Tuesday morning and I find myself in my car on the South Downs. The weather is as gloomy as my mood, and it seems that this is the place to go when you want time alone; and by that I am referring to the cars that drive in and out of the car park once they know they’re not alone, soon to be found in an alternative car park quietly looking for solace.
It’s 9am and I should be at work, but my boss has kindly sent me home because I can barely string a sentence together through my crying. I don’t want my family to see me like this and so I end up here, in a car park in the drizzling rain.
I am here because yesterday I was told my Mums cancer has taken hold of another part of her body and moved to her brain (it’s already bone, liver, lung and lymph nodes but apparently that’s not quite enough). Knowing for the last two and a half years that I was going to prematurely lose my mother because of this heinous disease is something I’ve learnt to live with and to an extent, accepted.
The trouble is, when someone is telling you that the struggle to control this is getting harder, and that time is looking shorter, that acceptance flows out the window and in comes premature grief. My mother is my world. In my mid twenties I look forward to getting married and having babies with the belief that my Mum will be there to help and advise. I don’t know my life without her outspoken, cut throat views on how I’m dressed or how I should be spending my time. I don’t know my life without her comfort or her praise.
Sitting in my car on the South Downs I tell myself to not think about this. To cry, pull myself together and go home and make a bacon butty because really, what else can I do? And someone else needs to car park.
coley06 