My Week and its Lessons

Mr Misfit was admitted to hospital this week.  I won't go into details but a check up at the hospital on Monday (after a reaction to some medication) saw him admitted there and then, and surgery performed on Friday.

Finding myself suddenly without my partner in crime, and bearing in mind that we are together 24/7, taught me a few things.

* Not driving for 6 months, is a bad move. When you then HAVE to get back behind the wheel, your confidence is shot.

*  When a friend then offers to drive you to the hospital in her Porsche to re-acquaint you with the route, do a quick finishing school course.  Legs were everywhere, bum and back contorted in a very unladylike fashion.

* Getting back in your own car and negotiating London traffic after such a long break is actually as easy as falling off a bike.  IF you have petrol in the car.  Getting petrol - after possibly five years - wasn't so hard either.

*  NHS nurses still range from FANTASTIC to WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THIS PROFESSION?! If someone calls at 8pm to ask if their loved one is back from surgery, DO NOT say, 'He's not back yet, ring in the morning.'  Also, don't send someone to surgery with no wrist band and such a poor command of the English language that the forms you should have filled in days ago leave you asking, 'What is dental crown?  What is cap?'

*  Hospital food can be astonishingly good.  Either my husband has become institutionalised or he hates my cooking because all I ever hear about is how good his meals are.

*  Parking at a hospital is bad for your blood pressure.  THIRTY minutes of driving around looking for a space almost hospitalised me!

* You learn who your true friends are and how far they will go to keep your pecker up and offer company in their own ways. Visits, meals, drinks, texts and calls have kept me sane through a tough time.

*  Being a self-employed writer is a Godsend.  I've earned money without needing to worry about working.

*  Christmas shopping (online) is a great distraction and disposes of hours.

* A free Word Search app on your Kindle can get you through those worrying hours of surgery.  Who'd have thought it could take so long to find the word. 'Loo'!  I was just willing Mr Misfit to come round just so that he could find it for me!

But most of all, I've realised how much I miss my mum - do we ever stop needing them? - and how much we relied on each other.  And, of course, how much I love Mr Misfit.  He is such a huge driving force in my life and, without him, I feel as if my battery is missing.

Roll on tomorrow and (hopefully) his return home - there's another word I can't find in my Word Search!

In Rainbows ...

Apologies for the blogging break but ... well, between trying to hang on to my sanity and get a book finished, I haven't really felt up to it.

Today though I do have a story that I want to share with you. It's something that happened yesterday that made me realise that my mum is with me all of the time and she will find ways of showing me.

We need to go back in time a bit to get the full picture, so bear with me.

I lost my dad when I was eighteen.  As a Daddy's Girl, this was tough and I would cry myself to sleep at night longing for him to visit me or, at the very least, give me a sign.

Then I had 'the dream' ...

There were huge fluffy clouds and the most amazing light - pretty corny so far, huh?  Poking through the clouds was a stunningly vibrant rainbow but it was actually an arched ladder and my dad was at the top of it with a paintbrush.  He turned and looked at me - he was really happy and clearly pretty chuffed with himself - and I asked what he was doing up there.

'This is what I do now,' he said simply.  'I paint the rainbow.'

Well, as he was a painter and decorator during his time on earth, this seemed a perfectly logical explanation and - in the time honoured tradition of bad story-telling - I woke up!

But ... I woke up happier.  He'd given me that sign I'd asked for. Even my son, as a child, used to point to the sky and say, 'Look what Granddad did!'

So imagine my surprise thirty-four years later when my lovely mum called us to her bedroom to say her final goodbyes and within the hour a rainbow had appeared in her back garden.  You couldn't make it up, could you?  My dad was there, ready to take her to be safe and he was telling us he loved us.

My Dad's rainbow in my Mum's garden

Then yesterday I was going to a friend's for lunch and I was dreading it.  My mum would always come along with us and sit and chat to his elderly mum and it just seemed wrong going without her.  Our friend had been thoughtful and set the table in a different room to where we would normally eat so that we didn't feel like there was an empty space and we had a lovely lunch - but it still felt odd.

When you're grieving, you become adept at painting on a smile and chatting as if you haven't got a care in the world but suddenly I found that I was smiling and really feeling it.

Because I'd looked out over my friend's back paddock and there she was - only this time with my dad.  His MASSIVE, vivid rainbow ... and later the shadow of a double rainbow by its side, which Mr Misfit joked wasn't as bright because she hasn't been 'up there' long enough to earn her stripes!

She was looking over me, after all!

Thanks Mum - as always, you were there when I needed you and I hope I did the same for you too while I was lucky enough to have you.

I found this song - says it all.

Asking for a Friend ...

I have a friend ...

She's mainly happy but often sad and sometimes a little bit broken but she pulls herself up and carries on because she has no choice.

Her husband is her rock and, on bad days, she feels she'd be nothing without him.  But she knows - in her darkest moments - that if it comes to that, she would have to, once again, pick herself up and carry on. To mix the happy with the sad.

You see, she's watching someone slowly slip away from her - not dying but gradually, almost as if ounce by ounce, become another person on a journey that they can only take for themselves.

It's hard. She feels lonely, frightened, angry, isolated, tired, fed-up and sometimes - just sometimes -  a little bit sorry for herself.

Losing someone you love is always hard but when you start to blame yourself - and other people - for their demise, it's unbearable.  To the point where it physically hurts.

She asks herself what could she, and those significant others, have done differently?  Is it too late to turn back the clock now?

In reality, probably yes.

The damage has been done.

My friend will do what she can, gritting her teeth, allowing silent tears to fall whilst wondering just how it came to this sad and bitter end.

And through all of that, she'll mentally plan an inevitable funeral that won't be a fitting end, surrounded by love and happy feelings that the person she's losing so deserves.

In the meantime, she'll keep on keeping on.  With love in her heart, as much patience as she can muster, tiredness in her bones and a little piece of bitterness that will never understand why people can't see what she is seeing.

What would you do?

Asking for a friend ...

Mother Christmas

This Christmas day will be the 50^th I’ve spent with my lovely mum - well, that’s if you include the one when I was in the womb.  Fifty Christmas days!  I count myself truly lucky as I only shared eighteen with my dad before he did the dirty on me and packed his bags before hotfooting off to heaven.  But the eighteen I had with him were all good, all special in their own way and all jam-packed with love.

As I prepare for my 50^th festive season with my mum, I’ve been reflecting on how things change.  This year’s been a difficult one for us as my mum broke her pelvis in September and that’s made getting out virtually impossible for her and in turn doubled my work load.  I’m tired and sometimes my patience can be slightly lacking but I always try to remember that it’s not easy for her either.  Our relationship has changed - she was the one who always cared for me and now she relies on me for nearly everything.  The circle of life, huh?

But every year is another that I count my blessings - another Christmas to spend with her - and who knows how many there may be ahead of us?

Life changes, families change but I know I have the one constant in my life - the much loved lady who brought me into the world and who I have so much to be grateful for.

So at this special time, after all my mum has been through and continues to struggle with, I’ll be raising my glass to her and thanking her for everything she’s done for me and the strength she still continues to display when times are hard.

There’s a lot I can’t change for her but I can still make sure she has the happiest Christmas Day I can give her.  She deserves a whole lot more but the rest is out of my hands.

Happy Christmas to the best Mum ever.

Nanny Misfit

(not bad at 86!)

And a very Happy Christmas to all my readers - thank you for your support.