Family

My husband has three sons. I only gave birth to the youngest, but I love them all unconditionally.

I love my husband very much. So from day one it was extremely important for me to make it as easy as possible for him to see his boys as often as possible and to make sure they felt comfortable and welcome when they stayed in our home. It hasn't always been easy, especially early on when there was a lot of misinformation about me going around and a lot of misplaced anger. But we persevered and I now have a really good relationship with both. Being a step parent is much harder than you can imagine unless you're one yourself. Juggling the needs of someone else's children with those of your own child without showing favouritism is particularly difficult and looking back I see how I actually over compensated and it was in fact the youngest son who missed out.

I've known the two older boys (to be fair they are men now) since they were 7 and 10 years old, more than 20 years. I've watched them grow into fine young men and though we don't share blood I couldn't be prouder of them. Both have found amazing women to share their lives with and the eldest now has a child of his own. Yes I'm a grammy now!! That's really what you want for your children (and they ARE my children too) - happiness, love and health. I want them all to have the kind of relationship that I have with their dad.

The youngest son, the one I helped create, is finishing high school in a few weeks and is off to college next year. He's currently learning to drive! He's growing into a fine young man too. He may be  bit too much like me at times (fiery temper comes to mind) but he's also intelligent, sensitive, kind and loving. He's gathering a group of quality friends around him that will hopefully see him through to the end of his teens and into adult life. I'm proud of him too. I want for him what his brothers have found in their relationships and what I have in mine. I hope the family he creates gives him as much joy as mine gives me.

In my world family is everything. When I was younger I dreamed of having a daughter, but sadly that just wasn't meant to be. Our daughter, Jessica Rose, never opened her eyes. But now I have not one but TWO daughters-in-law who I love spending time with and a grand daughter that I absolutely adore. What blessings!!

I'm not interested in travelling overseas or going on adventures. I don't need bright lights and big cities or to play tourist. I'm content, no I'm more than content, to spend quality time with family and friends. Inviting all the offspring with their families over for a big homecooked meal makes me happy. Perhaps that's my Italian heritage talking. Hosting Christmas lunch or a barbeque, Sunday lunch or birthday celebrations and welcoming family into our home. That's where I find so much joy. I consider looking after our grand daughter (Grammy Daycare) a huge honour and privilege. Although I am very tired by the end of a day my heart is always so full. 

When people talk about their exciting holidays and tell me I should go there or do that I always wonder why. Why do they think I should? This year I turned 50. I live with the love of my life and the youngest son in our comfortable home on top of a peaceful hill in an absolutely beautiful corner of Australia. I have family and friends here to fill my heart and I have dogs, goats, chickens and a garden to keep me busy. I have a creative space and the time to use it. I'm more than happy with our quiet existance here .... it's more than enough.

Family is everything to me.

Grief - Living With It and Learning From It

It's been a turbulent time for some of my friends lately dealing with illness and grief. It has me thinking of all the things we potentially lose throughout our lives and what we do with our grief.

The obvious place for me to start this discussion is with the loss of a parent, but it could just as well be a grandparent, a sibling or a child. I was 20 when my father died, cancer took him from us when he was just 53 years young. For me that grief hasn't gone away even though nearly 30 years have passed. My grief has changed and I've learned to live with it but it's still there. There are times when I glance at a stranger on the street and something about them reminds me of Dad. Times when I'm talking to my son and wishing like crazy that Dad was here to share his wisdom and humour. And every day I miss having him around. I still feel short changed because he's not here with us.

Looking back there are so many other things I've also lost over the years and for which I still grieve.

There was my first serious crush, I thought I'd never get over him. My high school friends will laugh thinking back on those times but my grief was real and overwhelming at the time. I don't think you ever really get over your first teenage crush and even now I still think of him from time to time but they are happy thoughts. 

My first love was a rollercoaster ride without a doubt ... a ride that spanned a period of maybe 5 years.  It was an on again off again relationship, more off than on, but each time the grief was harder to manage. To deal with that grief I would throw myself into anything new to the point of obsession. But I survived it and over the years I dealt with the grief and learned some important things about myself.  One of those lessons was that it's not always about me! Yep, the on again, off again nature of that relationship had everything to do with his maturity and nothing to do with my worth. I wish I'd learned that one years earlier!

