Blessing

So here’s something poignant. My sister’s passing whilst dreadfully sad has meant something positive. The most important thing is that she’s no longer in pain and suffering from the cancer ravaging her body. There isn’t a person who would wish for life to be extended in those circumstances. It may be a cliche but the end was truly a blessing. And we, her family and dearest friends, are all thankful for that. For Caz and I there’s another smaller blessing.  Our trip to NYC to see my daughter S and  son-in-law E and our beautiful grandsons this w/e can go ahead. It’s not that we don’t leave with a heavy heart but if she’d survived for a few more days then our decisions would have been so difficult…

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More heartache

Regular readers may recall that 5 years ago we had a harrowing week away in Italy as we learned of the sudden death of my youngest brother M from cancer. He had been ravaged by the disease in a very short period. And I missed seeing him before we managed to get back. Now here’s a sad tale; my young sister H, the baby of the family 12 years my junior, had been dealing with a spinal cancer situation for the last few years. She’d been elected for an experimental drug programme after years of surgery and therapy but a sudden change in her condition necessitated a mastectomy a couple of weeks ago. Long story short it didn’t go well and her condition deteriorated. On Saturday night we learned she had little time left, days possibly, and headed up early Sunday morning to Blackpool Victoria Hospital. Half an hour away from Blackpool we learned my lovely sister H had passed away.

Oh come on!

Am I the only one who gets increasingly infuriated by life’s little annoyances? I bet not. Today was a classic example of how to touch my infuriated buttons. We are desperately hoping that nothing happens to prevent us heading over to NYC in a week’s time to see our lovely daughter S and son-in-law E and adored youngest grandsons E & N.  It’s been two years since we’ve seen the guys and have missed them terribly. So we’re doing all that pre-testing malarkey etc. And we decided that today we’d get a lot of laundering done – not everyday clothes but two sets of quilts, mattress toppers, sheets’ and pillow cases etc. And we needed lots of coins. Two duvet washes at £8 and probably 4 drier sessions at £4. About £32 in total and we had a magnificent £1 coin in the kitty. Sigh.