The waiting is the hardest bit

[drivin_me_nuts]

rog3k said:

+1 - definitely.

For me, it's not 'cancer' but mnd claiming my wife's life - not long to go now. Your words, Russ have been so real & comforting to me & I just hope I can come out of all this in a similar fashion.

Always here to lend an ear brother PHer. You don't walk alone. We are legion us army who stand, watch and love. We are legion and we carry our fallen. We leave none behind. From the bottom of my heart, my best wishes to you and to a day soon of peaceful kind resolution for your love.

[drivin_me_nuts]

Like most hospices, the Martlets have a 'light up a life' ceremony every year and last night, for th third time I attended one hosted by a local church. These are wonderful little intimate affairs that offer the opportunity to share a few moments of time with those who have also taken that long walk down the hospice corridors.

I remember our welcome as if it was yesterday - the two of us together and then me, some six weeks later walking out the door alone. That was the longest and most lonely walk I have ever taken and one that still feels as if it happened only yesterday.

This year some of my dearest friends have had their 'near miss' with the cancer monster and for one in particular who will be reading this and is about to take the walk to the grave side soon enough to say their own deeply personal goodbye, I say this;

When the pain of passing diminishes a little and the ache of loneliness turns from being an agonising hole into something a little less abyss-like, the mind does indeed move to places kinder and less tourmented. My lass suffered terribly - her dance with the cancer monster was brutal and utterly relentless, yet...

... yet, I recall my lass' smiles and expression throughout the worst of it. Even a blind eye can still sparkle and even a stroke and cancer distorted face is still beautiful and warm and full of love.

The dance we also take, as carers and survivors and as those who stand and watch as lovers, husbands and wives and as children is a dance that can only be endured by the individual in their own unique way. There truly are no words to describe the moment you know that you will never see that person again, yet...

... yet, with time the mind opens up - a fragrant rose of deep scents and wondorous textures; the life lived, not the life lost. I recall so much and in letting go of holding on so tight, for fear of forgetting, I remember so much more.

Thank you all once again PH, for those who shared my journey are still the greatest gift of all of this. Without you all; without the emails, the late night conversations, the kindness, the love and support you all showed me, I would not the person I am today. I have my dark moments and sometimes dark days and there are some coming soon that will be harder than today, but how can I be sad when those around me have held me up when I felt like falling. my deepest thanks and I know my lass, if she was stood here, would say the same. Truly, thank you.

Russell.

[drivin_me_nuts]

Glad to read it's all sorted. When you and one of out lovely PH crew (the skinny one in the F430 with the hohofarkingEssexho santa outfit;) ) wrote earlier this year about his dance it, sent me into a bit of a mental tailspin. It's hard with you guys, you all mean so much to me and the thought that this little fecker was going to have his wicked way with you 'lot' was a step beyond bearable.

Very relieved indeed was I.

As for the Ultima, well it's progressing nicely and will have a suitable homage to my lass when complete. Not too long now, it's been an adventure in its own right and without the committed efforts of another bloody decent PHer would not have been completed.

You're a good bunch you are

[drivin_me_nuts]

TVR1 said:

Well, another little bump.....

Only because I look at this thread every once in a while, as it it has helped me greatly recently.

Here it is again. And I hope you may pass the light on. I'm sure you know who I'm talking about? The Lily candle should be passed on. It never goes out....

Edited by TVR1 on Wednesday 23 April 00:04

TVR1, when I saw this thread appear at the top of my stuff list again it made by heart skip a beat. I've been away from a keyboard these last few days and writing on a tablet is somewhat slow, hence the delay in acknowledging your posting.

I'm glad that in some way this thread offers you some form of comfort. Never in my wildest imaginings (or worst nightmares) did I ever think when I made my first post that it would go the way it did. I still remember very clearly the moment I started to write that first sentence of that first post.

It was, has been and continues to be a journey that every day brings something different. Cancer, the chaos it brought, the realisation of the separation that it was going to cause to us, then to me alone has added so many different facets to my life. Some I have embraced willingly, others still I fight with and still even now wrestle with.

It's the little things that still catch me out. Lily was tiny and when ever I see someone her size and stature and especially with long hair, it sends the pit of my stomach in to some kind of freefall. Sometimes I still catch myself expecting Lily to be in the next aisle of the supermarket, or hear her voice when I open the front door. I guess that some things are easier for the mind to accept than others. For me, it is the most familiar and reassuring that I miss the most.

Looking back now I realise that I 'lost' the first year of my life after Lily's death. I have little recollection of time passing, just me sleeping on he sofa night after night. Many nights I refused to go to bed and when I fought myself to do so, the teddy bears that we collected became the comfort that helped me rest. I would pile them in to a 'Lily shape' and only then could I sleep. Some times, in the night I would awake and the smell of her perfume on one teddy in particular would comfort me in my loss. The teddies still sit there on a chair, watching me now, but as odd as this may read, I see them smiling at me and they offer a comfort that settles the sense of loss into something manageable and in part resolvable. They helped me deal with the hardest of the emotions that came from Lily's death.

I know only too well that there are at least a couple of PH'ers going through the same thing as we did. If they are reading this now, I hope that this long thread offers you some form of comfort and dare I say it support.

I shed an ocean of tears whilst writing this thread. I remember only too well writing many of them standing on an freezing cold bridge between two hospital buildings at crazy hours of the morning. I remember only too well my sense of terror at what lay ahead and my deepest fear of not being 'good enough' or 'strong enough' to be there for Lily.

The worst terror of all - and it was a gut gnawing terror, was of letting Lily down and that somewhere in all of it I would 'break'. There were days that left me in the pit of deepest depression, with unresolvable fear and an all consuming grief at watching what cancer did to her body. But there were also days that lifted me beyond words.

