Daffodil Day

Today is Daffodil Day.  A bunch of bright yellow daffodils delight me in their coffee jar.  They sit tranquil on my kitchen bench.  I didn't have to think about whether to buy them, I knew Daffodil Day was coming.  I know the money raised from their sale goes to the WA Cancer Council, it is the very least I can do. 
Mel bought two bunches.  One for herself and one for a friend celebrating her birthday.  I told her to tell her friend the money raised goes to help those with cancer.  Damien would be proud of her.  Damien has been gone only eight weeks but it seems so much longer.  I still shed tears when I retell his story.  His sad childhood, his lung cancer and finally how the cancer stole his life when he and all those around him least expected it.
Mel and I had hoped to help out at a stall selling daffodils but there were no stalls which needed help.  Maybe I enquired too late.  Anything too hard in my busy life and I find it easier to just put it put aside. Therefore it was easier to purchase bunches of daffodils.  I don't feel bad about it.  Another time, another year we may have the opportunity to help more. 
Mel's online photo album we put together arrived this week.  The postman knocked on my door and personally handed it to me.  What a lovely postie we have!
Mel and I found an online site which allowed us to chose backgrounds, scrapbooking pictures to add and a variety of choices on colours and sizes.  We spent two mornings putting it together.  Choosing the right photos, putting them in order.  Mel choose the colours, backgrounds and scrapbooking pictures.
 It can be difficult to entrust a company to provide what you hope will be a keepsake.  Mel and I opened her photo book together. It was exactly how we had hoped.  The treasured photo book is a delight as it tells the story of Damien and Mel through chosen photos.

Volleyball Illusions

After my Mother died Merv took thirteen days before he hugged me.  He often says very little.  Mostly he says nothing at all.  He may smile, grunt, groan or nod but language seems to be forgotten.
He never said anything when Damien passed away.  When we visit his sister I smile (very nicely) and suggest he says 'hello' and 'goodbye.'  Otherwise he is mute throughout our visit.
Food is a subject which provokes verbal language in Merv.  Cheesecake, apple pie and scones with jam and cream are what I would term, 'reactive words'.  Say any of these words and you will be greeted with a smile and a big YES. 
But I have been duped.  I found out only this week.  Merv is a big AFL (Aussie footy) fan and enjoys most sports.  The Olympics has us up and ready earlier in the morning while I search the app to find the events we want to watch. 
We both love the swimming, diving, gymnastics, track and field and the list goes on.  Merv is rugged up sitting on his lift chair with his feet up.  I duck in and out of the room while completing daily chores.
Now you might wonder how I have been duped (scammed, tricked, fooled) by my dear husband. This is what happened;  We are sitting at the kitchen table.  He is tucked in on  his disability chair and I am perched on my chair ready to get up at any moment to complete more chores or answer the phone  or whatever.  Suddenly Merv leans over and starts talking.  Yes talking, not slurring.  Talking like he used to as if his disability just went running out the room.  What did he talk about?  Himself?  His family? 
Not on your life.  He started talking about the Australian Women's Olympic Volleyball team.  I am sure he could have told me the names of their families, their day jobs and where they live.  He was suddenly a fountain of information.
I stared at him and simply said; "I don't even like volleyball." (Looking at those skinny girls barely wearing anything while prancing around on the sand has me grabbing the remote to change the program).
Then it was over.  Once again he was mute.  I had lost the moment just because I don't like volleyball.  Surely I could have pretended? 

Teary

The young US swimmer who won Gold in the relay with Mark Phelps doubled up with emotion immediately after their swim.  He cried openly.  He was overwhelmed with his team's win.  His elation was heart wrenching. 
I cried with him.  Lately I cry at anything and everything.  I cry when others cry whether they're happy or sad.  I just have tears running down my cheeks, a lump in my throat stifling the sobs.
My counsellor said to me today that's quite normal. 
I don't want to be normal anymore, I just want to be happy.   I'm usually pretty good at being happy but lately happiness is evading me.  I've started looking for it.  Surely that is a good sign?
My counsellor asked me what causes me to cry over Damien.  It isn't like we had a mummy/son relationship, at least not until the last weeks of his life.
I explained that I cry because I couldn't help Damien anymore in the last few weeks of his life.  He was beyond my help.  I'm the type of person to explore and initiate practical things with a twist of celebration.
Like an early birthday celebration or a visit to a favourite movie.  A picnic or family get together, Places and times where memories are made.
But it was way too late.  His health dictated what he could do which was far too little.  If only we knew how quickly he would go.  We thought there was time but his last weeks were within a hospital room.  No one knew, not us, not his oncologist, neither his family or even himself.
Was it the shock of his sudden death?  Or because he was only 35?
It was all of this together which pulls at my heart strings and brings great waves of sadness. 
It is what we go through when a person we know dies. 
What if? 
What if I did something different or why doesn't it seem enough?
It almost seems as if we did nothing at all.

