Saturday 28 September 2013

Stopped in my tracks - by Steve Evans51

Dear Ella,

Just been "stopped in my tracks" unloading the washing machine.  BBC breakfast news was on, it was an interview with the most extraordinary man called Steve Evans.   He is dying of cancer and was being interviewed by Louise Minchin and Charlie Stayt.

The interview was so poignant, inspirational, interesting and touchingly funny, he articulated the journey so well and reminded me so much of your cancer journey and attitude.  I think it helped me to further understand some of what you went through.

Steve is now on the radiotherapy stage to give him "quality of life" and a bit more time, there is no other treatment that will work for his cancer.  He seems to be getting a bit more time than you - so has been able to settle and come to terms with the final stage of his journey.  You of course did not have quite enough time (understatement of the decade), but were amazing in the time you had.

He is now on twitter Steve Evans51 and talked of how supportive it is to have people following him and willing him on, the same sort of feeling you and me used to get from all the followers of our blogs Getting Better  and day to day living

Over a cup of coffee, in our lovely kitchen, sitting at the counter I have just read your blog again and feel so close to you and privileged that I was on the journey with you - from start to end.

Lots of love

Mum
xxx

Thursday 26 September 2013

In to my arms

Dear Ella,

Somethings never change.

At the weekend I went to watch the film "About Time".   It's the latest Richard Curtis film - you know like "Love Actually".

I loved it - and of course fell in love with the sound track - so in my usual fashion bought it (yes I know just Like "The Descendants", "500 days of Summer" and "Juno"), and yes I have played it non stop - especially the track "into my arms "by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds.  I play it at breakfast time, tea time and just before I go to bed (now).

You would be getting cross and telling me to turn it off - but hey there is no one here, except me so guess what?  I can do what I like - no one to annoy!

So same old Mum - watch a film, get hooked on a track and then play it continually - and yes this one has made it into my top 10 songs of all time.

Somethings never change

Lots of love

Mum
xx

PS - the film had Bill Nighy in it :)






Wednesday 25 September 2013

Doh - fill the hole!

Dear Ella,

So its obvious - you just move something else into the yoghurt space in the fridge (white wine) and use the fruit bowl for something else (junk mail) - easy!

But of course and thankfully its not easy to fill the real holes - the huge Ella and Sophie holes.  Work, friends, activities, music, sleep, exercise, walking (yes still doing that) all help.

Friends and family are especially amazing.  I've said it before and I'll say it again - "it takes more than one", we all need different people at different times.  We, as in you and me and Sophie have amazing friends and family - holding us tight, where ever we are.

Lots of love

Mum
xx

Sunday 22 September 2013

Yoghurt shaped hole

Dear Ella,

Well there is a new shaped hole in Allington now - it's a Sophie shape. It's very noticeable when you open the fridge - no yoghurts, or look at the fruit bowl - no apples, bananas, pears, pineapples, melons and all things fruit.

I can also feel the hole - the house is very quiet (and she wasn't the noisy one) and still.  It feels like its waiting patiently to see what to do next.

I'm waiting too - quietly confident that it will all be ok.  The foundations have been laid, the bricks are being tentatively placed to build a new shape that will work for us all.

Thank you for continuing to give me the strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Just like I explained when I first started writing to you - to this day and for always I can feel your hand and your gaze and feel your strength and energy, it's amazing.

Lots of love
Mum
xxx


For the record - every time I falter, I think of the day we were told the news that your cancer was back and was untreatable (29 October 2012), a room full Doctors, nurses, you, me and Jim and of course the ubiquitous box of NHS tissues (knew we were on for a hiding when I saw the box discreetly hidden underneath some folders one of the nurses was holding!).  Anyway,  of course you cried and wailed - and then it was my turn, but suddenly in the depths of my despair -  I could feel the strongest, warmest grip on my hand and could feel your big brown eyes staring hard at me.  The intensity of your gaze made me lift my eyes to meet yours  - and there you held me, steady and fast - with your touch and look, yet with no words - and told me that it would be OK and I would somehow get through this. 

Thursday 19 September 2013

Stabilisers off

Dear Ella,

By Friday evening - Allington will be down to one resident (aside from the two felines).  It's finally happening, Sophie is on her way to uni and I will be left home.   Two legs of the Redman girls tripod missing.

So wonky (well maybe no more than usual) and possible wobbly, if we are talking analogies, it's maybe like having the stabilisers taken off a bike.  You and Sophie gone - so I will have to push on and learn to cycle in a straight and steady line - without my girls propping me up.

Do you think I can do it?


Lots of love

Mum
XX


Wednesday 18 September 2013

Party

Dear Ella,

Just finished a "2 November Party For Ella planning evening" - its all go.  Over 200 people coming, just 40 tickets left to sell.

Some great auction, silent auction and raffle prizes have been donated.  Music sorted and running order just about done.

So it will be a great evening - I know you would approve, but forgive me when I need a moment or two as the familiar, painful reality check hits "that you aren't here, and never ever will be again".  The party will feel so right, but so wrong.

Enough Redman!   Today we tipped over £75,000 on the Just Giving pages - and very much hope the party will take us to at least £85,000. We then need to work out where to get the final £15,000 from to get us to our £100,000 target.  (A target we have not verbally stated, but all secretly have in our hearts).

