grief

Hurt, Scared, Sad.

~ Naomi ~ Leave a comment

When I was younger, if I was hurting, my Mum or Dad would kiss it until it was better.

If I was scared, they would tell me why it wasn’t scary and leave a light on because it would stop things from feeling so terrifying. At nighttime I would hear The Archers theme tune play from their room as I fell asleep.

If I was sad they would wrap me up in their arms. I might cry and shake but they would hug me until the world settled, or until I was too exhausted to be upset any longer.
 
 
As I got a bit older, I learned that Mum and Dad couldn’t fix everything that hurt. But they could be there to listen when things went wrong, to be ranted at, to console, to hug and to hold.

If I was scared we’d talk it over, we’d work it out, we’d make it not feel so scary any more.

If I was sad I’d go to Mum and when she hugged me things would somehow seem better.
 
 
Late into my teens and life had changed a lot. I knew Mum and Dad couldn’t fix everything that hurt. But they could still stroke my hair. I could still lie on Mum’s stomach and she could tell me things would work out. We could watch something funny together and eat some chocolate and the world would seem brighter.

If I was scared at night, even at 17, I would go into their bedroom and crawl into their bed. Sometimes Dad stayed and sometimes he’d leave, but I’d sleep next to Mum until morning.

Some mornings I’d feel so sad that facing the day felt too hard and Mum would come in, give me a hug and lay my clothes out for me. She’d go downstairs and make me a bowl of cornflakes with chopped up nuts while I got dressed. She’d help me go from sad to school-ready in the space of forty minutes. A hug and a ‘see you tonight’ giving me the strength to face anything that life threw at me.
 
 
Tonight I’m sad, I’m scared and I’m hurting. I can’t crawl into Mum and Dad’s bed because that bed no longer exists. Mum’s hospital bed resides in the lounge alongside Dad’s tower of mattresses. Her hugs no longer hold the strength they once did. Nobody can tell me it will be okay because it won’t be. We will develop a new okay, in time, but we will never go back to the okay I’ve known all my life. Nights aren’t as scary as they once were, but have become long and lonely. I listen to Radio 4 short stories until I become exhausted enough to sleep. Mum can’t make me breakfast – it’s my turn now to get her food and drink when she needs it, and I like doing that. It feels right, and at least I can do something. I tried watching something funny tonight, but a cancer thing came on in the middle and made me cry. I tried eating chocolate but it doesn’t taste right and I’m not hungry at all. I sit, wrapped in a blanket which feels like a hug, stuck to my chair. If I don’t move for a while then time stands still and I can just about breathe. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.

 

Chatting About Funerals in the Car

~ Naomi ~ 1 Comment

Mum is dying. I know we’ve known this for a while… but it wasn’t so obvious at first. But now she’s dying, I can see it.

I’ve only been away for a week. I popped back home tonight for some tea (my brother had been to open day at our uni, it made sense) and the change in Mum in just a week is far too noticeable for my liking. Her energy levels are lower, she’s fading into the chair more…and needing to use the chair more to help her sit up. It might not sound much, but she was already so slow I didn’t think slower was possible, yet here we are.

She knows it too. Tonight has consisted of an extra request for a hug, a conversation about money, another unfinished meal. The green bowl permanently resides next to her chair now as episodes of nausea increase.

I hate this stupid disease. I often filter my blogs, try and put a positive spin on things, keep my head up. I am generally a positive person and those if you who know me will know that I always try and make the best out of a bad situation. I often doubt myself, but my Dad always tells me I’m stronger than I think.

Tonight it hurts, physically, and I can’t describe it properly because it’s unlike any other hurt I’ve felt before. It starts in your chest and spreads through your shoulders, your stomach and your legs. It clamps your throat shut and forces tears out of your eyes. It doesn’t let you ignore it, if you try it just gets stronger.

I don’t want my Mum to die. I want this horrible limbo to be over but I don’t want her to die. I want her to wake me up on a morning by stroking my hair and I want just one more strong hug. I can’t keep writing because I don’t know what else to say. I’m just sad.

Dear Friend, My Mum Has Terminal Cancer

~ Naomi ~ 1 Comment

This post has been a long time coming. It has involved texts and Facebook messages from friends about things they’ve learned over Mum’s illness, things they wish they knew at the start and things they wish they knew now. It has involved thinking right back to the beginning and trying to remember how far we’ve come. I have a number of friends who haven’t been able to deal with this situation… and I’ve lost them. But that’s a post for another day. For now, this one is finally here.

