Time flies

I’m pretty sure the end to that sentence is when you’re having fun. I’m not sure the last two years could be classified as fun. It’s two years to the day that my mum was diagnosed. Two years since everything changed. And even now, two years later, and eighteen months in remission, when everything is essentially back to normal, there are some things that will never be the same again.

In some ways I think my mum came out the least affected of all of us. She lived it, she had the disease, she beat the disease, everything is back to normal. She never for one minute thought she wouldn’t get better. She did say there was one day where she felt like she could die, but felt slightly better the next day so ploughed on.

For us, it all happened so quickly, six months of emotional turmoil, not knowing if she was going to even be able to be treated to begin with, not knowing what type of leukaemia she had, not knowing anything, and being so far away. Knowing even less than she did because she asked my dad not to tell me things because I knew what they meant.

Today, exactly two years later, my mother nearly set the kitchen on fire cooking bacon for tea. And we laughed like it was the funniest thing that had ever happened. The image of her running out of the back door screaming, with a flaming grill tray, will stay with me forever. My sister and I both think we cry much more readily nowadays. I think we probably also laugh more too. Maybe we’re just all a little closer to the edge of hysteria?

So today we’ve drunk tea, and watched crap tv, and barely celebrated at all that it’s Mother’s Day. Because when you think your mother is going to die, when you know how that feels, every day is Mother’s Day. The weeks when her headaches and infected hand made communication almost non exist were horrific for me, during her five years in Dubai my mum and I were in constant contact, bar those weeks. Even now I’ll text her while I’m in work. I’ll have seen her in the morning and know she’ll be there when I get back. But I know that I also thought that two years ago and if she hasn’t received such swift, efficient care, this could be a very different two year anniversary.

Xx