For Jane

I haven't posted for a while, just because I haven't really known what or how to write. The most natural way to return seems to be with this.....

I’ve been pondering this one for a while, do I or don’t I. I started writing the blog because I enjoy writing and I’ve been so shocked at how my views on life have changed since I’ve had the girls. I also struggle to recognise the person I was before, for good and for bad. I love telling stories of the real struggles that often come with some humour but I know people can relate. I haven’t written for a while, I just haven’t been able to and I need to jump back on the band wagon, but this one is a little bit different. This one isn’t about me being a Mummy or even about ‘me now vs me then’ as the title may suggest, it’s about the fact that I’ve (we’ve) lost one of the most precious people to me, forever.

Most of the people who read this are people who know me, so most of you will know Jane, or know about her from me and now she’s gone. Seemingly here one minute and gone the next and whilst I had her for 37 years, it’s an eternity that I now have to live without her. I find that an almost impossible thing to comprehend. How can someone so important to me be gone? Jane lived with Cancer for 10 years, a lot of people wouldn’t have even known, to look at her you’d never have known (except for when she lost her hair). I didn’t even notice the subtle changes in her that scream at you that she’s really poorly until now when I look back and reflect. 

I read so much where people say cancer is a bitch or cancer is stupid and those things are true but Janes cancer didn’t become her, she lived despite the cancer, not in spite of it. I don’t actually know how she did it. She was positive and spiritual and never let it beat her, until she could take no more. Jane had so much sympathy when we heard about people we knew getting a cancer diagnosis, but she never seemed to look at hers or herself and feel like she needed sympathy, she took control of her own illness and how she felt about it emotionally and psychologically and actually, in this aspect the cancer never won! 

So many of her hundreds of friends have expressed what an inspiration she was and how strong she was and again, these things are true. She wanted to live, so desperately right up to the end and never talked about being scared or beaten. I think often about whether this is because she was protecting us from it or if she really wasn’t frightened. I’d ask how she was and she’d say ‘I’m fine’, when I knew she wasn’t. Even in Janes darkest days she still wanted to protect us and worried about the effect it was having on us, never, was she selfish and I find that unbelievable as she had greater right to be selfish than anyone. She took it all on the chin and never seemed burdened with her terminal diagnosis that must have burdened her for the 10 years she lived with it. She never wallowed or felt sorry for herself, but her compassion for other people in the same boat was immense. All of these things are symbolic of the person Jane was. I was talking to my mum today and said I could go to Jane with the most harrowing of stories of things I’d done and she would never judge me, she’d be supportive and reassuring even if I didn’t deserve those things and that’s because she loved me and to her love conquered all. 

Jane believed in Angels, truly believed, she used to talk to them at night as she was lying down to bed. I’m desperate to believe in these things too because if it’s true and Angels walk amongst us and touch us in our day to day life’s Jane had all the traits of the most perfect Angel and for all of her life she must of been one of the ones living amongst us, always supportive, always listening, never judging and never a victim. So now, you see the changes I’ve seen in my life over the last few years and the person I was before and the person I am now, have all been so heavily influenced by Jane, my aunt, my second Mum and one of the most incredible, giving and loyal people anyone would ever have met and I’m certain now she’s gone she will definitely have been given some wings! 

Grief is a horrible thing, it takes on all different shapes and forms, I don’t get comfort from her being ‘at peace now’ or ‘no longer suffering’ because life was much better when she was here, even she would say that! Time is not a great healer, you just readjust and learn to accept, I’m not there yet! I do get comfort from, whatever your belief system, for Jane, wherever she is, whatever she’s doing, if she can make contact she will, I know that for sure and in my heart she will forever be the unique and most amazing Aunt I could have wished for, and if Jane was here right now I’d say I’m here Jane and I’m listening!