Dear Friend,

I’m sorry to have to tell you this but mum has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. I’m sorry to tell you in such a blunt way, but there really is no other way to say it, and as I’ve had to tell so many people, I’ve got used to just saying it, now.

Please don’t cry to me. I know it’s rubbish, I know it hurts and I know it’s scary, but I can’t cope with your grief about my situation on top of my own. Please find someone who you can speak to about this; a family member, a friend. I don’t mind who, but please don’t fall apart on me, and please don’t keep it all to yourself.

First and foremost, I need you to remember that you cannot take my pain away. You can’t erase my grief. You can’t cure my mum. No amount of beetroot juice or yoga is going to do that. It’s in our lives and it’s never going away. Maybe in a few weeks, or perhaps a few years, cancer will kill my mum. This is never going to get better – in fact it’s only going to get worse. You can’t fix my mum, and you certainly can’t stop me hurting. But you can definitely be a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, or simply someone who makes me laugh and brings some happiness to my day.

Please don’t stop talking to me about normal things. I want to know about your significant other and why they’ve annoyed you. I want to know about your sister and how she did in her most recent exams. I want to know how last night’s party was. I want to know the good, the bad and the ugly; to chat like we’ve always done. I need this normality in my life! Don’t think that mum dying makes your problems ‘trivial’ or ‘stupid’, because they’re not. They matter to you, so they’re important, and I always want to know the important things in my friend’s lives.

Don’t feel that every single conversation you have with me has to include mum. That’s going to get very boring very quickly. I have a life outside of mum’s cancer. I volunteer, study, work, go out with my friends and even knit monkeys from time to time. Sometimes I just need a break from thinking about all that stuff. Sometimes I just want to be the normal, 21-year-old me. So unless mum’s been especially ill lately and you’re enquiring as to whether she’s feeling better, or there’s something specific you’d like to talk about, just wait for me to bring it up. If you really want to discuss it then feel free to ask me stuff, but ask me how I am before you ask me how mum is. The order of those two questions can make a big difference to how the conversation appears to me.

I’m sorry if I don’t always reply to your texts nowadays. My life gets busy. Mum has to go into hospital sometimes and there’s no signal there, then I often come home, help with tea and go straight to bed because being with a terminally ill parent is exhausting. Even when I’m at uni, I’m often catching up on work I’ve missed or trying to do all of my work during the week so I can go home on a weekend, and I just forget to check my phone. Sometimes I might read your message, but my head is so full of everything that I forget to reply. Please be patient with me.

Don’t stop texting, though. I love receiving messages and knowing that people care. Don’t feel you need to text me every second of every day – that would be weird and annoying. Just contact me as much as you always have done.

If I seem to be struggling, and you become worried, talk to me about it. Ask me who I’m speaking to and what support I’m getting. You could walk with me to the GP when I need to go and sit with me in the waiting room if you wanted. See if you can find a group or an organisation who might be able to offer me some advice, or help someone in my situation. Remember, there is no ‘right’ way to support me. There is no ‘right’ thing to say or do. I haven’t changed as a person. I’m still me! I just have a really crappy situation going on in the background.

Please don’t disappear from my life. I know this is hard. I know you don’t know what to say or how to act, but I’d much rather have you in my life saying stupid stuff and mumbling, than not in my life at all. There is no ‘right’ thing to say or do. That’s what makes this so difficult. So just be you, stay in contact, and don’t run and hide, because I’ll miss you.

Drop me a message if you’re ever worried or upset. Please ask me if you’re not sure whether something is appropriate. Please tell me if I’m upsetting you in any way or if I’ve changed and it’s worrying you. Just communicate.

Thank you,
Your friend.

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Social Media is a Carefully Constructed Facade

~ Naomi ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday, I met up with a friend. After a couple of hours of window shopping (and a little too much actual shopping – sorry bank balance!), we sat down for a drink and the kind of chat I wish were more common: a proper conversation. None of this ‘how are you, I’m fine thanks, how are you’ crap which most of us seem to spend the majority of our time reeling off because that’s what we’re expected to do.

We spoke a lot about all that’s going on in our lives. Both of us have great stuff going on at the moment, but naturally we’re also both dealing with things which aren’t exactly ideal, and we’re managing them alongside jobs, university, and some sort of vague attempt at a social life.

I spoke a lot about Mum; how she is, how the rest of my family are, how our house is, basically lots of cancer related stuff. My friend responded with words I’ve heard so many times in recent weeks: ‘I’d never have known’.

