy and peace.  I miss her so much.

No one who has gone can ever be replaced.  We are all unique.  But over time I have begun to understand that we can love another, love again.  Time is truly the great healer.  That and the tears that have to be shed so the heart can open once more.

Grief is such a long and lonely journey.  It seems incredible that the world can keep turning, that the sun gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night when the one we love is gone.  And yet, the world is still a beautiful place – birds sing, flowers bloom, life goes on.

And one day, we will be gone too.  I think a lot about that now.  Where to be buried or burnt.  How I want my body touched and prepared and by who.  And now, after 50 years of intermittently not wanting to be here, now I don’t want to die (there’s irony for you!)  I don’t want to say goodbye to the people and land I love, as well as this amazing planet.

But I’m applying to have a burial ground where Baby died and was burnt, where Phee used to sit and wait as I sobbed for her.  Where Daisy often hung out with Baby.  I will go there when my body is spent.

In the meantime, I have things to do, books to write, a legacy to leave.  Something that lasts so my life’s experiences have some meaning.

And others to love.  It has taken me a long time to truly open my heart to Goldie and Mudji.  To realise that loving them is not a betrayal of Phoenix.  On the contrary, it is a celebration that his legacy goes on.  And that all that he taught me about love has been embodied.  That will make him happy.

Life Lesson

by . Posted on
08 Nov

It’s been almost two years since my beloved horse, Baby, was released from her pain by Ged and his gun.  Almost two years of grieving.  Brought to my knees by the physical pain of loss, feeling like my heart has been torn in two, flung to the ground by tsunamis of tears and aching, shaking misery at never touching or holding or seeing her again.

I have knelt on my yoga mat with her halter clutched to my chest and wept oceans of tears for my friend, my mother, my comforter, my saviour, my rock.  She was all those things to me.  Just to walk alongside her with her lead rope in my hand, chatting or silent, brought me incalculable happiness.  I didn’t spend enough time with her.  I didn’t make time to spend with her.  I was too busy with renovating the house, falling in love, all the work involved in getting married on the farm, improving the farm, looking after all the other animals, having a baby, being tied to the house and Ben . . .

Poor Baby didn’t get a look in.  And yet when I did make time to take her swimming or stand in the river and wash her down, or give her a bath with shampoo and conditioner, I was filled with a simple happiness and joy.  Feelings that were so rare in all my post natal and menopausal depression.  Why didn’t I realise that I could create feelings of peace, contentment and light-heartedness simply by being with her, feeling her immense solidity and roundedness.  She was an anchor for me for 12 years, tethering me to the planet when my depression and despair urged me to leave it.

Whenever I drove or walked past her I would whistle and she would lift her head and whiffle at me.  So much said in that sound.  ‘Hi. I miss you.  I love you.  I see you.’ So much connection in that simple exchange of love.  Yet she wasn’t a great cuddler.  Normally walked away from me and was hard to catch.  Loved to turn her ass on me and have her put scratched while she swayed against my hands and body, loving the satisfaction of a human scratching post.  She would never let me kiss her soft sweet muzzle.  I would kiss her eyelids and stand forehead to forehead with her.  And I loved to fondle her hairy tipped ears.  I knew every inch of her so well, I can still visualise her beautiful hooves, knees, legs (she had great legs!) soft, warm, rounded coat and body.  The strands of silver in her mane at the wither, the thick tangles in her tail to be combed out with patience and great love.  The wild little plaits in her mane that she and nature created that I would tease out, loving standing with her – another opportunity to just BE with her, forgetting all the ‘to do’ lists for once.

I have been a slave to those lists for so long.  As if achievement brings happiness, when all it does is bring the next ‘to do’ closer.  I haven’t stopped to smell the roses or take time to rest or play for years.  Those are things she has taught me in her passing.  I guess she had to leave to teach me that.  Now I take time for Second Chance who really is Baby come back to me.  She loves to stand and smooch with me and loves me to kiss her muzzle and stand nose to nose, breath to breath, just being, breathing, communing.  As with Baby we stand third eye to third eye, sharing spiritual space.  Chancy lets me drip tears and snot on her as I still weep for Baby and in gratitude that she came back to me in this new form.  This new bay with her pretty, dainty, feet and floating movement.