Damien & Mel last year for her birthday

A Duck's Life

I sensed they might just step off the kerb in front of me.  I was driving with caution as I saw their large family test my stopping ability.  The daddy stepped off the kerb followed by his many children and then his life partner.  I came to a sudden halt and hoped the car approaching in the opposite direction would do the same.
I grinned at the family and settled in for the long haul.  It can take a while for ducks to cross a busy road with their tiny ducklings in tow!
With all the sadness, grief and lately home renovations it was a delight to watch the ducks cross safely across the road.  A little big of 'sane-ness' in my topsy turvy world of late.
It's has been a month since Damien died.  Mel is full of grief and there is nothing which can be done but allow her to grieve while I hold her hand and comfort her.  It is essential to grieve, it is the healing process.  I am her mother, I worry as mothers do.  I know she will recover and life will be roses and singing birds in the future but not at the moment.  She is just sad.  Sad on the inside.  I am sad for her.
Damien's cousin rang me during the week and we chatted together.  She mentioned they had found I card I had written.  It just had my name and phone number and stated if I could help in anyway that I would.  She told me she had the card and read it to me and I cried while I spoke to her sitting in my car.  I wanted so much to be able to help while he was alive but it was already too late.  The cancer was too advanced.  I imagined we could celebrate an early birthday or go to the movies but it was never to be.  He was just too ill.  I cried for his life lost.
Recently I buried my thoughts in home renovations.  I have a brand new laundry and a new dishwasher and kitchen appliances.  It has kept me busy from my thoughts but with renovations comes sorting out rooms and displacement of stuff.  We all have 'stuff,' I seem to have quite a bit of it at the moment.  Some of my laundry stuff is still outside waiting to be sorted or chucked.  My linen is still in the spare room awaiting the same fate.  I'll get around to it.
This week Mel and I are putting together a photo book with her precious photos of Damien and herself.  She will treasure it.  She has planned 'Damien Days.'  A time to reflect the things which Damien enjoyed doing, eating or visiting.  I just call healing.
My mind is rather jumbled but the memory of the duck family today brings me pleasure and a reminder that all will be well.  It is just a matter of time.

A Life Lost Too Young

On Saturday 2nd July 2016 Damien, aged 35 left this world.  He passed peacefully early in the morning.  I wish we were there to hold his hand and reassure him.
Mel had visited everyday to hold his hand, comfort him and provide him with whatever he had asked.  I had accompanied her ensuring they had plenty of time just the two of them.  On the day before he died I held his hand briefly and told him to hang on.  Fear vibrated from him after the nursing staff inserted a morphine drip in his side.  I could see he no longer felt invincible.  The truth and reality of the lung cancer threatened him and sadly took his life. 

A life cut short far too early. His oncologist gave him 2-3 months but he took his last breath only 16 days later.  His mother and siblings arrived from interstate the evening after he passed.  No one had expected his death so soon.
Mel was racked with grief as she heard the news on that fateful Saturday morning.  
His funeral was packed full of family and friends.  Mel was welcomed into the inner sanction of his family as she placed a red rose on his casket and her name mentioned many times in his eulogy.  Ed Sheeran's song; 'Thinking Out Loud', was the song played as mourners entered the chapel.  Damien and Mel's favourite song.
Mel and Damien were together less than a year.  Their engagement broken off after only a month but they remained in love as boyfriend and girlfriend.  Their love for each other was the glue which kept them together.

Chilling News

I wonder what the oncologist thought as he delivered the bad news to the young man telling him there is nothing anyone can do.
I wonder if he went home that night and hugged his children with more affection.
I wonder if he warned them of the dangers of smoking telling them of this young man lying in his hospital dying.

I wonder if after he had passed on this devastating news he thought about this young man coughing, spluttering, relying on oxygen to breathe and pain killers to get through each day.
A young man only 35 years of age whose dreams were shattered in a moment.  There will be no more future planning.  All dreams of his future gone.

His girlfriend sits awkwardly on the young man's hospital bed.  The dreams of their future replaced with the fear ahead.  Weeks maybe months of pain before the end.
She holds his hand and speaks kind words but her head and her heart scream in horror.

His girlfriend's mother cries for his pain and for her daughter's grief.
After he is gone how will her daughter cope?

The girlfriend's mother remembers her father dying of lung cancer over twenty years ago. 
Recently she lost her mother.  She relives the grief of her father while still grieving for her mother.

The young man recently spoke with his mother, brother and sisters.  He has had little contact with them for almost half his life but now they are arriving next week from interstate to say hello and their final farewell.

This is not how he had pictured their reunion in his mind.

So much heartache and grief for all.  His family, his friends and himself.
The reality has yet to sink in.  He was jovial last week but now his hospital food holds no temptation.
The cancer continues to steal his life.

I am the girlfriend's mother.

Weeds and Other Interruptions

It's cold here in Perth.  Actually its been colder than usual for this time of the year but the garden weeds are enjoying the rain.  They are growing happily at an alarming rate.  I look at them; I can almost see them growing.  I ponder.  I imagine I am ripping them out of the ground but I go back to whatever I am doing.  It is warm inside and cold where those dreadful weeds grow.
It's almost a month since Mum passed away.  Photos of Mum still adorn the side of my fridge. We are still sorting things out and thinking in the past instead of the present.  I can't think of Christmas or Easter or Mother's Day without her.
I know my Mum (when she was physically able) would be outside ripping those weeds out of the ground but today I have no energy to do the same.
Mel's boyfriend (who she was engaged to in January but decided by February it was all too stressful for her) has been in the local hospital three times in the last month.  He has lung cancer and was diagnosed a fortnight ago with pneumonia.  Due to his cancer it is taking a long time for his body to recover.  He went back into hospital on Thursday after being home for only four days and he is still there. 
I don't know what to make of it.  He is on oxygen and an IV drip. Will he get better or will he just get worse?  Cancer is rarely forgiving.  He hadn't take his cancer medication for sometime and last week he resumed smoking.  I shake my head in disbelief.
I am despondent.   Not for me but for Mel.  She is not good with stress.  Not only has she recently lost her Grandmother but she is now running around and being an emotional kick bag for her boyfriend. 
She rang this afternoon as she often does.  She said she just wanted to cry and like all mothers I offered her what we consider words of wisdom.  We ended our conversation by arranging for her to stay with us tomorrow afternoon for a few days to relieve her stress.  I hope it helps.
Life is tough for many of us but I long just for a few weeks of so called normality.  I hope Mel's boyfriend recovers well enough to continue life as it should be.  He is only thirty five.