May 13th-15th 1997
And I thought, if that’s going to happen, then I might as well make things happen myself.
If life is going to improve, only one person can arrange it, and that’s me. So I’d better keep my eyes open, and see who comes my way.
Then, out of the blue one day, Jenny’s friend Emma telephoned.
She was sorry she hadn’t called recently, she said, but she wondered how I was getting on, and how the children were. To my shame, I’ve already said how I’d caught myself noticing Emma when she visited whilst Jenny was ill.
That was hardly surprising, since doubtless the entire male population of southeast England had worked out what an attractive girl Emma was.
But now I found myself saying, look, Emma – why don’t you come and see for yourself one evening? You can meet the kids again, I said, and we’ll have some pasta.
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Categories: Chapter 27 · Chapters 20-29 · bereavement · breast cancer · friends · grief · health · hope · love · recovery · relationships · shock
At one such party, a friend in her fifties who had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer showed her solidarity by sitting next to me at dinner.
It was incredibly brave, since in doing that she had to confront her own worst fears.
But what could I say to her? The obvious topic of conversation was her illness, and it was something that we were both thinking about. I thought her radiotherapy must be ending soon, and yet I couldn’t ask about it.
Ah yes, radiotherapy, that’s good, yes, and surgery, too – marvellous – the pity is only that they don’t always work.
No, it wasn’t a good line. So we contented ourselves with small talk all evening.
You always hear about widows being approached at parties like that – maybe it fits that old cliché of the merry widow.
One of my sister’s friends told me how shocked and repulsed she had been by the advances of her husband’s best friends after his death.
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Categories: Chapter 27 · Chapters 20-29 · bereavement · breast cancer · friends · grief · health · hope · love · relationships · shock
I’m sure everyone here will join me in sending all our best wishes to Amy Mickelson, wife of US Ryder Cup star Phil, as she undergoes surgery for breast cancer in Houston, Texas this week.
Phil is a favourite with golf fans around the world, and scarcely a round goes by without me wishing I had Phil by my side to play another breathtaking wedge shot out of trouble around the green.
Now the dangers lurking are of a different kind entirely. It’ll seem like an eternity since Amy was diagnosed in May, and with surgery on July 1st and the prospect of chemotherapy beyond, there’s a hard road ahead, for both of them.
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Categories: Chapter 27 · Chapters 20-29 · breast cancer · children · diagnosis · family · health · hope · love · recovery · shock
The strange thing was that those invitations didn’t go as I had expected.
I’d really looked forward to some company and conversation, after so long spent cooped up with my ironing and tears.
By now I could keep up the appearance of not being miserable for long enough to avoid embarrassing a gathering.
But going out on my own was daunting.
That wasn’t something I had done for years, and now I had to make so much more effort.
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Categories: Chapter 27 · Chapters 20-29 · bereavement · breast cancer · friends · grief · health · hope · love · recovery · relationships
I just want to feel real love
In a life ever after
There’s a hole in my soul
You can see it in my face
It’s a real big place
– Robbie Williams 2002
May 10th, 1997
Even now, I’m still not sure how long is deemed to be a typical period of mourning, or grieving, or at what stage bereaved people are supposed to feel better. It takes a very long time, that much I do know.
The trouble was that none of my colleagues had the faintest idea. It seemed that after a couple of months nobody asked me how I was any more. That was strange, since I felt worse inside than I had done just a few weeks after Jenny’s death.
But as the major logistical problems of childcare and simply getting out each day had been more or less fixed, if not yet permanently solved, then perhaps I did give the appearance of gradually starting to make forward progress.
Short of staging an elaborate cracking-up exercise in front of the management meeting, or running past the coffee machine sobbing loudly, there wasn’t much I could do to make people see that things weren’t going well.
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Categories: Chapter 27 · Chapters 20-29 · bereavement · breast cancer · friends · grief · health · hope · love · recovery · relationships · single parents
Italy opened wide her arms to me this week, and beneath the summer lemon trees I found new words to write as well.
The Bay of Naples lay shimmering softly in the morning — just as Jenny and I had seen it. And I felt glad to be here, the blue skies of today banishing shadows of the past.
At breakfast, I met a young English couple. Neither smooching honeymooners nor doey-eyed new lovers — just a happy pair, relaxing in the sunshine. But they had something more to tell.
‘I love it here so much,’ she started. ‘Although — I’ve a ten-year old son at home,’ she blurted, ‘And I had to leave him with my parents to come away with Dave. It’s five years since I had a holiday.’
I remembered then just how hard it is for young lone parents to balance the responsibilities for their children. And how much effort it’s really worth if you can carve out some time to call your own.
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Categories: Chapter 27 · Chapters 20-29 · bereavement · breast cancer · grief · health · hope · love · recovery · relationships · single parents
May 13th-15th 1997
That was hardly surprising, since doubtless the entire male population of southeast England had worked out what an attractive girl Emma was.
