And then Life intervened…

Well here we are nearly 19 months later. I’d like to be in a kind of fluffy, hello flowers, where did all that time go mode; but quite a lot of it is still all there in vivid live technicolour and I’m still waiting for it to fade.

We moved house, and as there was a week between selling and buying (back to the vagaries of property purchasing in England), we stayed at Mum’s for a week. She was on reasonable form, we ate out to celebrate the sale, and generally caught up. Rob worked away in the week and we chatted, ate, drank. She looked after me as far as possible in her own random way. I thought, at some points, that this was all good, something to look back on when, at somewhere around 98, like her mother, she went.

Within a week of us moving to the new house, 30 miles away, she was in too much pain to eat (‘it only really hurts when I breathe or move’); after six horrendous, chaotic, brutal weeks, she died, having only just made it, I think through sheer will power, out of the nightmare of UCH Walsgrave, to the peace of Myton Hospice in Warwick. There is a tale to be told there, perhaps, but first I need the response from UCH, as to how it quite got so we didn’t get a formal diagnosis until five days before she went. That maybe is just the way it is; but I would like to know, anyway.

So there we were with a house reno, with no kitchen, 1980′s bathrooms last cleaned in the 1980′s, another person’s fridge mank, and a new role for Rob. I really don’t recommend moving, losing a kitchen and your final parent in the same month; it’s fair to say I was as confused, distressed and scared as I have ever been. So far. We orphans, and refugees of parents’ unquiet deathbeds, are not naturally optimistic.

We got through. Today I worked out the final costs of the project, and it all worked within budget, and we didn’t die or split up. We went through some horrendous times though, have lost touch with people, argued with people and each other, cried. But we are here not there.

And here is good. We have made good friends, and made a lovely house. I’m so proud of Rob’s hard work and skills; and of what we achieved here. He is now running his own business doing similar stuff for others, I continue at the RSC, entranced and frustrated by it.

Notably I stood at Mum’s funeral in the good linen dress and jacket and told 150+ people about her (excellent fit after the 1.5 stone weight loss); I have presented to the great and the good of the RSC as well now, but there’s nothing like your Mum’s funeral speech for that ‘Fuckit, it’s not as scary as that was’ moment beforehand.

I had the worst flu ever, and piriformis sciatica – there may be a politer way of putting this, but effectively a key muscle in my right bum seized up and trapped the sciatic nerve so the leg stopped working properly. It took 3 months and 5 medical professionals to get the right diagnosis and hence treatment (exercises not surgery, I am lucky). Can be brought on by stress and muscle tension apparently. I still limp a little but it’s getting better now.

I had counselling and went through some very dark places with Betty holding my hand and being there for me, and found perhaps they weren’t as dark as they were when they were stored in my childhood memories (the whole parent dying, retreating thing happened early as well), and I am in a better place for it. I feel both very alone but also very free – like being at the top of a hill on a windy day. No-one between me and the stars.

I found out that however I got here, whatever the route and the restrictions and the motivations from my past, it’s a good place to be really, and could be a good place to spread my wings from. So here we go on the next part of the journey…