That TCT unit will be open next Spring - we will have done what you wanted.

Lots of love

Mum
xxx

My party girl pre cancer

My party girl in recovery from cancer - and still ready to party!




Tuesday 17 September 2013

London Feet

Dear Ella,

I will say no more than "London Feet" - you'll know exactly what I mean.

Missing you lots

Lots of love

Mum
xx

Sunday 15 September 2013

From Jess

Dear Ella,

Jess sent me this a while ago - its taken me several reads to get it as a "non physicist" - but of course you will totally get it.  I like the very last sentence - "not a bit of you is gone, your just less orderly!

As I have said before, I am sure I can you feel your energy passing by sometimes, but your windmill is still this afternoon.

Lots of love

Mum
xx

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.
And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.
And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.
And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.

Thursday 12 September 2013

Christmas Carols

Dear Ella,

Lots of news tonight!

Thanks to the wonderful Jane Clutterbuck - I joined a choir tonight and started singing!   I know you would be pleased, something I had talked about doing for so long and have now done.  Of course I cant sing - but the lovely choir master made me feel so relaxed and welcome that before I knew it there were sounds coming out of my mouth - I was so surprised, I thought they were coming from someone else.

Anyway, proper sheet music and all of that (apparently I am a first alto). I muddled my way through the session - with a huge range of emotions, not least because we ended up singing "Silent Night" (got to be ready for Christmas concert) which of course was Grannies favourite carol - could feel my eyes welling up - wasn't ready for that!

Other emotions stirred by being in a primary school - could see my little girls in their early school years and just the whole emotion of hearing over 60 people sing together in some kind of harmony.  An exhaustively wonderful two hours.

Then we went to the TF with Maya and Amy and just chatted and laughed.  Maya told me a great story about you and her drinking too many gin and tonics at the TF one night, we debated what was the right age to have a baby, caught up on "Boy George news", chatted about life in Montreal, Sheffield and Bristol and of course talked about you.

It was a "Gurt Lush"evening.

Lots of love

Mum
xx

PS - its raining - so that will be a frog event in the morning!

Wednesday 11 September 2013

First time's

Dear Ella,

So I am having to experience any number of first times - the current one is helping one of my daughters get ready for university, leaving home and the whole separation process - which of course is normal and right.

In the normal course of events - I would have been through this once with you and have a bit of experience under my belt, instead we (as in Sophie and myself) are feeling our way and stumbling through it - but I think getting there.  As I said to her the other night - she really is off to "big, big, big school" now.

You of course did leave home, but not in the normal, expected way - all rather unexpected and not what was planned at all.   Some days I like to think you have gone to the biggest  school of all - "the universe of life".  Hope it's fun.

Lots of love

Mum
xx



Sunday 8 September 2013

Blankety Beds

Dear Ella,

Another weekend very nearly done.

I love September - the slight chill in the morning and the evening, the golden sunshine, allotment over spill - veggies and fruit galore, the sense of new beginnings as the masses return to school, work and familiar routines and just overall a more energetic feel.

Do you remember "the broad beans are sleeping in their blankety beds"?  You and Sophie used to make me laugh as you sang your favourite harvest festival song when you were little girls. Yea!

Lots of love

Mum
xxx


Cauliflowers Fluffy and cabbages green
Strawberries are sweeter than any I've seen
Beetroots purple and onions white
All grow steadily day and night

The apples are ripe and the plums are red
The broad beans are sleeping in their blankety bed

Blackberries are juicy and rhubarbs sour
Marrows fattening hour by hour
Gooseberries hairy and lettuces fat
Radishes round and runner beans flat

The apples are ripe and the plums are red
The broad beans are sleeping in their blankety bed

Orangey carrots and turnips cream
Reddening tomatoes that used to be green
Brown potatoes in little heaps
Down in the darkness where the celery sleeps

The apples are ripe and the plums are red
The broad beans are sleeping in their blankety bed, Yea!

Thursday 5 September 2013

Would I have done anything differently?

Dear Ella,

So lovely this morning as Jane from the hospice came for a "check up" and a chat.   Seeing her makes me feel very close to you, although of course it drags me right back to last October and November and all the trauma.  But that's good - I like to go "there" with the right person and run through it all.

Jane asked me today "what would I do differently, if I could have the last week, 24 hours with you all over again"?  Having thought about it carefully - not much, except of course I would not get cross with you the night before, like I did.  We were both so exhausted, scared and in your case ill, we almost didn't know what we were doing or saying.

"Mum, I don't like it when you are cross with me"

"Sorry, Ella, but it was silly doing............   But don't forget I love you.  Sleep tight, you know where I am if you need me".

I'm sorry I was cross with you, and so wish I could change that, but I can't - but I do remember  saying I love you - and I really do.

Lots of love

Mum
xx

Tuesday 3 September 2013

Getting braver

Dear Ella,

Think I am getting braver, or maybe the moment was right or something.

But, I was asked the dreaded question this morning "Do you have any other children beside your daughter Sophie"?   Of course the answer is "yes, I have another daughter Ella, but sadly she died last year".

To date I have managed to avoid that question, have skirted around it, or even not told the truth - which  has not felt right at all.

But I said it, and was truly grateful that the other person could cope, was matter of fact, sympathetic, interested, but not to interested - and then we moved on to another subject - cant even remember what.

Lots of love

Mum
xx