From so many people, for so many reasons, I seem to be hearing this a lot more than normal lately. ‘I’d never have known your mum dying affects how well you’re sleeping’. ‘I’d never have known it affects your studies’. ‘I’d never have guessed that ‘x’ was going on’. Usually accompanied with ‘you’re coping so well with this, I don’t know how you do it’.

If you look at my Twitter and Facebook, they paint a fantastic picture. I look after two lovely boys for four days each week, and you’ll see pictures of their various baking endeavours, their glittery creations and their muddy wellies, usually accompanied with something amusing that one of them came out with. You’ll see photos of volunteering things I’m doing: whether it be a selfie on a train to London, a photo of somewhere pretty I’m sitting, or something else, you can be sure it’ll be as photogenic as I could make it in the moment. And that’s before we get to the various updates about the revision I’ve been tackling, culminating with a photo of all my notes last week before my exam. There will be some jokes on my immediate family’s Facebook walls, conversations with other family on Twitter and every now and then a link to a news article I found thought-provoking.

But the stuff I don’t post on social media are the things that keep me up at night. The discussions I’ve had with Dad about Mum’s health. Worries about whether Mum will make it up the stairs tonight. How exasperated I feel that my family seem to have stopped leaving the house. The crying that comes when it hits me that Mum really is dying. The questions I mull over each day: ‘what will it be like when…’, ‘what about if…’, ‘how do I cope with…’. I certainly never post my fears about whether I’m coping well, if I’m making the right decisions, and what’s going to happen in the future.

The thing is, I’m not the only one. If I did start posting all of that stuff, kinder people would think it was quite odd, and less kind people would probably react with hostility – how would you react if this popped up on your feed: “crying because I just walked past people graduating and Mum probably won’t be around when/if I graduate”?

I have a number of friends going through a lot of tough situations at the moment. Physical health problems, mental health problems, family issues, you name it. I have friends in hospital, friends who’ve recently received difficult test results from their GP, and friends going through family break ups. If you looked at these people’s social media profiles and then they told you about these issues, you’d probably say ‘I’d never have guessed’.

More than any other area of our lives, social media lets us choose exactly how much or how little we say to the wider world about our lives. No-ones social media profile can fully represent that person – after all, how do you capture a human personality in 140 characters, or a well-filtered selfie? And that’s before you get to the unwritten social rules on what you can and can’t post – don’t cry for attention, don’t post anything that could upset or offend anyone, do your best to be funny – that actually restrict the freedoms we’d so dearly to love to have, and make the whole social media thing so much more difficult.

Assuming a friend is fine because they posted a happy Facebook status is like seeing someone wearing makeup and assuming they look the same without it. Facebook and Twitter and Instagram can so easily turn into makeup for your whole life: social mascara, if you like, personal concealer, maybe societal hair straightening. Please don’t ignore hints that they might not be so okay right now, if there are any. Reach out to your friends, drop them the occasional text, start some real conversations. Summer can be an incredibly lonely time, seeming to stretch on forever if things are difficult. Take out your makeup wipes, and find out if your friends really are as ‘okay’ as their internet presence suggests.

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I Miss Our House Being Noisy

~ Naomi ~ 1 Comment

I’m privileged enough to have had a wonderfully happy house throughout my childhood and upbringing. It’s almost always been filled with activity, music, laughter and conversation. Barely a weekend would go by when we didn’t either have someone over, or visit someone’s house, and seeing friends of my brothers or parents who I didn’t know, sat in our kitchen or lounge, was an everyday occurrence. Mum played her saxophone (or foghorn, depending who you asked), Dad would play the piano, as would my brother, my other brother, my Mum and I would dance around the kitchen to Caro Emerald whilst baking and cooking. It was certainly never quiet.

Even a year ago, you’d never have known that Mum had terminal cancer. As a palliative medicine consultant, she was working pretty much full time with people who were at the end of their lives. She didn’t look like a cancer patient. She was on hormone treatment at the time, and her hair had grown back from the chemo she’d had during her first bout of cancer just 18 months before. We’d both get up on a morning while the male members of our family were still asleep, have breakfast, chat, and head our separate ways to work. On evenings we’d both return; tired but still keeping up with any household chores that hadn’t been attended to during the day (or asking other members of our family to do them). At weekends, we’d visit people or have people over. The house would be filled with laughter and chatter.