I have learned so much from Baby and her passing and I have changed.  I have slowed down, become much less impatient, more willing to stop and spend time, more understanding that the lists are endless and always will be and we can only do one thing at a time, and do it well.  And that taking time to play and be with the ones we love is not wasted time, but the most precious time of all.  That is not DOING but BEING that we will be remembered for.

Yes, I want to make my mark on the world, but I have realised that if I can love and be loved, if I can shape and grow a healthy, happy, engaged and engaging child with a conscience.  If I can act with integrity, follow my heart and dreams as well as crossing things off the list, I will be happier and mentally healthier, as well as improving the lives around me.  In fact, by slowing down, breathing and be more present, I and everyone around me are happier.

I am so much happier recently.  I have never known such peace, happiness and contentment.  I have rediscovered music, singing and dancing. I have had time to be outside engaging in hard physical labour and am loving the peace of mind and stillness that brings.  I am more relaxed, less tense, and more aware of what makes me tense and beginning to love myself enough to avoid those things and situations (self sabotage is still pretty strong in me though!).  I am growing older and growing up.

And as I pondered my new-found happiness the other day as I talked to Baby, sitting on the beautiful cedar block Ged carved to mark her resting place, I realised that maybe the ultimate gift she gave me was in her passing.

She gave me the gift of grief.  An opportunity to clear out a lifetime’s pain and sorrow by howling out my pain and heartbreak.  Grief brings all loss to the surface.  It allows us the opportunity to spring clean our damaged souls.  All the heartache and heartbreak I have sobbed for has cleaned me out, cleared out the backlog, detritus and junk creating that eternal melancholy in my mind.  Now I can be happy.

The ultimate gift, the ultimate sacrifice, by she who knew me better than anyone, who came to save and ground me, without whom I never would have found this farm and land which soothes and heals me as well as provides the home I have looked for all my life.  She, who I have known in so many lifetimes, left me in order to heal me.  Thank you, Baby, I will never forget you, will always miss you and will always be grateful for the many and myriad lessons you have taught me – both in life and in death.

Another Rite of Passage

by . Posted on
13 Sep

My parents have sold their house and moved out.  Not the home we all lived in as children – there were far too many of those.  As army brats we moved around a lot.  My parents bought, renovated and sold some stunning homes but we were only in them for a few years, and of course we had our fair share of army ‘quarters’ or basic brick boxes.  And then we had two long term homes.  Shore House where we spent our pre teen and teenage years, in beautiful Bosham.  This was the last house we all lived in as a family before maturity (or lack of it!) scattered us to the four winds, careers, countries and relationships.

18 years ago my parents bought Home Farm House.  I wasn’t there for the purchase or the move – but that’s pretty normal!  Many’s the time we’ve come home for school holidays, half term or an exeat weekend to a new home!  I well remember taking two school friends to Five Trees and spending much of the weekend throwing buckets of hot soapy water on a floor and chipping the plaster off to reveal the 16th Century flagstones beneath.

When I went to Boarding School for the first time the beautiful Hill House, where we were all so happy, was packed up and sold.  I lost my leased horse, paddock, room to roam on Frensham Common where I learned to ride and ice skate.  I lost my freedom, my childhood, my home in one fell swoop.

It was a few years before my parents bought Five Trees and I had some sense of belonging to a place again.  There were only 9 months or so of exeat weekends at my cousins’ house but it was long enough for me to feel like a displaced person and for that to last lifelong.

It would be twenty years before I owned my childhood longed for horse.  And 30 before I finally had the land and freedom I had craved ever since that early loss.  But even with my own home and farm, animals and horses, losing the parental home has me feeling bereft.

In everyone’s lives there are essential rites of passage – adolescence, deaths, marriage, births, menopause, the sale of the family home, parental deaths.  As my parents let go of that beautiful house, pack up their belongings, disseminate their possessions to charity shops and newly rented accommodation while they try and find their perfect new home, we are all feeling the momentousness of the move.

Home Farm House was a home – it was a lovely warm, welcoming house, with beautiful garden and outlook – the product my parents’ hard work.  I have wept for its loss while hoping it brings great joy and happiness to its new owners.  I was devastated not to be able to get back to the UK for a last hurrah with the whole family in situ together for the final time.

