“Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future” – Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell.

Those who know me know of my ongoing and committed battle with cancer. I do not have it myself but it has entered my home, uninvited and silently as if smoke under a gap in the door. It has made me very sick and it has taken the best part of my life. It came to the wrong house. It might have been mistaken in thinking because of my size I would not fight back. It was wrong.

But honestly it’s exhausting trying to cure cancer on my own these days, if only someone would help me with this mammoth task; I’ve enlisted the help of someone only marginally more suited to the job. He is the famous Professor Justin Stebbing or ‘God’ as he’s known in the oncology world. He is a doctor but far more importantly he is a scientist. He runs an independent lab. in Hammersmith hospital, researching the cancer ‘brain’ He is leading pioneering research that generations of scientists will refer to. In 2011 his team discovered the cancer causing gene ‘LMTK3.’ The team have found that this gene promotes resistance to treatment for breast, lung, colon and brain cancer sufferers. Action Against Cancer is the charity funding Stebbing’s research. They are supporting the development of a revolutionary new drug that will block this gene. Stebbbing believes he is working with some future Nobel prize winners. “The goal is to make life saving treatment and not Profits”, therefore A.A.C. are not affiliated with any large pharmaceutical companies.

So Harry and I go to meet him and his team of brainiacs . We are promising him a large chunk of a pot of money we are planning to raise over the next few years, and beyond. We have given the lab the entirety of an initial amount raised in a few weeks after James died and are hoping to continue this support, albeit on a much bigger scale.

We could never have imagined what we were shown in these labs. It was like a whole new world was opened up to us, we were floored, astounded and couldn’t quite believe what we were seeing and being told. It was information overload. Stebbing was like a kid in a candy shop, showing us all his technology. We even got to see the cell’s food- foetal calf serum, kept in a freezer chilled to minus 80 degrees.

A doctor friend had told us about Stebbing back in January after we had stumbled on the below documentary and for the first time James and I were able to hope. The documentary had a huge effect on James and it should be watched by anyone who is in any way effected by cancer.

http://www.survivingterminalcancer.com

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/displaySomeoneSpecialPage.action?pageUrl=james

For James.

“The man thought he seemed some sad and solitary changeling child announcing the arrival of a traveling spectacle in shire and village who does not know that behind him the players have all been carried off by wolves.”

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Anyone looking at my Facebook feed would see a happy, smiley person who would appear to be having the life of Riley. It’s not a total lie, at those given moments I am smiling because at that particular time I am happy. It’s life Jim, but not as we know it. But scratch a little further and a changeling is to be found in place of the original. This changeling is clever and also deceptive. Some have fallen hook, line and sinker for her almost identical adaptation. She looks like me, dresses like me and speaks like me, but she lacks radiance and delight. She is also devoid of any kind of joy, despite those constant forged smiles and giggles timed to precision.

Those who truly loved her predecessor are not so easily fooled by this duplicity, still, they hang around regardless, hoping for an occasional and honest glimpse of the original, but they are often left disappointed and unsure as to whether what they saw was even a glimpse at all or a trick.

One of the greatest mistakes that people make is thinking that this is me. I find it almost impossible to deal with people who treat me as the same person I was a year ago. I’m transformed almost totally. A friend teased me about the fact that my teeth are not straight a few weeks ago, this is something she’d always done but she forgot that she can’t do this anymore because the new me just can’t take it. The old me would have joined in but the new me can’t. Others have asked which outfit I prefer as they go through each option, as if I might have an opinion on this, like the old me would have. It’s not their fault, the changing is just that good at her stealthily fraudulence .

A friend told me that when her mother died she found that sometimes she couldn’t even cross the road, she felt so vulnerable. The only way round it really is to surround yourself with ‘safe’ people.

I do still try to go to parties and large gatherings but the level of courage it takes often makes this type of thing impossible. It helps if I know members of The Pod might be there. Others who are not in The Pod directly seem to know this without me ever having had to tell them and so they make sure that I am sat next to the Pod’s most inner circle when these events occur and that helps too.

