July 4, 2009

• Title-free

  It’s hard to know where to begin here.  There has been an awful lot going on.  There is an awful lot that needs doing.

  Firstly, I did have a huge rant about cancer, and put it in protected.  But now?  Oh.  Let’s be open about this.  Let’s quit with the taboos.  I work for a cancer charity (and, on Friday night, before Brownies, I was running round every single floor of the building trying to locate a set of leaflets with the phone number of the youth support line on it.  No-one really knew where they were, so I’ve ordered some).  One of my best friends, one of my fellow Guiders, is dying of cancer.  We’re not talking months here.  We may be lucky and get weeks: but really, it’s no sort of life for her.  So much pain, so much medication, the oxygen tubes, the commode in the sitting room, the constant presence of nurses, doctors, prescriptions, injections, painkillers, numbness, fingers that don’t work, a mouth that can’t always talk straight, lungs that won’t breathe without nebulisers and oxygen.  Em’s take on it is here.

  With all that going on, I’m astounded that I managed to make her laugh last night.  It goes to show you how special our Em is.  She’s of the mentality that, where possible, you keep on keeping on.  Her fiancé (they got engaged three days ago, and the flat looks like a flower shop) looks after her, worries, is driven nuts by the number of people in the place, and is always friendly, and kind, and caring.  He worries so: he has spent the last two years worried out of his mind, but never, ever snarls, never seems to get het up.  It’s so unfair that their life together has been taken away from them.

  I feel selfish for wanting a little more of her, guessing how ill she feels, seeing how much medication she has, knowing that she’s mostly sleeping now.  I am going to miss her horribly.  On Thursday night, I spent a good hour just crying all over The Welshman, and attempting to sort out some sort of perspective.

  On Friday, he got his phone stolen, got lost on his way to Em’s house (bringing the most pretty bunch of sweet peas to add to the chaos of the flat-full-of-flowers), sweated profusely, was pretty bloody angry as he arrived just as I shot off to Brownies: and Em’s Dear Other came out, and said hello to him (TW) while he was sitting on the kerb, and was kindness personified on his (DO’s) way to collect some more medication for Em, and TW went into the flat and delivered the flowers, and, finally, I think, understood how bloody cancer is.  He too got a bit of perspective.

  I don’t know if I’m going to see Em again.  Ever.  I hope I shall.  I don’t want to let go.  I don’t want to have to say goodbye.  Each visit, I need to think to myself that it might be the last.  Make sure that I keep her smiling as much as I can.  Make sure that I am the best friend I can be.  Make sure that, if she died tomorrow, there was nothing unfinished.  Making sure I remember the good bits, and acknowledge the bad.

  The tears, and there’s a hellish quantity of them, can happen in private.  At home.  In the loos at work.  On the tube home, if necessary (which did happen on Thursday).  Surrounded by strangers is about as private as being on my own, after all.

  It’s not time to put the stars out, or pack up the moon, or dismantle the sun.  That ocean and wood, we still want them. 

  In the meantime, go and do something good for someone.  Even better, go and get involved in your local Scout, Guide, Girl Scout, Rainbow, Daisy Girl Scout, Brownies group.  Go offer to help with the accounts, or paperwork.  Go and do an activity that is heaps of fun with someone else’s kids.  Start a living memorial while I can tell her about it: because one thing she loves to hear is that the Guides are having fun, and doing stuff.

  And, on that note, I’ve just emailed to find out about Graffiti Art Workshops, as she thinks that the Guides would LOVE to spend an afternoon doing just that.

  xxx

  • 10:01 am
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