During my teens I lost my innocence when I experienced both sexual assault and then much later domestic violence in my first live-in relationship. That grief took more than 20 years to deal with. It changed me and set me up for any number of negative experiences as an adult. I lost the ability to trust for many years as a result and I set a particularly low value on myself.  I was well into my 40s when I finally understood and believed that I was worthy of love and deserved better. Once I achieved that understanding I was able to release the grief around those situations.

My first marriage ended in divorce after just a year. In some ways that grief was easier to cope with because I felt so much anger at the time. I honestly believe that it's not possible to feel more than one truly extreme emotion at a time. So what I did to deal with that grief was EVERYTHING. I threw myself into so many "bad" or unwise situations that the grief was buried. I'm not sure I fully dealt with that grief until well into my second (current) marriage.

At the end of 2011 came my cancer diagnosis and a lengthy period of intensive treatment. I've spoken about this time before and probably will again in the future but here, just now, I only want to discuss the grief associated with my whole cancer journey. It might surprise you to know that the biggest source of grief was not the physical scars, or the loss of my hair. It wasn't grief for loss of physical ability or feeling well. It wasn't even the grief over friends who disappeared from my life because they couldn't deal with either my illness or how I tried to cope with it. The greatest grief I experienced during, and after, my cancer treatment was/is the loss of feeling invulnerable. Until my diagnosis I had never considered my mortality, even having been beside my dad as he fought, and lost, his own battle. But suddenly I had a life threatening illness and no guarantees that I would survive it. Even after all I went through in my teens and early 20s I still had a degree of innocence until the Big C struck. The most difficult part of surviving cancer for me has been dealing with my own mortality. And though I have learned to keep it in check for the most part I still grieve for the time when I could look years ahead into my future and make plans with no question marks.

If I'm being totally honest with myself, and with you, I still grieve the loss of innocence through each stage of my life but that grief has now morphed into a determination to make every day count. I make a conscious effort to celebrate every achievement, and every birthday, to hold my friends and family as close as I can and show them how much they mean to me and to NOT put things off for another day. To not wait for better weather, not wait until we can better afford something, not wait until some other criteria is met. I've turned that grief into purpose and motivation and gratitude.

Whatever grief you are experiencing, please don't let it take away your purpose, your joy or your future. Use it to fuel your passion and motivate you to do things, learn from it and grow!

Connie Johnson said it perfectly: "Now is awesome".

Glass half nothing.

For the past 7 years I haven't looked at my glass as either half empty or half full. I've just been truly grateful to have a glass at all.  Cancer did it's best to shatter my glass and grind the pieces into oblivion.  I can honestly say that most days, the overwhelming majority of days, I'm just so grateful to be alive that I don't dwell on my health struggles. But rarely, on days like today, I question The Universe and all it has thrown at me.

Cancer treatments vanquished the evil that tried to take over my body but they left their henchmen behind  to continually collect payment for it.  Some days the payment involves chronic pain in my muscles and joints. Some days it's broken bones seemingly out of the blue. Anxiety attacks, depression, inexplicable anger, nerve pain flares and painful scars.

Today it's the fatigue. Overwhelming and suddenly extreme fatigue. I've lived with fatigue for the past 7 years and in a way I've become accustomed to it. But this morning when I got out of bed I was already exhausted. And tonight I am so exhausted that I can't control the tears. My muscles are shaking and everything hurts. Every single cell in my body is crying out for a break.

Now I am in no way a negative person and I mostly don't feel sorry for myself.  But tonight I need to give myself permission to be angry at the hand I've been dealt. Tonight I'm asking The Universe "why me?"  and "when can I expect to catch a break?". And I'm not going to feel guilty for thinking/feeling this way either. I've earned a good cry and maybe even a good scream. Hopefully it'll be cathartic and perhaps tomorrow I'll be able to pick myself up and continue to be thankful that I still have a glass at all.