Euripides said “When a good man is hurt, all who would be called good must suffer with him.” We can only hope that the changeling will return her original one day and the good will reap their reward, ‘Just tell me when it kicks in.’

For Fergal, my brother-in Law (a good safe bet).

Very proud of my lovely friend Feri- Please see below.

A friend remarked to me the other day- “You were not married to an ordinary man, you were married to an extraordinary man.” I know exactly what she means and I am certainly proud of the man I was married to but it comes with its own huge weight. It’s exactly why my face is always being licked (please refer to Face licking post). I am more than aware of the people that I must share James with, particularly those who went before me and have stood the test of time, but honestly, everybody loved him, and it’s bloody annoying. Well maybe not quite everyone as I once discovered.

A couple of years ago our very nice neighbor decided to do a loft conversion and work got started two days after we took our celestial bundle back from hospital. James’ rage when drills started at 8am (interrupting the sleep of the light of his life) was something to behold. There were words…. to be fair it was all weekend and evenings too.

The following year, I came through the back gate to our house only to find that the kitchen doors were all locked. I had no keys and no phone to call our nanny. It was then that I saw that the same neighbor’s back gate was also open.

Workmen were filing in and out and I saw him through his wall of glass sitting at his kitchen table. I came through with one of the workmen and tapped on the glass. He smiled politely and slid the glass door open to let me in. I apologised profusely for disturbing him but explained that I needed to call our nanny to come back and let me in. He assured me this was no problem and even wanted to make me a coffee. He then said: “No problem Orna, do you want to use the landline or my iPhone?” I told him that the iPhone was fine but then it dawned on me that I didn’t know our nanny’s mobile off by heart and the only way to get it would be from James. James was at work and his number is the only one I knew off by heart.

I told our neighbor of my now need to make two phone calls and asked if this was ok. As soon as he said it was, I saw a very delayed panic grow on his face and he began to sweat profusely. I thought this was a little odd as he had initially been so calm and relaxed about me calling our nanny, why the sudden panic when faced with the prospect of a second call? It was only as I was tapping J’s number into the phone that I saw why.

You see iPhones are clever old things; they are almost like mind readers really. They can guess who you are trying to call even before you have finished to input the digits manually. This is especially the case if the number you are tapping in is already know to the phone and the name stored. So as I tapped in the last digit, I saw that it came up on the screen as …. (and it somehow looked as if our neighbor might pass out before lunging in a slow motion effort to grab said phone off me to cries of noooooooo)…………. ‘James ….Winging neighbor’. I had to turn my back to him as I had tears running down my face and couldn’t hold in the giggles. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. When I got in I called J immediately. He made me reenact the whole thing on loud speaker for his work colleagues, such was his pride. He dined off that story for months and we both had a new found respect for our neighbor. (Who had previously been diagnosed as an international sex tourist by James).

And then there was the filthy racist who lived below us in the old flat, I think he was the free holder and used to call James an ‘’English whore, whose people had raped Ireland of their land for centuries.” When it came to selling our flat things got very difficult as we needed him on side. Knowing this man’s persuasions, James pimped me out, commanding that I strap our son to my chest with an African sling and summon the embers of my thickest Irish brogue and reason with my fellow countryman.

He was putty in my hands and the stalemate, which had lasted three years, was resolved in a matter of days. He even gave Flynn a birthday present that year and wrote me a poem in a card (of course political and by another fellow countryman……….ehhhermmm…… cough… fenian…)

That same year James helped save a man’s life on Wandsworth Bridge Road. He was coming back from a pub right at the other end by Wandsworth Bridge. It was Christmas and the man was with his wife whose panic at seeing her husband in such distress had rendered her incapable. James phoned the ambulance and was following all the instructions given over the phone, when the ambulance came they were able to save the man’s life. Later that night James called Chelsea and Westminster to make sure he was okay and later received a lovely message from the man’s grateful wife, thanking him. It seemed ironic to me that five years later there was no one at that same hospital to save James’ life. He was later moved to Charring cross and there were no miracles to be found there either