Not anymore. When I get up on a morning now, everyone is still asleep. I get up in silence, creep around the house getting ready for my run before returning, showering, and getting ready for work as quietly as possible. I walk through the door on an evening now and I see and hear nobody. It’s silent. Sometimes I’ll get a “hello” from my brother who’s revising in the office, welcoming me home, but that’s about it. I’ll walk through the house towards the bottom of the stairs and there’s no music coming from the lounge (which is now my parent’s second bedroom, from when Mum couldn’t get upstairs). I normally pop my head into the living room to greet Mum who will be sat in her chair watching TV; she doesn’t always hear me come in. Dad’s often sat in there, too. Upstairs will be my other brother, headphones on, watching something or listening to music. He used to spend his evenings on the computer in the living room, talking to us all, and I’m not sure when that changed – though I think that’s probably a teenager thing and may well be the most normal thing around here at the moment.

It feels like Mum is fading into her chair. I know that the whole dying-and-coming-back-to-life thing was clearly going to affect her, and you’re never quite sure how that will translate. But Mum’s always been so active and so sociable. People do come round to see her, but my brother and I can’t remember the last time she left our house/garden. Also, for someone who’s always been early to bed, early to rise (and told us off if we’ve been to bed late and got up late!), she now sleeps for around 15 hours a day; going to bed really late and getting up around midday most days.

I suppose change isn’t uncommon for someone with a terminal disease, but I underestimated the extent to which it would affect our family and our house. Mum getting up late means everyone else gets up late. The lack of Mum tidying up means nobody really tidies up. Her being less active means we’re all less active. Being at home feels like wading through treacle, everything just slows down. It feels harder to revise, harder to get up on a morning, harder to get dressed. Everything feels slow and drawn out.

Even though I’m not a superfan of Harry Potter, the best way I can think to describe it is like there’s a ‘Dementor’ living with us. Entering the house, I feel smothered and devoid of energy; filled with an overwhelming sense that something is wrong. I feel uneasy, unsure, anxious and depressed. The last couple of days, all I’ve felt like doing is crying.

I don’t feel able to write a positive post this week. I feel quite low – it’s tiring trying to stay on top of everything, and some mornings I just do not want to get out of bed. When I’m at home, I do my best to stay busy, to clean, tidy and bake when I’m not revising, and to spend time with my family as much as I can. At work I throw all the energy and love I have at the kids I look after. I’m incredibly lucky to have friends who are organising things with me so I have stuff to look forward to, because that’s something I sorely need right now. I’m thankful for all those people who are looking out for me, and recognise more than ever how precious and comforting small and normal things, from my brothers making fun of me to the constant struggle to locate the garage key, can be in the midst of all of this.

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Terminal Cancer Might Be Taking My Mum’s Body, But It Will Never Take My Mum

~ Naomi ~ 1 Comment

A few weeks ago, I was pottering around York, as I often do. I went into a gift-type shop (there are loads of them in York – you know the type I mean). I was looking for something specific , so was taking my time looking at each display when I saw a sign which read ‘the best Mums make the best Grandmas’.

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It hit me like a punch to the stomach and I had to leave the shop before I melted into a puddle of tears on the floor. As I paced around town, attempting not to cry, I couldn’t help feeling angry at the injustice of cancer in general, and Mum’s in particular. My Mum is awesome and would make an incredible Grandma. She’d love it, too. In the past few weeks she’s knitted three baby cardigans so that if/when my brothers and I have children, we would each have something for them ‘from Grandma’.

Almost every day at the moment, I see something that Mum’s not going to have, or be able to do, and it makes me want to cry. It could be going on a trip to Tesco and realising she probably won’t do that with us again, seeing graduation photos on Facebook with a parent proudly standing either side of their offspring, or coming out of my driving theory test and thinking about what we’d be doing if Mum was well (going to Starbucks for a Frappuccino and people-watching before heading to Primark for a bit of a splurdge.

People often say that ‘they can’t believe how well you’re handling this’, ‘you’re all doing so well’ or ‘I’d never know from your Facebook posts what’s really going on’. I don’t mind this because on the whole; we are managing well, and my Facebook is not a shrine to my Mum’s illness because I’m still living my life. But it doesn’t mean that I never feel angry at the injustice of it all and just want to punch a wall.