But now that the boxes are packed and everything my parents own is gone and I can see from afar that it is just a house.  It is all that they have and all that they are that make it a home.  A home embodies the energy of the people who inhabit it – it exhibits their souls.  So though my parents have critical eyes and voice their judgements freely, from the love in their home, the sheen on the warm mahogany tables, gleaming floors and welcoming kitchen heart of the home, they demonstrate their warm and loving hearts beneath the masks they have adopted and worn so well.

Those hearts and collection of furniture, paintings and household items go with them.  We will always have a home away from home wherever they are, as long as they live.

Those feelings of devastating loss are just a practice run for when they die.  It is impossible to imagine the hole they will leave in our lives.  Not to have them on the planet anymore – knowing us, loving us, judging us, correcting us, critiquing us, sending us parcels, treating us and our children to new clothes, trips, toys etc.

As much as a home is place of safety and rest for the heart, it is the hearts of the inhabitants that makes a house a home.

Death is so final . . . or is it?

by . Posted on
The most beautiful girl in the world
23 Oct

I have struggled so much this year with heart rending grief.  I have been on my knees, literally, night after night and day after day, howling to let the physical pain out of my heart, sobbing like a small child at the loss of my friend, comforter, mother in a past life, horse.  My hands have ached to stroke her body, feel her under my hands.  I want to smell her, touch her, see her, look into her eyes  . . .

Her death and my huge, uncomprehending loss, has shattered all my beliefs, fractured my spiritual compass and left me adrift on a sea of grief so huge and deep and wide that it has felt like I could never navigate my way to calmer waters.

It’s been a year since she went so lame and we realised that we were nearing the end of our incredible and healing journey together.  A year since I began begging on my knees for her not to leave me and started trying to get my head and heart around the inevitable.  A year ago we were dosing her with herbs, performing regular bowen and reiki on her, carrying her food and water to her, and beseeching angels to heal her.  A year ago she was still here.  Big and beautiful (even though she had lost so much weight), fluffy with cushings winter hair that we were combing out daily, wise, patient, kind, always so happy to see me, always such a wrench to leave.  She was on the other side of the property and there was no way she would be coming home although I wanted her where I could see her all day, every day.  In only a few short months she would be on the other side of the veil . . . I oscillated between great hope and conviction that we could heal her and bone rattling grief and fear that we could not and a parting of the ways was inevitable . . .

I can’t begin to articulate what she means to me.  My strength, my rock, my safe harbour, my great love, my home, my friend . . . a quarter of my life has been spent loving her, learning from her, basking in the happiness of being near her . . .

We have struggled over so many things, not least being my fear of riding her and her unwillingness to let me.  Now I know that battle was so unnecessary.  My greatest happiness was in simply walking beside her on the path, lead rope in hand.  We were such good companions, had such a sacred connection, were true soul mates.

And in the end I had to betray her (or was it serve her?) by releasing her from the pain and suffering of this earth-bound life and into the world of spirit where she could run once more, and do her funny little half rear, and be free in the realms of stars and angels to move onto her next spiritual task.

And, still in shock, to watch her burn and to rake up the remains day after day to keep her burning  while the pink petals rained down where she had lain in peace at last.

And then the pain started.  Not to have her, hold her, see her, love her.  Not to have her sweet, forgiving, loving heart reaching out to mine.  To never see her again except in my imagination and the realms of spirit.  And so she has walked with me and beside me in spirit, has watched me cry and always she whispers:

‘Do not stand at my grave and weep.  I am not there.  I do not sleep.  I am a thousand winds that blow.  I am the diamond glints on snow.  I am the sunlight on ripened grain.  I am the gentle autumn rain.  When you awaken in the morning’s hush I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight.  I am the soft stars that shine at night.  Do not stand at my grave and cry; I am not there.  I did not die.’

And I scream back WHY?  I want to know why she left me, abandoned me, wanted to leave me?  Why did she want to go?  Why didn’t she want to stay when everything was just about to get so good.  Ben was going to start riding Tinkerbell, and we could all have fun together – my original family and the new . . .

I lost my faith as my heart shattered.  I could see her, can see her, beside me, but I want her in this realm with me.

