Now nobody panic, I am not announcing my intention to shuffle off this mortal plain, merely my need for a bit of stability amidst the chaos. My blog has always been my outlet, my personal therapist if you please. Yet when times get tough, it is inevitably the first thing to suffer. I mean after all, who has time to sit on their therapist's couch and moan for an hour whilst things beyond their control come crashing down around them? As a control freak, I can tell you that my life is not the best place to be right now and unfortunately no end of 'to-do' or 'to-do later' lists are helping the cause.
I like to think - though feel free to interject if you think differently - that I am a fairly positive person. I try not to let things get me down. I like to look at the bigger picture and I always search for the silver lining in order to maintain perspective of a situation. But this last few weeks that picture has been getting smaller and that lining is fading to grey.
You see, I can cope with Hubby being made redundant. We've been through that before and come out stronger as a couple. And I can cope with our 'new life' being so far away from family and friends. In actual fact, the distance has helped to clarify who our real friends are and which family members we can really on. And I can cope with the fact that our 'new life' may not have yet turned out the way we had planned. Who ever wrote a plan that they then stuck to anyway? But what I have struggled with these last few weeks is the fact that my Gran is seriously ill and I am too far away to be of any productive help to either her or my Mum and Grandad.
My life seems to happen in snippets. Little excerpts, if you will, of the everyday necessities of home, work, dog, college, wrapped around phone calls and trips between North and South, to spend as much time with my family as possible before the inevitable happens. For at 92 years old, I am aware - as is my Gran (and I think that is the saddest part) - that the inevitable has to happen.
Her deteriorating health; heart failure and kidney failure, is hard to watch, so I cannot comprehend what she must be thinking because she is still fully 'compus mentus' and trying to communicate, albeit through somewhat slurred speech and a series of '20 questions' style situations. It is the wishes of her and my Grandad not to be hospitalised, so the Doctor is making her as comfortable as possible at home, with a variety of adaptations, medication, oxygen, inhalers and a concoction of pain relief.
Seeing her at home in this way is tough, not least because the majority of my happy childhood memories are linked to the same house and room that she will eventually take her last breaths in. Selfish, but true.
I cannot type much more, for I am struggling to see through the tears, but needless to say this matriarch has been one of the biggest influences upon my life. She has been pivotal in shaping me in to the person I have become today. She has shown me that it is always possible to carry on when times are tough; that there is a silver lining, no matter how hard you have to look to find it. Only now do I realise that the words I am typing are as true of my Mum as they are of my Gran. So there it is, I've found it, the silver lining; two amazingly strong and inspirational females and although one may leave my life soon, the other will be with me for years to come....as will the advice, guidance and memories.
Love you Gran. x
Tractorloads Mum. x
