a warped view

I thought it was probably about time I wrapped this challenge up!  what do you think about your friends I'm not really sure I understand what I'm supposed to write for this topic.  I think my friends are wonderful and awesome and amazing or else I wouldn't be friends with them! I am not really a person who has ever had a lot of friends. At school I didn't have a particular group that I belonged to, I floated amongst the groups always at the edges. I never really fit into anyone category, I wasn't quite nerdy enough to hang with the nerdy kids, I wasn't sporty, I was in the band but I wasn't a band geek, I wasn't one of the popular kids but I was friends with some of them, I liked Rap & Hip Hop but I was too white. I guess I have always been little bits of everything, but with no real passion or focus. It's probably why I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Things haven't really changed as I've gotten older. I still don

Every day people lose their loved ones, they slip away unnoticed by the rest of the world. People carry on with their lives, oblivious that a husband lies alone in his bed, his arms empty and his pillow wet with tears. The mechanisms of the world keep turning, unaware that a son can no longer confide his secrets to his mother, seek her comfort when he falls down, feel the warmth and unconditional love of her hand in his. Even now as my heart aches for the loss of such an amazing woman, my life continues on. I help my children with their homework, I cook dinner, I talk with my friends, I laugh and then, as I remember, a heavy sadness and guilt falls upon me. How can I be laughing? How could I forget for even a moment that the world has lost some fraction of its beauty, that I can never again see her smiling face, hear her laugh, kiss her cheek? Shouldn't the skies be grey? The flowers dead? The laughter gone from the world? But she wouldn't want that. She would want us to rememb

If there is one thing my family is good at, it is wakes. Tonight after I left the hospital and went to my cousin Debbie's (Carol's sister) it felt almost as if we were having a pre-wake. Everyone was sharing stories about Carol, happy stories, stories that made us laugh, that distracted us from the tears and saddness. I think there will be a lit of those in the coming days so it was nice to remember and hear about the happy times. I still haven't had a proper cry, although I've been teary several times. I thought I might have a cry when I got home, but all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and find comfort in the strong arms and gentle words of my husband. So now I lay here, listening to the steady breathing of the man I love, adore and cherish hoping that he will never have to endure what George is going through. Hoping, praying and wishing that we will grow old together and that when it is our time we go peacefully together in each others arms. My phone is next to me

Everyone has left, they've gone to one of the sister's houses. The room next door now contains my beautiful, strong willed cousin, her husband, her two boys and her mum (my beloved Aunty Val). My mum and I have stayed because we don't want to leave Aunty Val in case she needs us. One of the boys just came out. He doesn't want to be there when it happens. I don't know if I would want to either. Her husband George just came out. I have no words to offer him, nothing that could even begin to tell him how I wish this wasn't happening to his family.

The lounge is full now. Full of sisters, mothers, nieces, nephews, friends. In the room with the beeping and my beautiful cousin is her husband and her two sons. This is their time to be alone with her. To say their final goodbyes. She still has the fighting spirit, the refusal to give in. Everyone just wants her pain and suffering to be over but no one wants her to be gone. I am surrounded by teary faces and bodies clinging to each other. We have returned to making idle conversation, discussing every thing but death and loss. We all fall silent again. My mum has arrived and she is making conversation with Carol's mum, hoping to distract her from the pain that threatens to overwhelm her. It should be me she says and my heart breaks. A mother should never have to watch her child die, never have to bury her own child. All I want to do is hug each of them so tight and never let them go but instead I sit here writing. We are talking about where the socks go now, managing to find a smal

I am sitting in the hospital waiting. I suppose I am waiting for the hand of death to touch my cousin and end the pain she is in. She is getting worse and she keeps suffocating. She told her sister yesterday that her worst fear was dying and not being able to breathe, I can only imagine how horrifying it must be for her. Everyone seems to be getting ready for the end. There is lots of spontaneous declarations of how much this sucks. We have just heard that she has said she doesn't want to do it any more. It can't be long now. What a thing to be waiting for. I feel so small and helpless and inadequate. I wish there's was something I could do. There is a group standing in the hallway. Like they are lining up for some kind of attraction at the fair. I wish they would all sit down. There are periods of idle chatter and then suddenly everyone feels quietly like the weight is too much to bear. It is one of the most horrible experiences I have ever had. As the sun is going down th

I am home from visiting my cousin Carol at the hospital. I thought I would get home and the words would come flowing out of me and yet while I am typing these words each one I type feels hard. I want to say so much but there are no words. It was so much worse than I thought it would be. She is so much sicker than I realised. I haven't had a proper cry yet. I don't feel like I can while her sons sit stoically by her side, her husband sitting calmly with one hand on her leg. How can I cry when her sisters remain brave faced, her mum holding it together? How can I break down when she, despite her obvious pain, made the effort to lift her head, open her eyes and say hello to me? I know there isn't long now before her pain is over and that is when I will cry. There are no words...

I have a cousin called Carol. She is one of the most beautiful people I know and she comes from an amazing family full of people I respect, admire and love. She is actually my second cousin, her dad and my Grandad were brothers. I say were because her dad, my Uncle Don, passed away a few years ago. He was my favourite Uncle, the kind of man people want to be around and other men want to be. Carol has two sons, Daniel and Mathew and an amazing husband called George. She has two sisters, Debbie and Sharon, who are just as beautiful as she is. Her mum, my Aunty Val, is one of the strongest women I know and I hope to one day be a tenth of the woman she is. Carol is not only my cousin but my friend. Carol is an inspiration to me. Carol has cancer. Carol was first diagnosed with Breast Cancer about 3 years ago, just before her dad passed away from a Cancer that had spread throughout his entire body. It was a shock, Carol was young and healthy, she had two teenage sons and a husband who adore

I find humanity's need for change to be one of the most frustrating and equally beautiful things there is. Our desire to be better, faster, smarter, stronger, to continuously improve on who we are and what we have can be both our best trait and our worst. At a big picture level it has resulted in life saving medical technology, global communication and innumerable discoveries that make our every day lives easier as well as weapons that can erase our entire existence, technology that is killing our planet and the ability for women and children to be exploited in ways we could never have imagined. On a personal level the drive to be better can be a highly motivational one but it can also lead to the slow destruction of one's soul. We humans have a tremendous capacity to undermine ourselves, to make ourselves feel that some how we are worth less than others, that we can never match up the the qualities we envy in others. It seems that the ability to be happy with who we are is alw