Noot long after she died I saw so clearly that she had been my Mother in India and I had died as a child and broken her heart which helped my mind in its travels through the wasteland of grief, but not my heart.  And then a month or so ago I saw just how amazing the universe can be – how she chose to come back to earth for another turn in order to find me, because I was lost, and suffering, and rootless and need to find my way home.  And how she chose to come as a horse because she knew my damaged childish heart longed for a horse and that a horse would bring me peace.  And how events conspired (which I railed against at the time) to bring me back ‘home’ to England where I found her and somehow knew that we belonged together.  And how fraught and tense and difficult our journey together has been as I struggled to control her as the horse she was and she strove to teach me patience, and kindness and love, knowing I would need them for when I was a parent.

But I couldn’t see what she could.  I didn’t know then what I know now.  I cursed and fought her time after time and now I miss her so much.  I didn’t realise that every day, every moment, was a gift beyond price.

I was so lost when she found me.  So confused and loveless and sad and needy.  She knew I needed a family and so she prompted me to buy Tinkerbell and Phoenix and fly my family back to Australia with me (thank you Allens – you have blessed me beyond belief).  And together we looked for home.  For somewhere I could settle and love and be loved.  Everywhere we went I found a bit more love and another family – Attunga, Kangaroo Valley.  Until at last she led me home to the banks of the Ellenborough River and my place, my country, my heartland.

And she oversaw my meeting with Ged, my marriage, Ben’s birth, my depression and its eventual lifting.  And then her work was done.  So she left me.  So much richer, so much wiser,, so much more loved . . .but alone in my pain at her passing.

Can I learn to trust the machinations of the universe, seeing that?  Can you?

One day we will meet again.  As Richard Bach says in probably the most wonderful book ever written ‘Don’t be dismayed at Goodbyes.  A farewell is necessary before you can meet again.  And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.’

Farewell, my darling girl – most beautiful girl in the world – looking forward to the moment when we meet again.  I love you . . . thank you, thank you, thank you x

The Circle of Life

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Our first live twins
09 Nov

The reality of life on the farm is a constant experience of life and death. As natural as each other – essential even, but as great is the gift of every addition to our lives, so stark is the loss of those taken away.

Stardust dropped a perfect baby girl when Pamela last came to visit so we called her Pashe (pasha) in honour of the two extraordinary women who have shared their ‘paca passion with us and provided us with most of our flock.

Then our first lamb appeared.  Another girl birthed on the river bed under the house so we could watch from the window.  Ben is our eagle eyed spotter for birds, birthing, and anything that changes the gestalt!  We were so proud but no longer had she landed than the alpacas told us that a dog was about one morning so Ged got his rifle, sighted and shot it.  But the lambie was gone.

Next we had another little girl lamb born and both Mother and us were so careful and protective and locked them up at night for several days and watched like hawks – so far, so good.

Then Tinkerbell finally unpacked a little white boy on a grey and cold day.  We wiped him down and warmed him up with the homemade rug because he was shivering so much.  We left them alone to get on with the beginnings of life until we realised that Think was off foraging and the poor little lad was still unable to stand.  And when we got him up we could see that his legs were all wonky.  Still, we managed to get him under Tink for a couple of colostrum feeds before she flatly refused to do more.  Her vulva was very stretched and she was clearly very sore so we left her to do her own thing and recover while we took over the bottle feeding.  Firefly slept by the fire inside for the first two nights of his life, then I rugged him up and rigged up the old playpen on a deep bed of straw on the verandah and he slept there for ten days or so.  During the day he was mainly just lying in the sun, healing, and getting up for his bottle.

We even had to take him to Port Macquarie one day because if you’re bottle feeding a baby you can’t leave them at home!  He got passed around from pillar to post and surprised a few beach goers.  I took him to the vet for splinting but after a few days a friend noticed that it was rubbing so we took it all off and then tried a few different configurations before finally those bendy legs started to take weight, Firefly took heart and his Mum had hope.  Then he was back on the boob, off the bottle, and standing on his own four feet (finally!)

We had our first twin lambs but the runt wouldn’t get on the boob despite our best efforts and my first ewe milking (easier than I thought!). We had them in the pen on straw but he wandered outside in the night and died. We should have brought him in the house and bottle fed him but we thought he would be ok with mum.

