One Day At A Time

Now the news has sunk in about Mum, I'm tryng to deal with it one day at a time. I've done my crying and now I'm focused on what's to come - chemo before, during and after; and then hopefully remission.

I feel incredibly guilty about the situation because I've always been a Daddy's girl and part of me feels like I haven't been as close to my Mum as I should have been. It was kind of fated, as my Dad raised me as a single parent, after my Mum left.

While I grew up, he sacrificed a potentially high flying career to raise me, hopefully the right way. He wasn't a soft touch - far from it, in fact I spent half my childhood wondering why following his rules, seemed to mean that fun was in short supply.

It was only much later that I realised those rules and boundaries had kept me on the straight and narrow and out of harms way.  

I've realised over the years, that I've acquired his stubborn streak, random sentimentality often over the smallest things and a tendency to bury my feelings, particularly when I'm hurt - which is why writing is so important to me.  When I can't say it out loud, I just write it all down.

Pop's always been the constant and strongest male figure in my life, so when he had his own brush with cancer, which thankfully he recovered from, I held it together to support him, but then crumbled after he got through it.

I've always been able to handle everyone else's hard stuff like a pro, but my own crap frequently leaves me clueless !

I've decided that the only way to get through this is learning all about it.  I need to understand the type of cancer we're dealing with so I can help Mum fight it.  Hopefully that knowledge, plus her positivity and determination to beat it, will be all we need.

Despite everything that's going on, life continues to surprise me and just one day after Mum's diagnosis, my nephew called me to say he was going to propose to his girlfriend.

My sister was suitably hysterical about the prospect of 'her baby' doing something so grown up and I probably would have felt that same normally, but for his response when I asked him why she was 'The One'.

"She knows me inside out. She's always got my back. She pushes me to be better than I should be and I love her for it".

That sincerity and unconditional belief in the power of love, was just what I needed to hear at that moment, and I was so thankful for it.