At this hospital we were put into the care of these amazing people, Lilly, Stephen and Fred. They cared for James as if he were a king. King Raam. They asked me to leave every time they wanted to clean him, such was their dedication to his dignity, even though other medical folk would say that in theory James was never going to wake up or breathe by himself again. They asked me so many questions about him and his life. Stephen stayed up for hours chatting and regaling. He marvelled at the size of his calves and his “impressive beard.” I looked at him lying there and I was appalled at the gall of this tumor or bleed to reduce a king to this state, I actually thought- how dare you? I knew him to be a king when Stephen told me “In all my time here I have never seen a more loved man, I have never seen as many people in that waiting room in all my years working here.”

I had always known James to be exceptional but it was odd that a complete stranger could see that too. I felt an equal mixture of pride and dread with the prospect of having lived with a king and then to be without one.

James died of a massive brain bleed, as random as being knocked down by a bus one might say. Although he didn’t technically have cancer he had an oncologist who told me that the chances of a glioma sufferer dying of a brain bleed are the same of those without a glioma. J’s surgeon would disagree with this and really it doesn’t matter now. Regardless, he was embarking on a course of Radiotherapy and Chemo to halt the glioma from reaching a cancerous stage and had only ever had two, two-minute radiotherapy sessions.

After the first, I texted him to see how it went-“Piece of piss” he told me. He then went to a shop by the hospital to take a selfie of himself lying on a sheepskin been-bag. I had been nagging him for this for years really, it was outrageously expensive (even by my standards) and he quite rightly told me so. As soon as I got the photo, I knew that beanbag was in the bag (pardon the pun). Sure enough it arrived the following day. I remember finding it almost inconceivable that as he walked out of the first horrible radio session that instead of thinking of himself and getting himself home, he was thinking of ways to enhance my life.

The next rap came the following day and he returned from it and sat at our kitchen table with Flynn, crafting and painting Flynn’s stick man costume for world book day. When I got back that evening, they were collecting ivy in the dark from our garden, and deep in conversation about where best to stick it. I watched them, unnoticed and it’s perhaps then that I realised that I was married to a king amongst men.

For Matt Matt- next in line to be King. (James would be so proud of you)

Ode to the things that come in the mail.

I am blessed with a very crazy daughter and a very kind son. When Flynn wakes up in the morning, he takes himself downstairs and makes himself breakfast and puts on his favourite shows on Netflix. When I ask (gratefully) why didn’t you come get me? He just says “I didn’t want to wake you.” He is indeed his father’s son. This leaves me to often wake up alone. This would often be the case when I was married to James but obviously without the sadness. Usually Celeste slept with James and although we have the most ridiculously giant bed, I was pushed out and would sleep in Celeste’s room. I often peeped in at them sleeping in this way and they looked like twins (if you ignored the beard). So mornings are often for mourning, in that five minutes I get before they realise I am up. The sadness stops often when the post comes and here is why. Because people are amazing and here are some of the things I have been sent in the mail, sometimes even email.

First is this post from my friend Betsy in America. That made me happy for an hour or so.

Cormac McCarthy Flaunts Sexy New Beach Body.

CABO SAN LUCAS—Acclaimed novelist Cormac McCarthy, 79, wowed Cabo beachgoers Wednesday after debuting his sizzling new summer physique in a light-blue Vilebrequin swimsuit that showed off at least 20 extra pounds of lean muscle. “I got into this routine where I was just hitting the gym every morning, writing some of my novel in the afternoon, and then hitting the gym again later that day, and it paid off,” the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Blood Meridian told reporters as he massaged his washboard abs with deep tanning oil. “I didn’t go in for any of that carve-and-starve stuff, so I just upped my cardio, did two-a-days, and took an Isagenix whey protein shake every morning. Feels good to look good, you know?” At press time, the prose master was performing a surfside workout sequence of lunges and squat thrusts.

