Today has hurt.. all I've done all day is moan at the boys for being kids! I'm blaming the surge of hormones my poor body has had to endure because of this bloody implant! 😫
I think that's getting me down a little bit too! I know it's "the right thing" for us at the moment because adding another to our brood would stretch us financially and emotionally but it doesn't stop me being broody!! It's not just the hormones either, it hurts like a bitch! The doctor said ibuprofen is off the cards as a painkiller due to the possible issue of bleeding and I'm terrified of taking paracetamol because of the damage it can do to the liver so I'm just fighting through it which is no fun at all, so cue a mummy with a very short fuse!
I did manage to keep my mood at bay for the morning, making playdough for the boys and printing and laminating playdough mats for them, sorting a few "school type" activities and then making lunch. But in between it all I'm snapping at the boys for honestly just being kids and then I get into bed and ponder it all and get sad!
My Mummy and Greg did pop in this afternoon to see Kovu's bedroom and for a natter which put me in a better mood and then we took the boys to get their hair cut but then we had McDonald's for tea (because we got back late, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it) but that ends up putting me in a bad mood again because I feel sluggish! #ihavenowillpower
So then I think ooo I know what will make me feel better, having the boys in bed with me and snuggling with a movie, mummy's pick! BAD IDEA! I picked Beauty and the Beast, why oh why would I pick that?! Feeling as emotional as I am that was a dumb move!!
I'm barely even watching it, scrolling through Facebook and trying to keep my mind off the pain in my arm and then THAT bit comes on and I'm bawling!!! It starts with Mrs Potts looking for Chip because he's run off again and it's right before they all turn into the pieces of furniture/appliances or whatever they are under the curse! This bit sets me off because it makes me think about my babies (I've always been waaaay too empathetic when it comes to movies, even animated, fantasy fairy tales I get right in to the characters 😂) and then I think about them growing up and that makes the tears stream down my face! And then Belle tells the Beast she loves him and the enchantress reverses the curse and the beast becomes a man and all my childhood feelings and memories come flooding in and I could fill a swimming pool with my tears! Mum does know this now but for years she didn't know that as a child I never understood why mum didn't just tell dad she loved him when he died so that he could come back to life and I was so sad that she wasn't with him in time. Now though it's even harder watching it because when I think back to how I felt as a child, it takes me back to watching all the Disney movies with mum curled up on the sofa under a blanket for a duvet day because we were all grieving for my dad. And then it hits me that I'm gonna have to lose my mum too and there's no childhood innocence to it this time around. I can't be the little one wrapped up in my mummy's arms and cuddled until I feel happy again because I'm the bloody adult this time around and it's my mum who's not gonna be there!!! That breaks me!
Seeing her today brings it all home a bit as well because I can pretend when I'm not physically around her that things aren't really that bad and that she's made it this far (10 months beyond her prognosis, flipping super woman!) so she's not actually that sick, but then I see her and see how fragile and weak (only physically, mentally she's a bloody ox!) she is and how old and tired she looks and reality comes crashing down! Eric gave her a cuddle today and as he did he brushed her arm which broke the skin and made her arm bleed and bruise under the skin literally in front of my eyes!! I've never seen anything like it!!! And it makes what is happening, very real.
As I've said before, I know I'm still extremely blessed, and even lucky I would say, because my Grandy, Grandpa and Greg are all going through so much worse, and mum herself of course!! But some days it really sucks and it really hurts! To think I won't have my mum or dad to run to when I feel like not being an adult because it gets a bit much sometimes! And yet there are people out there who could do without their parents so I do that horrible self pitying thing of asking why me?! And why my mum?? Why does she have to go through all of this shit?!?! I know that's not how it works and I despise self pity but some days are harder than others and this has ended up being one of those days! We were also discussing the 25th (this year it will be 24 years!) and what our plans were for my dads anniversary so that didn't help (I'm being really selfish this year and using the date to go on a family day out to West Midlands Safari Park but we do normally spend it just vegging with mum to mark the date) but I've decided this year I don't want to remember it. I don't want to think about it because I'm angry about it this year. The boys asked what my daddy looked like (they have seen pictures of him so they do know but we currently don't have any pictures of him up in the house because we haven't got round to putting all the pictures up yet, house in progress!) and when I found some pictures of him it hit me that he'll never get any older, he'll never look old and mum looks old before her time! Honestly where's the fairness in all this?!?!
Anyway I'm tired now, so I'll leave it there.. I think I feel a bit better for getting it out, I'll see in the morning! Here's to a better, less "bat-shit crazy mum" day!
Monday, 31 July 2017
Tuesday, 21 March 2017
This way
At Eric's Christening in Feb last year, my Nan asked the question, in not so many words: which way is worse, losing Dad the way we did or losing Mum the way we're going to?
Well I've been thinking on that question since that day last year. And today I can answer it.
This way is worse!
I don't know whether that's because I was only 4 when my Dad died so I just accepted it or whether it's because this way actually is worse.
People say "but when someone goes suddenly and unexpectedly you don't get chance to say goodbye." Very true. And I hate that fact (although Mum has told me that on the night Dad died he had tucked us 3 in and given us a kiss and said goodbye, I assume I said it back if I was awake and if I was asleep I assume I said goodnight when I went to bed, so I suppose I did say goodbye, I just didn't realise at the time that it would be the proper goodbye!) But this way we've been saying goodbye for too long. Since we were told about Mums prognosis, every time I say goodbye I hug a little tighter and hold on a little longer, just in case. You'd think this was a good thing, that I'm being given the chance to hug tighter and longer, but it's not. Because every time I do I wish I didn't have to!