The support from so many wonderful members of PH was immense and is still ongoing in so many ways. I will be forever grateful for the kindness and generosity of the 'stranger' - many of whom will be my lifelong friends. So many good things grew in the turmoil and the tears and continue to thrive today.

Sometimes I write on the cancer threads of PH and there is so much I could write, but I am just one of many that has walked this path. I sense the pain and the fear in other people's words when they say 'my brother...' or 'my wife...' and I want to just reach out to them and tell them that they are not alone in their terror and fears.



As humans we walk a singular path in life. We are blessed when the lives of others intertwine with ours. When we find love, our paths merge for a while and if we are lucky the gossamer threads of love keep these paths close and strongly knit for a lifetime. Sometimes, when we least expected it, the threads of love are not strong enough to hold us bound; when life's circumstances dictate another outcome, our paths deviate. Theirs may go dark and go underground or turn to dust and ours may climb the steepest hill strewn with the most jagged of painful rocks. Even in our toil and our pain at our path, the other path, the one now separate from us, is still there. We keep that path alive. We can pause a while, turn around and in reflecting and remembering, see the joyful parts of the journey now behind us.

We must however remember, that even with hands sore from climbing, with a mind aching in loss, we have to continue on our path. It's our path and one we have to take the lead in and walk well. For each of us it will be different. For each of us it will have shadows and lead us through dark woods, but there will be brighter, more vibrant stretches to where we once more laugh and can relax and be daft again in the ways we once were.

Sometimes for a while we stand still. We grieve, we cry, we mourn. We cannot move. We will not move. We fear that in moving we will forget. Yet, one day the mind says it's time to start again. One day the mind says,

'come on, you've things to do. You can't not do them, you promised. You said you would. Now is not the time to stop, now is the time to move.'

I loved a lass, she loved me back. She died but never is to be forgotten, will never be forgotten. When I close my eyes and reach out my hand. I touch the face that is there before me. It's a face that radiates love and a smile that lifts me from my sadder thoughts and carries a warmth that death could never take.

I was blessed in love. I hope you are to. It is the greatest thing that we humans can ever have. Nothing, no material goods, no 'things' will ever come close to the treasures of this short word with a million million meanings. It sustains us even through the darkest of days and then back into the light of living renewed.

R

[drivin_me_nuts]

It's been a long time since I wrote on this thread. I've written on many others over the last few years about cancer and the horribleness of it all, but for some reason i've kept away from it.

Mainly because, for very obvious reasons it's a subject done and dusted.

But life doesn't do that. It doesn't leave done and dusted and let you carry on unaltered.

A few months ago I remarried. I've been so lucky to find a real diamond of a lass and those on here that have met here, including my wonderful best man and that horrible council baby, know how much I care for her. But cancer is a nasty fker. Even when it takes away from you so much, it leaves a legacy that at times you find yourself not even walking from, but crawling from.

I write this on 'my' thread and not the other cancer is an effing... thread, mainly because I want to be honest about what it's life 'afterwards', the afterwards being in the immediate months and years after loss.

And it's like a bit like this.

Life continues. You learn to live again, to do things first alone, and then, hen you find someone else, once again as a couple. But cancer and bereavement doesn't leave you, well not in the sense of leaving you in a place to 'move on'. Every now and then, no matter how well you feel inside, no matter how 'strong' you feel you've become at handling the massive, massive complexity of the emotions, the visual images that how now become engrained pathways in the brain, and the deep raw emotion that a terminal diagnosis of a loved one leaves you with, every now and then it leaves you back at ground zero.

It could be something as simple as a smell, a touch or even meeting someone again unexpectedly, it leaves you stripped bare and utterly naked to the world.

But if you're going through this, and you've felt the same and it scares the crap out of you, because at times, it does me to, think of this.

It scares us because we fear losing the memories. It scares us because we remember everything. It scares us because we fear being consumed once again. It scares us because we fear we can never let go - or worse, it will never let us go.

But one day, something will shift. It might be a subtle thing, it might be a sudden awakening wrapped up in an 'aah-ha' moment, but you'll realise that holding on to life and death and cancer and pain and suffering is not not the same as holding on to memories.

It will be a great and profound unburdening and a release, where you realise.. you truly realise that to live, to really live, you have to shed, once and for all the negative emotion, the holding on, the fear of losing, of forgetting, and let light and life back into your head and your heart - but especially your head.

You can drive yourself mad with grief. I know, it's one sneeky bugger that is more determined than gorilla glue on plush velvet, but you have to give yourself the chance to live again.

There are a fair few of us here on PH who've walked this path and we each could tell a story of how hard this journey into widower grief is. For them, for you, if you're new to this journey, I wish you nothing but the best. You will come through the other side into 'something'. There will be a something else, part your making, part as of yet, unknown circumstance and events, but you will come through it.

And when you do, you'll stand and look at the path from wence you've come and you'll see some of the most jagged stones life has to place in front of a person, but you will come through. You will. And when you do, if you stand in relief and you feel a weigh lift, that's wonderful. But if you cry in utter grief to, perhaps deeper than every you did before, that's fine to. Because that's the grief of letting go the real pain.

The desolation of feeling lost and alone, is but a part of the life we live. When you stand upon the shore post journey, take the chance to look back at the place of loneliness and instead see all that you were and all that you went through and move forwards again.

GetCarter, I hope you don't mind me posting a link to your photo. Many a time they've lifted my mood in darkest days. This one has become one of real empowerment for me; The desolation of loss, becoming the beauty of the detail of life to be celebrated. Mourn not the lost tree, but celebrate and enjoy the strength of it's legacy.



Sorry if this has come out as an incoherent ramble (when do they not!), but if we who walk the path don't speak of our journeys, those who follow in theirs, feel more alone than they need be.

R