This week I
have heard some shaking news. Two people I know have had their respective
all-clears from test results for illnesses that would have been deadly. I think
both of them expected the worst and now need to recalibrate their whole
thinking. I know what that feels like after having the genetic test for HD. The
reprieve from a death sentence brings its own shock waves - huge relief and
joy of course but a kind of half life of strange mixed emotions too. It's not always simple.
In the
same week, a beautiful young friend has been terribly injured in a motorway car
crash, has not regained consciousness and is not expected to live. Someone just
stretching her wings, with so many hopes and plans ahead, so much talent, just
gone.
You can’t
make sense of it.
How fragile
we are, how much of a mystery life is. How much we waste of it and take it for
granted. When I hear this news I realise yet again how precious it is just to
be here, breathing and feeling the sun on my face (yes, in December!) and able
to hug my loved ones.
I think of how rubbish things seem now for Nick and how much I fret about his quality of life - but he IS alive, and we can still cherish the moment and the time together. For all the frustrations and furies and everyday grieving, we are here together with a bond of love. Terrible, wonderful news that reminds me just how thin the line is between life and death - it doesn't half make you want to carpe the feck out of the diem.
So I will shrug away the non-arrival of the promised parcel and the peeling paint in our hallway and all the silly little things that are bothering me, and Nick will get extra tenderness and hugs today, even when he's had a skinful. The sun is shining and we're alive.
Yep, I sound like James Stewart at the end of "It's A Wonderful Life" but hey, it is almost Christmas.
