Poetry

I have mentioned many times poems. As those of you who were at the funeral know, the poem that sits atop of the blog is one and the same as the one I chose to read to you all. Just over 9 months before Mum came back to the UK for the final time and her cancer became known, she had returned for a brief visit and handed me a small pink book. She told me that she had been writing poetry again and asked if I would read it. In my heart of hearts I cannot explain why and it became something that Mum and I accepted over the duration of those following 9 months as a form of silent acknowledgement of the fact that I could not bring myself to open that small book. Call it a bad feeling if you will. She would sometimes ask when she called "have you read?" and I would always respond "not just yet". Speaking of when she called, I used to tease her that she used me as her pinch test since such was her happiness that she often seemed to wonder whether this life of hers in Turkey was just a dream and in some ways used those phone calls as a reality check.

It was that small pink book that I turned to when I returned to Mums flat on the morning of her death. Knowing exactly where it was, and knowing in some ways what I thought I may find inside it's cover. In many ways I am glad that I didn't read it when Mum first gave it to me as it would of told me without need to question that she knew something was amiss inside of her and had been for some time. What I found inside were a collection of poems that say her thank yous', I love yous', together with the poem that will always to me be a symbol of perhaps the greatest choice Mum ever made. From what I discovered whilst sorting through her things in the UK and in Armutulan, from piecing together the comments she made over the final two years. Her distress and anguish when she returned for my operation with Dad, the request over and over to go for a ride with me on the bike, the increasing tiredness taken  at first as being a result of grief from the loss of her Father, the weight loss, the talks that I have, and indeed Mum had shared with Katie and Pat, and the story of a bad meal she created as a cover earlier last year for her growing pain together with the secondary self encourgement story of the dream where her Mother had come to her and told her she had another '7 good years'. 

I can say that she knew.

Perhaps not the full extent. But with her medical training, her inquistive nature, and the pain and tiredness that her body was exhibiting, she was more than aware that something was happening. I can now more fully understand the concerns Mum had when Dad and I had the nephrectomy. Would they have allowed the operation to go ahead had they known that Mum had advanced renal cell carcinoma? There is no substantial evidence that RCC or indeed CRD as Dad has are hereditary and I did show Mum the evidence for this. As did the Doctors. So I would suggest it is a moot point that needs no further discussion. What was important to me was that she understood that she was part of my making that original decision and that yes it meant that I love Dad, but no it didn't mean I had forgiven him or forgotten. She also finally understood after all these years that being told to leave, to go, was not me rejecting her. It was a wish for her to no longer be in a situation that was spiralling ever down and out of any form of control. She was no saint, nor will I paint her as one, but violence is not excuseable. Something I am going to include at this point is this. Simon and Mum made their peace. He gave her the best Christmas present she could ever have wished for on her last Christmas. They shared a closeness and likeness that was truly Mother and Son. At times their being so alike was what drove them to not be able to stand back from one another. Mum was fiercely protective and proud of Simon, and you'd know that if you didn't simply agree and instead backed her into a corner on the subject. I will stand for no one passing judgement on him, since whether you choose to forget the past or pretend it never happened, it did, and you didn't have to live through it as he did. If any of that raises questions then so be it. I am open to any.

I am going to borrow the line from a film - "Get busy living, or get busy dieing". Mum made a choice to the former. She took the opportunity open to her in Turkey with both hands and lived it as fully as she possibly could. She didn't need confirmation that she was dieing, she chose confirmation that she was living. Becoming a belly dancer for a local restaurant (still makes me laugh and proud when the country is home to belly dancers), choosing to accept and allow new love and friendship into her life, enjoying every minute that came her way wherever was possible and as Pat told me 'loving the sunrises'. Her favourite time of the day. Would things have been different had she returned to discover the truth? Hardly I would suggest, since those of us close to Mum knew that if anyone was going to develop the rarest of side effects from a drug, then she would be that person. It was simply the way her body had always worked. Almost in tune with her ever see sawing emotions in as much it would either work beyond expectation, or it would react in the harshest of fashions as was the case. I don't believe there is a comparison to be made between attempting to live with a diagnosis, the fears that come with it and treatment for an unguaranteed time period, and living a life of freedom and happiness, not in ignorance but in acceptance that something is amiss for as long as you possibly can. 

What Mum learnt, believed, saw and wrote of in her poem is that opportunity is always there whilst you are alive, and that life is indeed finite and bares with it sadness as well as happiness. There are some things you only get one chance at, one opportunity. But for the most part there will always be other opportunities if you choose to find them, create them, take them, allow them to happen during your life time, and be open to them as Mum said in her poem herself. A conversation I had with a friend I have made being a case in point. The first time you meet, that you can put down to chance, good luck, fortune, to fate should you choose to believe in it. It is the second time and any further times that become a personal choice as the odds of chance are seldom in our favour that we would happen to be in the same place at the same time in the same part of the world, and it is for us to want to see one another and make contact with one another and share experiences.

Seeing Mum each time she returned from Turkey for those short breaks was always a revelation. The confidence that had returned and blossomed, the self belief, the happiness. All of which to see are beyond explanation as to how it feels to finally see someone return to life, to being themselves. That for me is why I feel Mum made the best choice she had ever made. Mum spent so long building her own cage at times and needing assurance from others. She finally chose to live her life, to celebrate being herself and enjoy each and every of the days and nights that came her way. Something in essence she had wanted to do for many years and had not found a way or allowed herself to do so. To pass off the uneccessary pressures and harsh judgement she would so often give to herself. To forgive herself and be free to be herself. 

Perhaps there is a little something in that for all of us. 

A dear friend of mine once told me "If you love somebody, set them free" Maybe that could be revisited to include "If you love yourself, you'll set yourself free"