Then came a letter all the way from Nairobi with the very important message: * ‘That Yorkshire man with the best voice is Geoffrey Boycott- James would want you to know that.’

When I posted in ‘Tinderella’ that Flynn had worries, this arrived two days later from my brother in Ireland. It’s called a worry eater. You simply put the worry in its mouth and it eats it all up. Flynn put his one worry in there. It said- ‘I worry if dad is okey’. He left it at Matt and Tara’s house, Matt delivered it next day, minus the worry. Flynn couldn’t believe it when he opened its mouth. Later that day he told me- “Well mum it was more of a hope than a worry.” It’s since been replaced with ‘ I worry I won’t go to Legoland soon……..’

When It was James’ birthday, his cousin sent me a bottle of beautiful Moroccan Rose bath oil with a card that said- Because I know James used to always give you treats, I thought you should have one on his birthday.

On this birthday my best friend gave me the below, well for obvious penchant reasons.

On my wedding anniversary this arrived from my friend Lex, who never forgets these things.

Then last week my friend laura sent me the following note with a beautiful bracelet she’d had made. It’s engraved with the following:  TRUE GRIT ALWAYS.

Really there’s not much that will make me feel better these days but these big, and small gestures really do help. They are not going to bring James back, nothing can do that. All these gestures, they are something, and something is better than nothing and when you are faced with nothing you’ll take something.

For Laura Cassidy Lawson.

She was no longer that happy creature who in earlier youth wandered with me on the banks of the lake and talked with ecstasy of our future prospects. The first of those sorrows which are sent to wean us from the earth had visited her, and its dimming influence quenched her dearest smiles.”― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

When I had a normal life and a husband, there is nothing I loved more than to be alone. I would grab these rare opportunities wherever I could, and this was difficult being married to someone who really didn’t need ‘alone time’. If I went upstairs to have a bath and was taking too long, shouts of -“ When will you come back down?”- Or “hurry up, I’m lonely”- would be heard. Eventually if I was taking way too long, I would find I had a visitor who would sit and chat away to me. I remember my younger years of flat-sharing with Laura and party years with Tara and we would always follow each other into the bathroom to keep the other shower taker or bath sitter company. Really because we couldn’t bear to be away from each other (we still can’t) and we would have a good old chat. Some of our best chats or dissections of the night before took part in these bathrooms. So it made me happy that in a way, my life with James was no different

I can now hardly stand to be alone at all. This is usually covered. Come Saturday there is usually someone or other on my doorstep around nine, ready to come in and take part in the now standard Saturday morning pancake making ritual, this trend seems to have spread throughout the whole pod. I am out a few evenings a week and the ones I’m not, I quite enjoy as I get a chance to write or watch as many episodes of ‘Game of Thrones’ as I like without being told I’m exhausted and must go to bed. I can even get away with watching ‘Made in Chelsea’, without James telling me “You must know that I am judging you,” or “I’m going to tell all your intellectual work colleagues that this is what you do with your evenings.” Mostly the bases are all covered but sometimes there are gaps. I do NOT like these times. And yet somehow my friends seem to be able to smell these coming even before I do, as I sit down ready to tuck into my occasional  single chicken breast and portion of peas for one a loud rap on the door is to be heard. Often I will have barely opened the door and a line of visitors will file past to the sound of bottles clanging. Sometimes it’s just one visiter, and sometimes it’s one and a half, but they come.

It reminded me of another difficult time I experienced a few years ago. I was having a terrible time at work amongst other things. In an effort to make it better for me, James came home with the above work of art. The artist made a miniature figure (supposed to be modelled on J’s description of Flynn) in a glittery swimming pool with a banner above. It says: THE WORLD IS A SCARY PLACE, BUT I HAVE ARMBANDS. Ironically I can’t swim, (this is being remedied by my friend Cinders) it was never an issue as on all our holidays James would be in the pool with the kids and I, well I had very important reading to do by the pool and needed way more help getting a tan than the five minutes it took to turn his skin copper.

