Mother's Day

At No 4 Restaurant for Mother's Day

We celebrated Mother's Day with a Johnny Cash tribute show at the Apex (a brilliant and realistic performance celebrating 50 years since the San Quentin performance), and a meal on Sunday at the No 4 restaurant in Bury with Edwin. Ann doesn't welcome flowers, chocolate or jewelry, but I gave her red roses (dead things) anyway as part of the traditional day.

Ann has thought of death often these last few days, in dreams and day-time reverie, and in much of her poetry. Coming home, she mused on the myriad bodies laid in Suffolk soil over thousands of years of history, in fields and ditches and graveyards, all now forgotten, not even ghosts in memory, and wondered that nothing more can happen to the spirit, that once the last memory of the person has died, their spirit too has gone for ever.

I too have mused on death, but they tend to be stupid, morbid thoughts that I generally suppress, such as wondering if my aftershave will last longer than me, or if I'll need to buy a new one, or thinking of the grandchildren going to University, and wondering that I might not witness it, or on a more frivolous note, wondering if I'll live long enough to see us exit Europe! More seriously, I cannot help believing against all the lack of evidence that there is a spiritual side to our lives that continues in some form. But that is the nature of faith - the opposite of evidential certainty, but the basis of hope.

Choosing

We choose someone who
we wish to spend our life with,
share happy memories
with photographs we smile at
and, eventually, we die with.
We little know the dying comes too soon,
then one of us goes on alone
howling at God's moon.

Annie Elliott

Death comes In dreams

Clare lights with The Bell and Annie

Clare always had pretty Christmas lights, which are still up. Ann says this will bring bad luck to Clare as it's well past 12th Night. It was certainly nearly bad luck for me. I went to The Bell for a coffee, but had to dash for the loo before I could order. Though a large hotel, there is only one cubicle in the Gentleman's and that was occupied. I stood in the corridor with rapidly increasing anxiety until I could wait no longer, so dashed into the Ladies' in desperation. I streaked past the washbasins almost in a state of exposure, but just made it. The cubicle there is tiny and almost impossible to turn round in or adjust one's clothing. To avoid further embarrassment, I left rapidly and washed in the Gents'.

Moving On

I do not spend time idly wishing
for things that are now lost:
the love that I've been missing
now belongs locked in the past.

The bird upon the swaying tree
sings a sweet, soft melody,
but it does not keep on tweeting
of things that will never be.

You can never make good cider,
with life's worm-eaten fruit;
wait for the warm glow of summer
and pick from the tree anew.

The stream will keep on flowing,
the waters fast move on;
I will not keep on dreaming
of a life that is clearly gone.

Annie Elliott

My body is at a low ebb. Only two hours sleep last night before I awoke to wee, and then only dribbles despite the urgency. I do not know if it is the after-effects of irradiation, or some manifestation of the cancer. I smell like a sewer – it is always bad when one can smell oneself coming. I do not think it is the smell of cancer (see "The smell of death"), but I suspect it arises from a permeability of the inflamed bowel wall. It is a strange battle, not an angry fight of open warfare, but more like a fifth column undermining the integrity of the whole, working undercover to bring disruption and sew doubt.

I awoke with memories of uneasy dreams. I was accompanied by a band of my children, attempting to reach the edge of a deep valley. I had been there before many times in previous dreams, but had always approached from the far end, usually having emerged from some tunnel. Now the track took us past a nest of tiny cobras, each erect with flared hood and menacing, and before us was a conveyor belt feeding a furnace that we had to cross. Though silent now, I knew a great lump of coal would soon drop from the chute, and the thing would start up. One of the children started to play with the conveyor belt, and I had to warn him to keep away, least he be caught up in it when it started up.

Ann's new poem too is about moving on. It is as though she read my dreams through that union of mysterious synchronicity that has been with us since we met. She too can smell the smell of decay. The time to move on comes closer now and I must prepare the way.

More bad news

The new year is continuing as 2018 left off. We've just heard that Tony, Lucy's partner's father, formerly a leading nuclear physicist now with Alzheimer's, has been admitted to hospital with what sounds like a septicaemia. He is having IV antibiotics, and sounds to be very weak. His son is distraught and spent the whole night with his mother at the hospital.