Watching Mum deteriorate the way she has and then beat the odds the way she has, seeing her really good days and then some not so good moments (Greg is the one who sees it all and I don't envy him one bit!) keeps us all on this shitty emotional rollercoaster that we were put on, on the 4th January 2016.
I literally cannot explain how hard it is to look at my Mum now. I have set the memory of Mum at her 50th birthday in cement in my head because that's who my Mum is to me. That's how I want to remember her. I want to remember her as the Nana whose house we invaded for Kovu's 3rd birthday party (and the others, but this memory in particular) and filled her house with exotic animals. I want to remember her as the Mum who fought my corner with my Uni accommodation, who fought my corner with a certain nursery who nearly destroyed my career before it even began, who taught me how to be assertive and independent because you're the crazy lady who drives to Cornwall and goes to see the Eden project on her own because her man said he didn't want to go anymore, who gave me roots and wings (teeny tiny wings but wings nonetheless!) who let us have duvet days when life got a bit much. There's so much more to my Mum than what is happening to her right now but I'm so scared this is what I'll remember. That her hands are so tiny my child size ring fell off her little finger when she took her shawl off. That her legs struggle to hold her tiny body up because there is no muscle left. That she is the shape of a Bergen because of her tummy (lol!). I don't want the memory of walking in to our home and seeing the figures packed in boxes with people's names on them to make it easier to sort things when she's gone. I don't want the memory of walking back from a quiz while on holiday in Cornwall to see my Mum heaving over the side of her wheelchair. I don't want the memory of watching my Mum having to crawl to the bathroom 8 feet away from her because she was in so much pain. I don't want the knowledge of what happened in that doctors room when my Mum was told her diagnosis. I don't want my boys going through a bereavement like this at the ages they are and then them ending up like me. I'm broken. And I don't want to watch my babies break too.
My hero has already surpassed the expectation of her prognosis but now her Macmillan nurse is talking about making arrangements for the future and we're all being hit by the reality again, and so now we're kind of preparing for the worst, again. We prepared for it last year and it didn't come so now it's like we have to readjust and prepare again.
You were supposed to be old. You were supposed to have a runaway room for my babies. You were supposed to be bag lady at Disney World when we all went back with our babies. You were supposed to carry on fish and chips once Grandy and Grandpa couldn't do it anymore.
For all of these reasons, I can promise you, this is harder.
Well I've been thinking on that question since that day last year. And today I can answer it.
This way is worse!
I don't know whether that's because I was only 4 when my Dad died so I just accepted it or whether it's because this way actually is worse.
People say "but when someone goes suddenly and unexpectedly you don't get chance to say goodbye." Very true. And I hate that fact (although Mum has told me that on the night Dad died he had tucked us 3 in and given us a kiss and said goodbye, I assume I said it back if I was awake and if I was asleep I assume I said goodnight when I went to bed, so I suppose I did say goodbye, I just didn't realise at the time that it would be the proper goodbye!) But this way we've been saying goodbye for too long. Since we were told about Mums prognosis, every time I say goodbye I hug a little tighter and hold on a little longer, just in case. You'd think this was a good thing, that I'm being given the chance to hug tighter and longer, but it's not. Because every time I do I wish I didn't have to!
Watching Mum deteriorate the way she has and then beat the odds the way she has, seeing her really good days and then some not so good moments (Greg is the one who sees it all and I don't envy him one bit!) keeps us all on this shitty emotional rollercoaster that we were put on, on the 4th January 2016.
I literally cannot explain how hard it is to look at my Mum now. I have set the memory of Mum at her 50th birthday in cement in my head because that's who my Mum is to me. That's how I want to remember her. I want to remember her as the Nana whose house we invaded for Kovu's 3rd birthday party (and the others, but this memory in particular) and filled her house with exotic animals. I want to remember her as the Mum who fought my corner with my Uni accommodation, who fought my corner with a certain nursery who nearly destroyed my career before it even began, who taught me how to be assertive and independent because you're the crazy lady who drives to Cornwall and goes to see the Eden project on her own because her man said he didn't want to go anymore, who gave me roots and wings (teeny tiny wings but wings nonetheless!) who let us have duvet days when life got a bit much. There's so much more to my Mum than what is happening to her right now but I'm so scared this is what I'll remember. That her hands are so tiny my child size ring fell off her little finger when she took her shawl off. That her legs struggle to hold her tiny body up because there is no muscle left. That she is the shape of a Bergen because of her tummy (lol!). I don't want the memory of walking in to our home and seeing the figures packed in boxes with people's names on them to make it easier to sort things when she's gone. I don't want the memory of walking back from a quiz while on holiday in Cornwall to see my Mum heaving over the side of her wheelchair. I don't want the memory of watching my Mum having to crawl to the bathroom 8 feet away from her because she was in so much pain. I don't want the knowledge of what happened in that doctors room when my Mum was told her diagnosis. I don't want my boys going through a bereavement like this at the ages they are and then them ending up like me. I'm broken. And I don't want to watch my babies break too.
My hero has already surpassed the expectation of her prognosis but now her Macmillan nurse is talking about making arrangements for the future and we're all being hit by the reality again, and so now we're kind of preparing for the worst, again. We prepared for it last year and it didn't come so now it's like we have to readjust and prepare again.
You were supposed to be old. You were supposed to have a runaway room for my babies. You were supposed to be bag lady at Disney World when we all went back with our babies. You were supposed to carry on fish and chips once Grandy and Grandpa couldn't do it anymore.
For all of these reasons, I can promise you, this is harder.
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