I have been watching the alpacas obsessively for weeks as we have so many babies due, but last weekend I took off for a couple of hours of chainsawing (the noise of the chainsaw is sweet music to my ears after weeks of 4 year old prattle!) and when I came back one of the alpacas that I didn’t even know was pregnant had birthed and the baby had died in the attempt. A lovely white girl . . . gone.

And every day when I go to feed my beautiful horse, Baby, I wonder will she still be alive? She is in so much pain and can barely walk but I just can’t give the instruction for Ged to pull the trigger until we have explored every avenue and tried everything to make her well. I just can’t picture my life without her in it. And as much as I believe in spirit, as much as I see beyond the veil to the other side, I just want to be able to touch her, feel her warmth, stroke her mane and look into her big, brown, beautiful eyes.

At the moment she resides ‘on the other side’ of the farm and she can’t come home because she can’t walk that far. I know in my heart and soul that when she is gone it will be the thus, she will be ‘on the other side’, exactly the same. She will be running in the Elysian fields, full of life. I just won’t be able to touch her except in my mind, memory and heart.

The longer I am here on the farm, the more ordinary conversational terms have great meaning – bite the bullet, stay of execution, the circle of life etc

Harry is in the freezer and on the table and even I, vegetarian for 20 something years, have enjoyed him. Hector is gone and just alive in my heart where I miss him still. Christmas will forever hold a very special place in my heart and a feeling that we failed him. They live on, these lost ones, that we have loved, however briefly. And maybe, just maybe, we are being trained to prepare for death, to cease to be scared of it, to accept its inevitability, and even, one day, embrace it.

Menopause or I don’t want to die

by . Posted on
15 Oct

Just as I had really started enjoying the summer of my life, with my little boy, my farm, my lovely husband, I turned into a raging Monster with a heart and soul black and dark and thick with anger and frustration.  Then the hot flushes started.  And still I didn’t have the sense to marry the two together.  I blamed toddlerdom (even though I have an angel child), Ged and the world at large.  My marriage almost didn’t survive the onslaught.  I couldn’t believe that Menopause could happen to me aged only 45.  We wanted another child . . . every time last year my period came later and later I was convinced I was pregnant.  I didn’t see the writing on the wall … didn’t even know there WAS writing on the wall.

I thought menopause happened in your fifties, not your forties.  I thought I was in my prime, not starting the steady decline to death.  I thought anything was possible and the world was my oyster.  Instead my ovaries were shutting down, changing me forever from woman to wasteland of broken dreams, lost opportunities and babies terminated before they ever had a chance to become.

Menopause is a bitch.  The mood swings, the violent rages welling up from nowhere, no reason and no way to control them.  The hot flushes which take over and rule my life.  The feeling of being ill and at the mercy of something so far beyond my control as to make me look like King Canute trying to stop the waves . . . The constant pain in my uterus, the grief – the endless waves of grief as I farewell my child bearing years, the little girl I didn’t get to have and hold, the sense of myself as young, that glorious feeling of ripe fertility only possible in late pregnancy, the sense of limitless possibilities . . .

All of a sudden I, who have duelled and diced and danced with death so many times in my lifetime and have longed to fall into his peaceful embrace am screaming and sobbing ‘I don’t want to die’.  Clearly one has to see one’s one ultimate destiny and the steady decline towards it unblinkered in order to appreciate just how precious this life, and every moment in it, is.

After all, we don’t know what is going to happen next.  I was flirting with the idea of getting pregnant again, not taking it that seriously, thinking I had plenty of time . . .

Baby is dying too.  She has Cushings and she is going downhill fast.  So I am also screaming and sobbing ‘I don’t know how or who to be without Baby’ and ‘please don’t go’ and ‘just one last summer together please’.  I’m letting go of babies real and ethereal – those who are and those who were never meant to be . . .

You see, I was so busy being busy, so determinedly procrastinating, saving the fun and enjoyment and play til some  ‘later’ in the ever diminishing future when all the work is done that I didn’t realise that we have to have fun NOW because we just don’t know what tomorrow may bring and the greatest gift we can give anyone, can share with anyone, can spend is TIME.  Sweet, precious, limited, ever ticking time.

