Living With Gladys Full Time

When I started this honest and candid blog, that was never meant to be more than a peak into mine and Alistair’s life as we bent and adapted to life with the curve ball three and a half years ago, little did I know that I would eventually be writing about life on my own without my ‘Big Bear’  by my side to keep me company, protect me and love me forever.

But it occurs to me now that I have actually come full circle.

Last week I moved into my new cottage, now called ‘Mynzies’ in memory of Alistair, wrapping his huge loving arms around me and saying possessively and lovingly “you’re mynzies nobody else’s all mynzies”. I loved being his, if I was his for all of eternity it wouldn’t have been too long. Please, no platitudes in the comment box, I know he is still around me, I know I was lucky to have known such tender and great love, I know all these things. I am merely making a statement of fact.

As the packing and boxing commenced it is true to say I packed up 107 in more ways than one. Of course I packed and wrapped all of the precious items I wanted to have with me here, I recycled, dumped (always feel bad about land fill- no excuses- I used the easy option) and charity shopped all the things that no longer had a purpose. Remember the Shamans words from a much earlier blog post? If you don’t know why you have something in your life either let it go or reconnect with it!  Bits and bobs of Alistair’s found homes with his old biking friends Tony and Gogs (thank you two too for keeping in such close contact with me- I count myself very lucky to have you both in my life 🙂 and honour your friendship) and I released the hold that some of Alistair’s old jackets and clothes had over me. I even released the battered old sandals! I continued the theme of release by letting go of old photographic ‘memoirs’ of people that no longer feature in my life, something quite beautifully naughty about doing that! And finally with Autumn once again upon us, I had to clear out of my sight the purple boots and jacket that I wore last year that seemed to unravel a private film show in my mind every time I looked at them, a film of me, drudging through town, queueing endlessly in Boots, day after day it seemed, to pick up prescriptions for Morphine, dressings, pee bags, laxatives and any other form of pain relief that was needed to try to stem the pain that wracked Alistairs body and bring him a modicum of relief. A picture of me tired to the bone, battle weary but still mustering up a smile and ready for action the next day. I feel truly saddened for that me, that part of me,  I intend to care for her and treat her with the respect and love that she totally deserves.

And then of course there was the emotional letting go. Letting go of the horror, the trauma, the emotional assault course that I faced daily that is the true picture of nursing not just someone at home until their death but the person I loved more than anything in the whole wide world, the person that was the out breath to my in. Of course we love/d our children, adore/d them, but the love between man and woman is a totally different love to the love we have for our children. So I let go and left behind me all of the pain- the memories, the conflicts that came along and the sickness that is cancer… you can see this move has turned out to be very cathartic.

And then the reminders, many people count down in sleeps to some exciting event, I counted down in ‘disabled showers left until I move’ and if I never see one or have to use one again, it will still be too soon! The stair lift,the riser recliner chair, the disabled aids and gadgets, all gone from me now and no place for them in ‘Mynzies’.

So here I am in  a beautiful cottage not dissimilar to the one we had to sell as a result of the curve ball, the one that Candace and Kirt and I hold dearly in our memories of the time our family was together. This one is smaller and cuter! Its perfect for me, it beckons newness, it heralds a new dawning of me, as I begin to darn the next mosaic of my souls tapestry. Im ready to move forward, to dust off the grey matter and continue my studies. To travel, to write, to welcome myself into the third stage of womanhood. Im going to be 50 in three weeks time, Im off to India to celebrate, to soothe my spirit and to let the last vestiges of the onslaught of 2014/2015 leave my aura for good.

When I wrote my opening blog over three years ago about having to leave our beloved Angel wrapped cottage little did I know that a little over three years later I would be embracing the challenge of widowhood and living in another angel wrapped cottage, only the wings of this angel belong to my darling Alistair.

Namaste friends Namaste x