Two years

 This time two years ago my mum had had leukaemia for 19 days. This time two years ago she had had her first cycle of chemo, her hair was falling out, and she was at deaths door. This time two years ago, we were counting down the days until we could visit her.  

I cried on dan on Friday night.  I can’t even remember what triggered it, but I was telling him about the guilt i felt about not being there, over dinner, and got a little teary. When we got back to his place, the floodgates just opened. It’s safe to say that I think even though she’s now well, she’s still taking chemo tablets and we’re still living it. I think I’ve been so busy living it for two years, making sure she’s ok, that my brother and sister are ok, that I literally haven’t processed how I feel about any of it. 

The guilt of not being there will plague me forever, it’s something that will always play on my mind. I know she wanted me to finish uni, that was important to her, which is why I went in day after day, plastered a smile on my face, and spent twelve and a half hours each day looking after everyone else’s family. Her consultant said to her on Monday that I’m a star on the ward and she should be proud, and she beamed her head off and said she is, but somehow in my mind it’s still not enough to compensate for the fact that had I been there i would have made her go to the doctors sooner, and she would have been diagnosed sooner. My dad wouldn’t take time off work to take her, and she didn’t want to go alone, so she waited until she was nearly on her knees.  Then there’s the guilt about not being there through treatment, and her having to go through that on her own. My dad didn’t take time off work, and she often mentions how his visits would get shorter and shorter in length. Five months spent mostly in a room by yourself would be enough to drive anyone round the bend and it plays on my mind that we weren’t there to visit and take the edge off the boredom. 

There are lots of unresolved feelings in my mind about my mum being ill. There are lots of things I haven’t thought about, that I’ve blocked from my mind from that time. I need to address them, they keep cropping up at the most inopportune moments. There are some days I can’t even talk about my mum without a lump forming in my throat. The thought of what could have been haunts me. Especially now I’ve met dan, and found someone I feel I could go the distance with. To think that she might not have been here to see me happy, to think that she might not have been here to advise me about the whole him having kids thing, just doesn’t bear thinking about. That’s the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night.  We can’t even go for a cup of tea without laughing ourselves stupid. I said to her the other day that I wondered what other people talked about because we always seem to end up laughing until we’re half hysterical while other people never seem to crack a smile. 

I know that all I should be feeling is incredibly lucky that she’s fine, and doing really well, and of course I do feel that every single day.  But there are feelings I’ve buried that I need to deal with at some point. 

To give dan his dues, he hugged me, dried my tears, asked me all the right questions, then said ‘are you ok? Is your mum ok, is she doing well? Are all the people you love ok and doing well?’ And when I nodded he said ‘then it’s ok then, everyone’s doing well, it’s going to be ok.’

And you know what? Sometimes that’s all you need to hear.

xx