Right now the world is a monstrous place and scary and yet despite the fact I can’t swim, I’m not sinking. I don’t often allow myself a moment of pride, but sometimes, when I think of it, I think Jimmy Anderson and I must have done something right to have ended up with this lot.

For Amanda Morgan, for helping me float.

“Mum I wouldn’t be able to do this puzzle if a whale was here” – Celeste Sylvie Campbell Anderson.

Your dad once told me that if we goggled hard enough, we must be able to find a special school for girls with misleading first names and after today my fingers are hard and dry tapping, trying to find it.

Today your teachers came to our house as, for reasons unbeknownst to me, they worried you might be shy about settling into your new school. They needn’t have worried. You took off your pants, farted and blamed the teaching assistant for the smell you had created. I should have been cross but I experienced the same level of pride as I had when our friend asked you: “Why are you so wild, where did you find your wild?” To this you replied: “ I walked ninety nine miles to find my wild, I found it under a poo and I am never, ever putting it back!”

Really I’m proud because I know wherever Daddy is he is proud too. He’d be so proud that you are 99% Anderson and 1% Cassidy. You look like your dad, dance like him, eat like him,smile like him, you even yawn like him. We took you on holiday to the South of France with Tim and Cinders, Tish, Julia and the boys. Tim says you even do a weird thing with your fingers before you jump into a pool that your dad used to; I sometimes forget that the boys have twenty years of Dad up on me. He’d really just be proud that ‘You are all kinds of Awesome’ as the poster in your bedroom says.

I found you to be most awesome a few weeks after Daddy died, it was a Saturday and you asked me if it was the weekend or a school day. I told you it was the weekend and so you ascertained that we must therefore be having pancakes because in your mind this ought to still happen even though Daddy was not here. When I cried and told you that’s what Daddy used to do, you said “That’s alright, you can do them, you just need eggs.” So I stood at the hob alone, tears rushing off my face with the recipe on the iPad. Then you said “Just remember, Daddy always says the first one is for the bin.”  After that you actually uttered the following words, and I must write them here as testimony otherwise I will never believe it in years to come, and all before your  third birthday, you said : ” Mummy I know you’re scared but you can do it’ You then climbed up on the table and chanted, “you can do it, you can do it, go Mummy, go Mummy”, like my very own cheerleader. Then you gobbled them all up and said “Mummy I’m so proud of you”; this actually happened. You carry my heart.

When he went back to the fire he knelt and smoothed her hair as she slept and he said that if he were God he would have made the world just so and no different.

– Cormac Mc Carthy, The Road.

For Shannon.

There is love in me the likes of which you’ve never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied in the one, I will indulge the other.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Sometimes I worry that James may have been on loan to us. That some evil Svengali puppet master in the sky thought…. ah that Anderson household, they seem to be having way too much fun, let’s put a stop to that.

There are bigger, better people than me, who when something like this befalls them, never once say- why me?- They can accept it and the fact that it’s out of their control, they can feel happy for what they did have, even grateful. I am not that person. I’m not one for self-pity either so I don’t think why me? What I really think is- Why Angela?- This is what makes me really angry.

I felt most angry that as day was closing in on a Tuesday in London, I was sitting telling my children, then both under six, that we were going to get in a taxi and it was going to take us to see Daddy, to say goodbye. We were doing this while other parents were putting their children in baths and reading them bedtime stories. Most people never have to do this but I did and I’m more than a little bit cross about it. How could I tell my children that their Dad was on loan while others had theirs for keeps? I felt like I was repaying a bad gambling debt to some nasty bailiff.

My anger knows no bounds. It’s a comfortable bed fellow keeping me warm and toasty at night. Some people ask me how I cope and really the answer is with the help of my friend anger. I don’t know where I’d be without it.

I’m most angry whenI think of the power that J’s tumour had over our family. That we couldn’t even enjoy a happy moment because it was always there, lurking in the shadows threatening us with it’s wretched power. When I think of the cowardly residence of my enemy, hiding unreprimanded in my husband’s brain. Could I reach it, I would annihilate it, and then the ridiculousness of its size. My enemy is the size of a grape. I could squash it with my angry foot.