Over summer, I am a nanny to two wonderful boys. They’re seven and five and I’ve looked after them every school holiday for two years – it’s the best job I can imagine having at this stage in my life and is both fun and rewarding in equal measures. We baked a lemon cake yesterday (at their request!), and then today, we cycled to the park, pushed a big swing pretended we were in James’ Bond whilst spinning on a spinny thing, and fell about on the grass. I started thinking about all of this kind of stuff again.

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Knowing the boys as long as I have, and spending so much time with them every school holiday, means that we have a fairly solid relationship. I hug them, they hug me, we play fight, laugh, joke, and enjoy each other’s company. They’re not my children (despite many museum workers calling me ‘Mum’ in the past), but they’re good practice for if I ever have my own.

Baking is something my Mum taught me as a child. She spent hours teaching me how to use a mixer, how to break eggs, and how to remember various recipes. Teaching the boys how to bake is a joy, and they get better each time we do it – they’re pretty good at it now, and love it just as much as I did at their age. Going to the park is something my parents and I did a lot as when I was a child. They must have spent hours pushing me on swings and helping me conquer climbing frames.

My entire attitude towards children and the skills that I pass onto them come from my experiences and upbringing, and especially from my parents. My Mum probably won’t be there in person if I ever have kids – I probably won’t be able to beg her for some childcare favours when I need some sleep. But so much of my Mum is in me, and has shaped who I am, that in some small way she will be there – and that’s something that cancer can never take away.

Each time I let one of the children lick out the mixing bowl, they receive some of my Mum’s baking passion. Whenever they fly high on a swing, they’re experiencing some of Mum’s joy through my own love of parks. Whenever they’re making stuff, I hope they’ll experience some of Mum’s patience for my various crafting endeavours, something I do my best to remember when I have to iron countless Hama bead creations, or make multiple loom band animals.

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Cancer might be taking my Mum’s body, but it will never take my Mum. It will never take all the things she taught me (not to mention other people), the impact she’s leaving in the medical world, or the impression she’s made on everyone she’s ever met. Cancer can’t take her love for me and my brothers, her pride in what we achieve, or her hopes and dreams for our futures. Cancer can’t destroy the memories I have of her and our family, of holidays, hill climbing and funny voices when we read bedtime stories as kids.

Cancer makes no sense on an emotional level, and I don’t think it’s something I will ever truly understand. But, when I find myself on my bum in the middle of a park having lost a play fight with two adorable boys – I know that my Mum, her attitude of always getting ‘stuck in’ and her willingness to do anything with the three of us, however silly it might make her look, will always be with me.

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Little Things

~ Naomi ~ 4 Comments

As my life progresses I become more and more aware of the importance of appreciating the little things in life. Cliché as it might be, it improves my mood and helps me feel calm. Being someone who enjoys a bit of macro photography, I have a tendency to notice things that others sometimes miss, but lately I haven’t been finding the time to get out and about in the fresh air (blame essays…).

This week has been one of ups and downs. There have been some incredibly-exciting-squee-yay moments (like getting my first blog published on Huff Post) and some incredibly-not-so-great-meh-blergh-cry moments (like the other night). It’s been a weird one because for the past few weeks I’ve been a desk hermit; my life has revolved around waking up, essaying and sleeping. Then this week I’ve suddenly had some free time, no structure and a very long to-do list. I expected to be incredibly happy, very excited and seeing all the friends I hadn’t seen in far too long once essays were over but the reality has been different – having free time has given me chance to stop and think (never a good thing!), and I’ve felt really lost without having essays to focus on (not really complaining – I don’t particularly want any more right now but you know what I mean).

Today, after a week of a failed sleep routine, too much TV, weird food combinations and a bit too much sitting wondering what to do, I decided to sort it. Being like this doesn’t do anything but make me feel rubbish, I miss the best bits of the day, and all in all, it’s a bad plan.

After waking up too late (again), completing my morning run, writing a shopping list and doing all those other fun things, IDSC_7330edit decided to grab my camera and go on a walk. I don’t do this often enough. It feels self-indulgent and there are always others things I could (and arguably should) be doing.

I found my sunglasses (wahay, summer!), shoved on some dungarees and made it out of the door. I walked up through some fields, found some buttercups and started snapping away. It occurred to me that I wasn’t sneezing or wheezing and my legs hadn’t swelled up which was something to be majorly grateful about (modern medicine is wonderful). It was so amazing to have a gentle breeze, hear some birds, feel the grass moving in the wind and welcome a sense of peace.