I often liken life to being put in a long line, walking slowly up towards the pit of extinction. We start off at the back of the queue, but by my age I am among the group at the very front, waiting to drop over. Occasionally, young people are rushed up to the front, and jump in front of us. It is hard, but there is no escape. I will continue with this blog of my journey, but regret I will be unable to send back messages. It must be like falling into a black hole; death is the horizon beyond which nothing ever returns. One regret is that I shall not be able to report back from that dark pit; but I shall continue with this blog for as long as I can, and relate as much as I may.

It is recommended that one should take up an intellectual hobby to slow deterioration of the brain. I continue to do a crossword each day (really half a crossword, as Ann usually gives me half the answers!), and I am learning a language. The language is VBA - a programming language for manipulating data in Excel. Probably not much use for the holiday in Portugal, but it keeps the brain ticking over.

Bible Ann suggested yesterday that I must have got job satisfaction as a doctor. 'Tis strange, but I used to think of my life as a GP as a job rather than a vocation. It was something one 'got on with'; a long waiting list 'to be got through'. But struggling to wee at 4 o'clock in the morning, I remembered my work on the genitourinary (GU) wards; the many men coming in with retention writhing in pain; and the blissful smile when I passed a catheter to relieve them. Of course, like all pleasures, it didn't last long: we generally then had to tell them they had an enlarged prostate, and were being fast- tracked for prostatectomy.

Edwin has just phoned us from Israel. He's had a brilliant time, and after witnessing a Bar' Mitzvah in Jerusalem today, he told us he wants one. He was put off though when Ann mentioned that he would have to be circumcised first.

Death is in the air

Dead Flowers to mark the solstice

Yesterday, 21/22 December 2018, was the turning of the year, usually marked in our family with a small celebration. I always believe, marking as it does the ending of the year, that the winter solstice be of greater importance than its summer cousin. And believe me, 2018 has been a right bad year. So, despite knowing Ann always thinks of cut flowers as 'dead things' (see: pacifying-pilot), today I bought a bouquet to celebrate the death of the year, complete with Lilies-of-the Valley, white roses, and gypsophila to mark the passing of the year. I told Ann, "I know you don't like dead things, but I've bought you some flowers," and explained their symbolism in this case, but she didn't seem to believe me, saying "Only you could buy me something I don't like!"

It really has been a stunningly bad year for so many of us. Now we hear the announcement that Paddy Ashdown has died from bladder cancer. It was only one month ago that I wrote to welcome him to the BCB (Bladder Cancer Brigade, see: paddy-ashdown-joins-BCB). He was one year older than me, but he must have had stage 4 - that's the stage where they just say, "go home and keep warm."

Yesterday, too, Ann's friend Sylvia fell and damaged her wrist sufficiently for me to agree she should get it X-rayed and may need to visit A and E over Christmas! Her son-in-law is now so ill and debilitated with pain from the cancer of his face and DXT that he is wishing he were dead. Now, to add to catastrophe, comes in the report of a tsunami in Indonesia with hundreds dead. Another poor Christmas for so many.

Friendship

We are suffering here

while other lives go on,

we welcome not New Year

to pin our hopes upon,

instead, we live each day,

with friends we hold most dear

who offer their support

to share this pain we bear.

 Annie Elliott

This year has almost seen the death of Brexit as well. A satisfying article by Julie-Burchill in The Telegraph today, "Not even a Christmas miracle can save the sanctimonious, obsolete and Orwellian BBC". So many of us who voted 'out' are derided by the powers that be as intellectually lacking. The great campaign of fear that drove the remainers was one of the convincing arguments for me voting for Brexit. I hate being told what to do, and the more people try to scare me into something, the more I wish to rebel and oppose. To be coerced into remaining in Europe is the opposite of freedom - we heard not one word of all that is good in unity; there was no plea to higher causes or to the harmony of peaceful coexistence, or the sharing of historical ideals. If I had pleaded the Brixit cause, it would have gone very differently. Thank you Julie-Burchill.

Please add any comments if 2018 has been bad for you too

Mail to: Grandad.John@2from.com