The below is a wonderful short, which shows how a young girl deals with grief and the cyclical process of life. It helped me, with Celeste particularly, explain what goodbye really means.

All flesh is grass.

For Sarah Power

 

For sorrow reaches even the happiest kingdom- Cinderella.

This is the age of the app whereby if we do not ‘like’ something, we simply swipe left. I have found this a particularly useful tool to use with unwanted thoughts. I can now exile these into the cosmos and they need never darken my doorstep again. I am littering London with these banished thoughts and dropping them as easily as Cinderella’s glass slipper.

When James died some of the thoughts were not really thoughts at all but worries and profound ones at that. When he died, I felt less like a grieving wife and more like a Dickensian orphan who finds herself at the workhouse gates being greeted by someone appropriately named like Mr Drudgchet, or Mrs Bellowinkle or Mr Hollowshankle . I wondered-what is to become of us? Much as this type of character might.

Flynn has worries too. When it all first happened he asked who would look after him and Celeste when I died. I told him people only die when their body doesn’t work properly. I said – Daddy had a lump in his head and so his body didn’t work properly- But then he cried when he saw that our nanny’s hand wasn’t working properly. He has worries too. I try to stop these and I hope I succeed, and as for what’s to become of us, I really don’t know. I don’t think about it. Just call me the Artful Thought Dodger.

For Weezey my Fairy Godmother

For Flynnstar (and Emily of course)

 Before you were born Daddy liked to call me his fish. Every card or email began with -‘Dear fishy’- Then this became- “my silvery fish”. When you were in my tummy Daddy called you- ‘The fish’ and when Celeste came along it was ‘fish’ plural. For your first Christmas I had the most beautiful book made for your dad. Emily J came round to the house and we sat and thought the whole thing out. I told her that we all called you Flynnstar (Daddy even had this put on some trainers; these are yours now) and that Daddy called you his fish. I also told her you were always trying to get away, even in my tummy you left abruptly, two weeks before your eviction date. So we came up with- Flynn Star the Famous Flying Fish. Emily wrote it up, did all the illustrations and even bound it herself in the most beautiful Japanese silk. I presented it to your Dad on Christmas morning, there were a few tears, what can I say; he was an easy listening kinda guy. Here is your story my Fish:

 Flynn star the famous flying fish began life as simply Flynn.

 He lived in a beautiful pond which lay in the

centre of an enchanted wood, somewhere near

Turnham Green. He lived there with his mother and father fish

who loved him endlessly. He was as precious to them as the whole world

 

All the other animals in the enchanted wood were made of newspaper.

This was useful for Flynn and his family as they could read the Elk or

The Daily Deer to keep up to date with the news.

The Sunday Hare Supplement was trickier to read as it seldom had the desire to sit still.

When the hare hopped off Flynn was always frustrated that he couldn’t chase after her.

He had to stay in the pond.

 How he wished to go further than the little pond’s limits. Although it was a lovely pond, and he was very happy there, he still dreamed of adventure: he dreamt of more. Often if you looked for Flynn he’d be somewhere day dreaming or night dreaming….. Wide-eyed Flynn loved to watch the stars. How bright they were! How golden.

One night he watched as a star shoot across the sky, and his mother said “make a wish!”

“I wish I could see the whole world,” said Flynn.

He closed his eyes and when he opened them…He was still in the pond.

‘Oh’ he thought ‘how sad, wishes don’t come true.’ But he was delightfully wrong….

“Look” said his Dad.

There was some commotion in the pond and he looked down to see what it was. To his surprise, engraved on the bottom of the pond floor was a large map .A map of the whole world.

The problem with wishing on shooting stars, you see, is that they move so quickly!

So quickly that when you make the wish you have to be very clear about what you want or they might not quite understand what you mean.

Flynn then became Flynn Star to his parents because he’d wished on a star and got the whole world.