A man walked past with four dogs – two spaniels and two black labs. We spent about half an hour chatting about photography and dogs. I stroked his dogs and they were so lovely, soft and affectionate. There was no agenda, no rush to be anywhere and I will probably never see this man again, but it was lovely to stop and chat for a bit.

We parted and went our separate ways, but it got me thinking; these are the things which make me happy and content. Being with people, the sunlight, dogs, my camera, the smell of a spring field. They fill me with a sense of peace and the knowledge that whatever happens in my life, these little things which will always remain. They will always welcome me back.

I don’t know what’s going to happen in my life in the next week, never mind the next few years and beyond. Hopefully I’ll graduate, I might be able to afford a house (probably not, but we can dream) and get my own dog. There’s a chance I’ll get a job (please be kind to me job market). I might meet someone who I want to spend my life with, or I might not. I’ll probably make some new friends and drift from others. Mum will probably pass away, hopefully nobody else will. The kids I’ve babysat will start taking their GCSEs and A-Levels and I’ll wonder how I got so old. There will be happy times and sad times. Times of distress, anger, joyfulness and excitement; lazy days and busy days; car trips and cycle rides. There are so many things to look forward to as well as the unavoidable difficult times.

I need to remember that though bad happens; there is also a lot of good. That even if I’ve neglected them for months on end, the fields will always welcome me back. Most importantly, if my life gets busy to the point that I don’t have time to stop and smell the seasons, it’s time to stop and revaluate things, because that is not a happy life and it’s not a life I want to live.

Nighttime Thoughts

~ Naomi ~ 12 Comments

I have a hole in my stomach.

It’s horrible, achy, painful and black. It expands and contracts as I breathe. It’s getting bigger and I’m scared it’s going to swallow me whole. I believe it’s called grief, but that seems such a small and insignificant word to describe a feeling so big and all-consuming.

Tonight, I spoke to Dad. I rang him up to discuss a website and various other bits and bobs. My uncle had sent me a photo of the family from the weekend. I enquired who a few people were (I get confused by distant relatives) and asked after Mum – she looked small and tired.

She’s sleeping more. Her bloods are fine. She’s just tired. There’s no point in scans now so we don’t know how the disease is progressing unless there are markers in her blood results. I guess her body is just tired of fighting this crap.

We spoke about summer. We don’t know how well Mum will be then… if she’s still with us then. Once again it hits me in the stomach, ripping me in two. Sometimes I forget for a moment – but never for long. Grief doesn’t allow that. Cancer doesn’t allow that. It doesn’t let you forget. As soon as your drop your guard, even for a second, it will strike again.

I spoke to my brother. I had to explain who the family members in the photograph were, how they fit, who they’re related to. It occurs to me that we might not only lose Mum when she dies.

Nights like these I don’t know what to do. Crying seems so pointless, yet often it just happens and I’m left exhausted when it finally stops. I want to curl up, I want a hug, I want someone to tell me it will be okay; thinking like that reminds me of being younger when Mum or Dad would stroke my hair and tell me it will be okay. But they can’t right now, because they’re not here, and it won’t be okay. I want to run and run; to keep running until I can’t. But realistically, it’s gone midnight, I’m crying – it probably wouldn’t be the safest idea.

So I’m left in a state of confused grief; clinging onto hope that we might have a few more weeks or months whilst attempting to accept that we probably won’t. I feel utterly lost and alone in this strange situation. Imagining a future without Mum seems impossible, I’ve never known a life without her and thinking about it sends me into a state of turmoil, so I don’t.

I wish I had someone to talk to who knew how this felt. My brother has gone to bed. I don’t want to burden my friends – I’ve been banging on about this cancer thing for over a year now and I imagine they’re getting bored of it. They have their own issues too, their own lives. I live with a cancer cloud day in, day out, but they shouldn’t have to, too.

Someone sent me a list of organisations in my area the other day. I look through them. There’s some ‘bereavement support’, but I’m not bereaved (yet) so that’s no good. There’s one for parents, siblings and grandparents. I am none of these. It only serves to make me feel more lost and alone. I know there are no words that can fix this. I know that it has to hurt, but sometimes hurting with someone who understands, instead of hurting alone, can help.

It’s half two, now. I’m hoping to get a night of unbroken sleep but I can’t remember the last time that happened. Lately I’ve been going to sleep with the radio on; it feels less lonely. The darkness can be scary when all you have are your thoughts, sometimes it can feel like you’re the only one in the world.

There’s no grand meaning to this post. No take-home message. It’s just me, speaking to you, whoever you are. Thank you for listening.