Like Peter Pan before me, I never wanted to grow up.  I succeeded pretty well.  I only ever thought of myself as grown up last year and now it appears I am old, dried up, used up, washed up.  Old before my time with creaking joints and sore, tired muscles and wrinkles like clothes left too long in the dryer.

I didn’t know this was around the corner.  I never imagined how debilitating, depressing and daunting this particular female rite of passage could be.  It feels like transition in labour – totally out of control, completely uncomfortable, sick making, overwhelming and I’m trying to stand on the merry go round, yelling ‘I didn’t sign up for this, let me off!’

Why the code of silence Women?  Why don’t we talk about this, map the stages and ages of our ovaries and life’s passages so we know what to expect, when and how to wear and bear it.

The addict in me is appalled at how many pills I am taking at the moment.  And how many I seem to need.  My naturopath says ‘why not?’ and ‘stop fighting it, this is beyond your control.’  But really I would rather just ride it out and get it over with.  But I can’t.  I have a little boy to look after.  A little boy of three who knows what a hot flush is, where the fan is, and hates having to have all the car windows open while I ride one out.

I have to try and manage and mitigate and massage some of my moods into something resembling normality.  For my own sanity.  For my child’s future psychological health.  For Ged’s peace of mind.  If only I could sleep how much better would all our lives be . . .

I completely understand why my Mother’s generation took HRT.  Instead I am on red clover, licorice, zizyphus, vitamin E, iron, B6, zinc, st john’s wort, the occasional kava, some sort of anti stress pill and who knows what from my acupuncturist.  The grief I can handle, the physical symptoms are driving me mad . . .

No man could handle menopause.  No woman ought to have to.  It’s too much, too soon, I’m not ready, can’t cope and don’t want to die . . . .

A Musing on the Meaning of Life

by . Posted on
15 Mar

We almost lost my niece, Isabel, a week or so ago.  She was very ill with what everyone thought was a tummy bug, but Millie was worried and took her to hospital after two days of throwing up and tummy pains.  By the time the specialist decided to operate and got in there, her appendix had burst and it was all apparently a horrible mess.  After the op she just kept on throwing up and she seemed to be fading.  Ged and I got our hands to work sending Reiki and we both got that she was going to die.  I can’t begin to express how precious Issy is in the family – the only grandchild for my parents before Ben came along  but she has held the honoured, and probably onerous, position of only grandchild for over 10 years now.  Of course she is spoilt, and like all kids she can be a proper little madam, but for Millie and Phil she was the first and as it turned out, the one and only, of the family they had dreamed of (and there’s a helluva lot of heartbreak there), for my Mother she has been the longed for grandchild and I am sure a chance to be a better grandmother than she was mother, and for Melissa the closest it seems she will ever get to having a child, and for me, the hope of a happy child in our family.

Anyway, she almost left us and I could see, in my mind’s eye, the horror and the shattering grief and the hole in all our lives which would be left if she departed and I remember being frantic that she must stay and saying over and over again ‘You’re not going to die, Issy, you’re going to be fine’ but with this cold hand of dread clutching at my heart.

She was, is, fine.  she turned the corner and now she is home and well.  But we are changed.  All of a sudden death came knocking at the door of our lives and a shiver ran through our family.

We all take everyone and everything around us for granted yet nothing is guaranteed.  We moan about the facets of our lives which are too much like hard work but we don’t excise them.  We think life is meant to be hard or a struggle or about acquisition but it’s NOT.  It’s about the heart, about love, about joy, about sharing.  About the miracles that abound every day that we are too busy to see . . .and yet, even having had this revelation, I have slipped back into my own man-made monotony and material world.  WHY?  Why are we so shallow, so caught up in our own emotional ebbs and flows and not centred on joy and happiness and concentrating on that, allowing that in.

I feel like I don’t KNOW how to be happy, that I am always looking for what is WRONG, not what is RIGHT, and GOOD and LOVING.  That’s my family background of constant criticism and nit-picking STILL running the program of my life.  How do I let it go.  Just let it go . . . just hand it over to God and he/she tosses them into the brazier behind and they are gone . . . ashes to ashes, dust to dust, embers sparking against the celestial sky.  Phew, I feel lighter already . . . now can I embrace my life, open my heart to those who love me and be free, happy, joyful . . . we shall see . . .