R.I.P R.E.M

Thoughts for Charlotte

Three years ago today a very beautiful and unique friend gave in to her battle with cancer, she didn't make 40, she didn't get to have all those conversations she wanted to have with her young son and daughter,  she didn't get back to all the places she wanted to see again and all those she hadn't got to yet, she didn't get to grow old with the man she loved... as she herself said to me  "so many losses".

This person who taught me to take stock of the small details every day, to prioritise experiences, to see the beauty in the world around me, to be brave and trust myself, to cherish friendships, the only person who still wrote me paper letters - she's gone.  

There is virtually not a day that goes by where I don't think of her, many times I feel that I am not honouring her because I am here and usually complaining about all that is in my daily life - when she can no longer have that. 

She wanted to just endure her predicament and leave this world enjoying life - but her family begged her to fight - and so she did, and it robbed her of any quality of life in the end- but she felt she had to do it for them - she thought they needed to know she wanted to be here for them more than anything else - and in the end it had spread - this person who loved words and used them to such perfection, lost her ability to write and could barely talk in the end - her brain so racked with this disease.

It still saddens me so much, but I have those letters and I can hold them, and see her writing (you don't get that with emails and texts), I have all the photos, my daughter has her name, and I have all the memories. 

I will attempt to live life to the fullest for her and because of her.

Love you Charlotte 

xxx 

So much to say ... so little time

Thinking about what I might write i feel like i have a lot in my head that I could share:

I could write about the fabulous little road trip the FoF just took, and how much I loved getting out into the open space with les enfants and seeing more of this place called WA - it really is very unique and never ceases to amaze me that 2 hours out of Perth and you really are ... not necessarily in the middle of nowhere ...but, in a place where there is nothing.

Or, I could talk about the forum I just attended this week where some Aboriginal people were sharing their heartbreaking stories of losing their loved ones to suicide - such as the mother who has begged the housing commission to move her because she can hardly bare to walk past the tree in her front yard where her son hung himself, and how all I could do was just sit and listen with my stomach in knots and a lump the size of a cricket ball in my throat (silently thinking of my own children and hoping that they never ever feel so bereft of hope that they could do such a devastating and final act). 

Then I thought about writing about the lovely man who bought our baby change table (the fact that I managed to sell something on Gumtree is worthy of a blog itself), whose daughter is having their first grandchild, and just the sheer joy and excitement in his face, and to think of that daughter and all her excitement and apprehension and remembering the feelings I had of all that unknown that lay ahead (and all you can really think about is the birth - when, really, it's what comes after that - you should worry about) and to think she is still so free and rested and so blissfully ignorant - and with 2 loving parents wanting to be so much a part of it - just made me smile.

But I think now I'll just go to sleep and keep a lot of what I could say for another time.