The past 12 months plus has had some highs but a lot of lows and challenges, too and the stresses continue, but I am pressing on with God's help each day; sometimes I take it one hour at a time and sometimes I take it one moment at a time.
Timeline to give you some perspective of my story. My Dad passed away very suddenly Aug 2011; my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer early 2012 and her Mom (my Grandma Mason) passed away May 2012. Mom underwent horrific chemo and radiation treatment and mastectomy of one breast and the chemo left her heart damaged. Mom maintained an amazing attitude as always and recovered from her surgery and treatment and we thought she had beat the horrible disease. My family and I (husband Peter and step-daughter Chasely) travelled to Canada in December 2013/January 2014 to visit Mom and family and friends and later in 2014 Mom learned that the cancer had metastasized to her liver, kidney and blood. Not the news Mom or our family wanted to hear. Mom had a couple of chemo treatments but these were to go on for many weeks and the odds of remission very low and had made her very sick in a very short time frame, so Mom opted for quality of life. What an incredibly brave woman our Mom was and to her dying day.
I flew to Canada early Feb 2015 which enabled me to spend some quality time with Mom and those memories will always be so precious to me. I am so grateful for the time I was able to spend with Mom and the opportunity to be able to help her in the days leading up to her passing. A friend gave me some great advice and that was to journal about my visit with Mom - precious writings, indeed. Many special moments shared. Another friend encouraged me to video Mom, too along with the photos I took and one of my projects is to create a movie of Mom (but I think I will need to invest in a new computer to do that - my faithful notebook/laptop that still uses XP is close to calling it quits I think).
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| My beautiful Mom and I - we had lunch with her Red Hat Mama's. |
After a bit of a rushed holiday road trip out East to Charlottetown, PEI to visit a friend as my husband Peter had joined me in Canada to support me after Mom's passing (we had been apart approximately nine weeks), we returned home to Australia to life and work and routine. But alas, that was not to be either. Unfortunately, work is undergoing a significant review and that has meant that I did not return to my regular job. Initially I was in shock after everything I had been through and I thought perhaps it was only temporary, to allow me time to settle back into work after being away for about three months. This was not so and they have assigned me to project work in the short term, but long term I now have to re-evaluate my career options, perhaps at my current workplace or even elsewhere. Not the best timing unfortunately, no; but with God's help and also seeking some professional assistance, I will discover what my next chapter holds.
It has been 'tough'; absolutely and some days are very hard to go to work and other days are easier; I am processing the grief of my Mom, my job among other things and grief is horrible - every person deals with grief in their own way. Grief is something that I want to write about more in future blog posts because I believe if I can help encourage just one person out there with my story, then it has been worthwhile. I have been angry and some days it still rears its ugly head, but I also know that I need to walk in forgiveness and I will write more about that, too. To forgive does not mean that we have to forget - we have been hurt and trust is earned, not given freely.
I recently came across a song by Steven Curtis Chapman, Glorious Unfolding from a friend's Facebook wall - she lost her Dad just a short time before we lost Mom and its message ministers to me daily. So thankful for the ministry of music and David's passages in the Psalms where he cries out to God - that is so where I am at the moment.
Until my next post......what is your story?
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