‘Grief’ – for me it is loss – losing and no longer having that feeling of comfortable familiarity  that provides me with love, security and familiarity  – it involves change (whether planned, expected or unexpected) – it means adjustment, scariness and fear! In my life to date (as a middle aged mum) I have experienced small grief losses – my body, my teens, my fresh face, school days and being able to party and get up energised and bushy tailed the next day – all minor losses which I managed easily and fairly happily as there was so much going on in the chapters of my life.

However around this time six years ago the chapter stopped unexpectedly, the narrative suddenly, unexpectedly and without discourse just diverted from the script.. the dishwasher man, my husband, my lover, my best friend, my sounding board, my better half, my ‘Cups’ daddy got sick..(first with a non-maligant brain tumour then followed a couple of years with grade four cancer of the kidney). I didn’t subscribe to the book of cancer in my dishwasher book, we were to live a long and happy life together.

I couldn’t wait to see him mature with grey hair (he was always my Sean Connery), I used to envision us walking up the streets of the Port with our three beautiful ‘Cups’ glorious in the midst of youth and freedom…while we wandered behind proud of our creations and bloody hard work! But CANCER with its wickedness of wand said..’NO’ and decreed a rewriting of the story of our dishwashing life….and grief has now replaced the space of Gary…it was a very unwelcome, hated and frightening friendship (it still is) but we have become familiar with each other…well kind off!!

The friendship of grief does not terminate, it is by your side, in your soul, in your conversation, in your thoughts, in your feared future, in your past moments, it shapes your being, it takes from you love, shared hopes, the hopes you had for your kids future of family life, it has no bounds in its capacity to impede, destroy and completely wreck everything familiar to you – IF YOU LET IT…. I call it a friendship because for me I have to or we would be enemies and not friends…

The grief of living with cancer and its destruction followed by death has meant grief and I have come to an agreement to recognise we are both present. I hate what grief has done to my projected future with Dishwasher man, I am so angry that my ‘Cups’ have no daddy physically on their life journey (as Alex said recently.. I hate having to talk about daddy in the past), I replied.. ‘I know’… but grief has now become my companion on this journey of life..

We have become a rather unlikely ‘two-some’. Every so often it rears it head and lets me know who has had the power to change my life…but mostly it quietly resides in my home, my  being, my friendships and most importantly my family….. like all friendships we have negotiated a way of being together…sometimes I manage the anger, the tears and tantrums of my friend grief…other times I don’t…

It may seem strange to call grief my friend but for me I have to because in the darkest of connections with each other grief has taught me I am strong!

I can handle (mostly) our relationship because I have to or I will loose the life I have been given and as I said to my ‘Cups’ the day after their dishwasher daddy died…

‘We have to live the life daddy fought so hard to have, we have to live it fully for him…’

Grief has taken a lot of me but it won’t impede on the life and breath my ‘Cups’ and I all still have xox