It doesn't sound all that long.
And I guess in the grand scheme of time, it's not. A mere, measly four months.
16 weeks.
About 2,500 hours.
Nothing really.
But consider for a moment what some of those hours were named. What they were specifically allocated to.
Birthdays... Wedding anniversary... Christmas...
I have navigated through these special hours... The firsts.
And I'm on the cusp of a whole year of working.. Uninterrupted by the emergent surgery or the palliative ward.
A whole, uninterrupted year.
Sometimes, when I'm especially selfish and simply miss the way he was mine, I would gladly do cancer for another million days.
I would do the watching him fight the pain, the medication, the not knowing, the fear... I would do the chemo and the emergency surgery.. I would sit in a thousand hospital waiting rooms...
I'd do it again and again and again... For he'd be here.
But then... I remember how he fought.
So valiantly.
And how, at the last.. He was so done.
So done with the body that was riddled and ruined by cancer.
He couldn't... He simply couldn't go on in that body.
He tried.
Oh, how he tried.
And I remember that we are done with cancer.
No more cancer.
It's strange... Walking into a year without cancer as a constant companion.
Walking into a year that could be relatively... Well... Normal.
Hey.. As normal as we can manage anyway.
I'll let you in on something: I'm practicing normal.
Actively practicing how to be normal.
Here's a photo that captures this struggle to be in the new normal.. Let me tell you about it.
This photo... Krystopher was taking pictures the other day. While we were in Brisbane.
He was taking pictures on my phone. Of the city. From our balcony. I was having a coffee.. Just thinking about... Stuff.
And he took this photo. And he showed me and said, "Mum... Stop looking like bad news is coming. Just smile. Relax!!!!" And then he kisses me and off he goes. Back to being 10 and awesome.
And I'm left... Looking at this me my son sees.
A me who looks like bad news is coming.
Because that's how I have lived for the past 3 years..
Strange isn't it?
Strange how I need to reintroduce myself back into the wide world of normality..
Where morphine packs and chemo doses aren't a regular state of affairs.
Where conversations about death and dying aren't common.
Where I don't have to wait, in dread, for the next bit of bad news.
Because that's what I've been living.
The non-normal.
And here I am.
About to be all normal again.
About to work.. Like a normal person.
5 days a week.
About to monitor my sons schooling- because believe me when I say that I have no clue what they did or didn't do at school last year..
No idea.
I'm just high-fiving myself that they managed to make it to school at all...
And speaking of them... My 3 sons.
They are so good at steering me towards normal.
Towards the life that we have before us in the now.
I gave them open slather with these school holidays.
Whatever..wherever they wanted to go.
It's their holidays.
I'm the driver.
The bill payer.
Sunny coast.. Cousins. An obvious choice.
But then...
Brisbane.
Les Miserables.. Because it's the last show we saw with dad... And we want to see it again.
And the Pancake Manor.. Remember how dad loved that place??
And Burleigh Heads.
They specifically asked for Burleigh Heads.
The one beach. The one spot that their father purposefully created memories with them. Probably for now. He probably knew this would happen.
Knew that his entirely brave and very courageous sons would lead their not so brave mother on a holiday trip to the familiar places.
I would gladly avoid all of this... In fact it's actually been really tough.
But these sons of mine. His boys.
No... They wouldn't let these familiar and favourite places stay a shadow in their minds.
They have marched into these places and these days... And they have stamped them with this new normal. They have taken them back. Taken them out of the sadness that memories can sometimes turn into.
"Dad liked this place..."
"Remember when dad...."
How are they so brave?
I don't know, but I'll keep following where they lead.
I'll keep being reminded to take the memory of what we had into this new normal.
Because they do it so beautifully.
They walk the memories he created and they have one hand firmly grasping who he was...while the other one pushes me into our new days,
Our new days.
New days of being us... Cancer free.
New days.