Although it wasn’t quite the way he’d imagined, it was still his wish nonetheless.

He studied the map and soon realised that the world had oceans and lakes and rivers and seas.

He wanted to see them all, to roll in the waves and turn in the tides and dance in the ebb and the flow.

 

He had an idea.

 

He studied the Owl and read the Daily Duck, and learned when the next star would fall.

In the pond in the enchanted forest, he waited all night, collecting every single second, and examining it with hope. He watched all the stars with his wonderful bright eyes. And then in that instant he saw the shooting star fly across the night sky,

he made another wish, and this time he remembered to be as clear as he could.

“I wish I had wings so that I could fly.” He closed his eyes.

And when he opened them…. He had a pair of beautiful wings!

He couldn’t wait to test them. He raced to the surface and jumped into the air.

And sure enough….He could fly!

He was ready to explore the whole world!

“Oh look at you Flynn Star!” said his mum. “Look at your beautiful wings!”

“You’re a flying fish,” said his dad, “you’ll be famous!” “Flynn Star the famous flying fish!” They said together.

Flynn looked at his mum and looked at his dad. And he was sad. They didn’t have wings. They couldn’t come with him to see the whole world.

He hesitated

“We’ll read about you in the Elk.” said his dad.

“Or the Glossy Stag” said his mum.

“Okay” said Flynn Star the famous flying fish. “I suppose I better go and see the sea.”

“Goodbye my boy” said his dad.

“Goodbye Flynn Star the famous flying fish” said his mum.

“I’ll be back for supper anyway” said  Flynn as he flew neatly over the moon.

And so Flynn Star the famous flying fish became the most famous fish in all the world. He had adventures galore, uncovered tremendous treasures and found lifelong friends wherever he went.

But nowhere he found in the whole world was ever as lovely as being in his own pool, with his mother and father fish, who will always love Flynn Star the famous flying fish, and welcome him home with open arms from each new adventure.

And when they hold him, they will always feel like they are holding the whole world.

 How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!

The world forgetting, by the world’s forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.

Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.

 Alexander Pope  

Since launching this blog I have had hundreds of emails, letters, online posts, tweets and Facebook messages. Some from people I know, others I don’t and it has been wonderful to read all of them. Quite a few have talked about the relationship between James and I and they say that most people will never experience this kind of love. I expect they are right but to that I say -“lucky fuckers.” Ignorance is so blissful. I do actually believe this. And it’s not just me that thinks this, they even made a film about it: In the above mentioned film the theory goes that for a fee, the memory can be wiped, any distressing memories are erased and the benefactor can go back to life as normal, unaware that they had ever experienced anything painful. As I said in an earlier post- Grief is untidy, this would be the ultimate spring clean and I would happily pay the fee. I’d pay double the fee. I know the forfeit is loss of memories but it it surely worth it to avoid agony’s clutch.

About three months after James died the agony was close to unbearable, it was a burning pain so I thought going to see a therapist might help. She told me that they don’t really like to see people before six months. ‘Why?’ I asked. “Well you just need to experience it” she told me. ‘You fucking experience it!’, is what I wanted to say. Ironically these are the same words uttered by my doctor when I went to her two days after James died and asked her, very politely, for some Crystal Meth.

It’s a bit like that scene in ‘The Matrix’ where Neo is given the choice: Blue pill or Red pill. Red: experience and feel or Blue: live in blissful ignorance. Alice’s EAT ME/DRINK ME. Stay the same or swallow and be changed forever and see the world as it really is, feel more deeply. Give me the blue pill, every single time. I wish I had no knowledge of any of this. When you swallow the red pill everything is stained, tainted and contaminated, there is a lack of luster, a dusty residue. Lights out, words gone.“The more a thing is perfect, the more it feels pleasure and pain.”*

I don’t imagine I will always feel this way, I do hope not, which is why this blog is so important for my family and me. It’s a time capsule in the ether.

Everbody’s got to learn sometime.

For Henrietta.

*   The Divine Comedy.(Inferno)