Last night during our midweek fellowship meeting which was taking place in the lounge of our home, I received a text from Annie (not in our lounge or our home).
“Ryan please can u come up if u feel strong enough after mtg. Even with mattress to sleep…i need u.”
A day of cold wintery showers from above and warm company from the South.
A very short blog post!
Just in case you missed it, here’s our journal entry for the last few days.
Increasingly, each time I prepare to see Annie after some time away – be it a night or a minute – I never know in what condition I will find her. Each unit of time shares the same unpredictable rhythm, the same complex DNA. In that respect the last year is a projection of the last hour and the last hour a compression of the last year. Sometimes, life is so painfully and wonderfully, upsetting and uplifting.
This morning was as tense as last night was long – so long.
Just wrote an update and then lost it!
As the days, weeks, months – and even new years – pass, I become increasingly aware of the fact that nearly half of our married life has been fraught with cancer. That’s nearly six years. In fact, two years prior to her diagnosis, Annie’s Mom’s journey with cancer began (and continues today), so in that sense cancer has been around for the most part of our married life.
The transition from hospice to hospital strips us of a number of luxuries – among those treasures, a free car park. My new routine is to park the car on the driveway of some friends, who live that little bit closer to the hospital than we do, so that I can make a brief 15 minute journey on foot and avoid having to sell my car in order to meet the hospital’s car park charges!
Just a few snapshots of the last couple of weeks following Annie’s first departure from hospital – includes carol singing in the city centre, making and boxing cookies for neighbours on Christmas eve; Christmas day with my parents; post-Christmas games and fellowship; sewing, writing and constructing a frame for the poem Annie wrote for her Mom as a Christmas gift – all from the comfort of her hospice room; a late Christmas with Mom Ruth, Tim, Joy and Tabbi; oh…and just a dash of the dashing Milo.
Broken Chariots 