Shock

I had my MRI and I will get a chance to tell how it went but right now I am reeling in shock. I moved to Victoria from a small town and in that small town I knew a lot of people. One of them was a neighbor and a friend, our sons are all friends and best friends.

My middle son called me downstairs where he was sitting motionless in front of his computer. It turned out she had died during the previous night. I just can't believe it. My son said, "She helped me get through you having cancer" and she did. She helped gather people to have a community fundraiser to help us out financially. She watched over him and he lived with them for several weeks while I was hospitalized. Unbelievably, my son had the time of his life that summer. He was surrounded by a loving family and friends.

I just can't believe it yet. I thought I would be in the ground long before her. She was only 43 or so and has 3 children, two quite young. She was bright, creative and full of life at all times.

She and her family would come to visit when I was unwell and her little daughter would try on my wigs. I cared for their toddler when she went in to have her third child. It was quite funny how they dropped him over the fence into my arms and ran because the baby was coming asap. When they bought their house I helped her pick out wild paint colours to her husband's, chagrin. She made it work, though.

In the last few years of me being in the midst of illness and recovery, we lost touch. My son still went and stayed with them regularly but I never saw her and I never knew why. I guess I'll never know.

I can't understand what could have happened to her. I've been battling some deep trauma recently around mortality and felt like I was finally coming out the other end... now this.

It feels surreal. My first thought upon hearing the news was, I thought it would be me.

Death by Blackberries

That's right. I just about bit the big one in a blackberry bush. I wanted to walk somewhere but I have a hard time walking any distance. I decided to take the shortcut through the back of our yard which is forest and has a trail. I put on a dress (to look nice of course) and headed out.

My body is slow now as my muscles haven't rebuilt after all the hospital bed time. I'm like those old ladies you see crossing the road where they shouldn't be, with their walker and at the pace of a post office line up. As I headed down the trail things began to close in on me. Next thing I know I'm surrounded by the jagged claws of the blackberry bushes. I somehow never considered they may have grown over this time of year.

I was really stuck! Do I go forward or go back?

So this is how it's going to end! I never would have guessed. After contemplating how many weeks it would take for people to find my body I kept forward. I made it through that and then a field of stinging nettles. My legs looked like I had been attacked by a marauding gang of ferrets.

Whew! I'm glad that's off my chest. It's so hard to talk about death.