Well, HELLO!

It's been quite some time. My last post was almost a year ago, the day after tomorrow, it will be exactly a year in fact.

My Mam, me, and my younger brothers.

This may be my strangest post, so far, although there has been some competition for that title.

Spoiler: My pancreatic illnesses did not kill me. Nor did the sepsis that saw me return to hospital 2 weeks later for another lengthy spell. I am slowly getting back to normal, not that I will ever 'fully' get there, I am not doing so bad to be honest.

I'm far better now than I was then!

I'm sure you can spot the fluid in my abdomen that took 3 months to finally drain away.

5 stone lighter in just 6 weeks... Talk about a crash diet!

Clearly ecstatic to still be here.

My recovery would probably have taken a lot longer after being released from hospital after my second spell on December 1st, last year, but I had to suck it up and get back out in to the world far sooner than I had anticipated when my Mam had a stroke on January 3rd.

Me, my Mam and my 2 younger brothers. Yup I could have been a model...

She walked, more accurately 'shuffled' to the ambulance after the stroke, but 6_ish_ hours in a hospital corridor, proved too long and she then had a massive stroke which permanently disabled her. She was never to walk again and had no use of her left side at all. Her remaining days, saw a hoist used anytime she would be taken from her bed.

Because of a pretty useless social worker and a wheelchair services department that didn't believe in doing their job, despite many, many, MANY phone calls from me, my Mother never got the specialised postural wheelchair she needed to be able to leave her room in the care home.

(Did you detect the well hidden bitterness in my tone???)

That last part of the story is something I will have a lot of trouble processing later on, but I am well aware of that, so hopefully, that helps me to deal with it.

Speaking of processing... I haven't really let the grief train pull up to my particular station, yet. Of course things keep bubbling up and I stuff it all back down 'for now'. Nobody gets to escape grief, I know that, but there is too much to do and grief has been put in it's place fully and told to return when 'I' grant it an appointment.

Yeah... I have become a bit of a control freak when it comes to emotions.

While I didn't quite manage to pull off the whole 'dying thing', even though it was expected, my Mam, (Mother), did however. This month as it happens. Mam, is a North of England term, if you are not familiar with it.

And so, I found myself writing my Mam's eulogy over the last few days... Come on, who else was I going to trust with such an important story to tell?

Mam and my youngest Charlotte at Mam's birthday 3 or 4 years ago.

If you remember me, if you remember my posts, you will be entirely unsurprised that according to the celebrant who would read it at her service, I had ran over SIGNIFICANTLY!

The estimate was for a typical ceremony, is around 1000 words, maybe a little more... I had written in excess of 3000 words. However, after several timed readings at a nice unhurried pace, I was timing it at around 17.5 to 18 minutes. So I was hesitant about doing as the celebrant asked, shaving off around a thousand words as I knew that although it was close it could be done quite easily, after factoring in the reserved minutes for the 3 music choices.

The celebrant asked if he should cut or trim all of his 'usual bits', you know the sort of thing, I'm sure... "Ann touched so many people's lives, in so many different ways...Blah, blah blah"

I had no hesitation at all in saying "CUT!" like a Hollywood director with 7 hours of film stretched out around the studio, before him... (I'm sure that sort of thing rarely happens in today's digital age, but I was painting a mental picture, as I am sure you already realised Dear Reader.) I had put out feelers about booking an extra slot, this was obviously fairly pricey, but ya know...

It turns out, by a strange quirk of fate, that doesn't need explaining, right now, Mam had the last service of the day and we would be allowed some leeway... (I had to search the word leeway, to ensure I had spelled it correctly, as I don't believe I have ever committed it to the page before, although, I have obviously uttered it many times before.)

The stroke certainly aged Mam, but she was happy and loved life still.

PHEW!

Why was I so relieved, you may ask?

There is a saying in the literary world when it comes to writing (I have always attributed it more to editing... It states that: 'You must kill your darlings' or 'Kill your babies'. I am fairly certain the original quote was from... Ooh! I just looked it up to check I was right and it has been falsely attributed to many writers over the last century.

Arthur Quiller-Couch: said in a literary lecture around 1913;

If you here require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: ‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.

Killing my babies or darlings has always placed me in the unenviable position of making, 'Sophie's choice'. With the task of writing my Mam's eulogy, what the hell was I gonna deem unimportant enough an event from her life (once written), as suitable to be edited out???

Mam wasn't religious and had a mischievous, zest for life and bloody loved a drink and a smoke. She had razor sharp wit (Nearly as quick as me ahahaha) and had amazing zinging comebacks when someone offered up a barb in the name of 'banter', it was truly sad to see, if they hadn't rehearsed or were amateurs in the sport!

I mentioned a drink and a smoke, right?

In light of this, I had made a conscious decision to make the eulogy 80% percent fun, light, warm and humorous. While staying true to facts when telling of some of life's lows.

This was so bloody cathartic, I can't even begin to explain, it also, I am sure, helped to exercise some of the thoughts in my head, in light of my being unready for the call of:

'Grief is ready to see you now, Mr Wood!"

It gave me a reason to switch on my trusty but dusty, once overworked, PC, jeez! I have missed it so, so much. Once the eulogy was finally polished, typos fixed. turns of phrase checked (about an hour ago), I realised I could finally check in with YOU!

I am truly sorry it has taken so long, although, in truth, I am sure that as you have your own life and challenges to contend with, you barely even noticed I was gone. Hive is like that, isn't it? We can pick up where we left off, no matter how long it has been. One thing is for sure, it was NEVER meant to be this long.

I must confess to being a little self indulgent with my thoughts since my Mam passed on October 8th... I was taken in to the same hospital on October 10th, last year. I was very pensive about that anniversary drawing nearer over the last couple of months already. Coming so close to not being here for my family and what that would mean for them has weighed heavy on my mind this past year.

In a perverse kind of way, my Mam took that worry away and made me incredibly busy, without any notice. She also undoubtedly sped up my healing and being ready to go out in to the world again by forcing me to get outta the door and think about something other than my pain, the bag attached to my abdomen draining away poison and rancid fluid from my 'still dying' pancreas, (I didn't know that when I was discharged!)

A thing like that doesn't leave too much time for self pity and personal reflection. I guess I would far rather have gone through none of the big events of 2024 after my time in hospital, but as I say, I can see the 'unexpected benefits', hardly a silver lining, but it's not nothing, right?

As I have intimated already, I am not a blithering idiot and I realise that putting off a date with grief and profound loss is not something I can do forever. The funeral will take place at 3PM tomorrow.

Mum will enter the crematorium to a song she once told me she would like at her funeral (my mind stores and locks details like that), it's a song from the movie based on the novel 'Little Lord Fauntleroy' entitled, Oh Dem Golden Slippers.

Halfway through the service comes an interlude for reflection. This will be to the backdrop of a song about grief and loss, which was a track on an audio cassette album I bought Mam for Christmas in 1988, entitled: Carry me (like a fire in your heart) from Chris De Burgh

In truth, I couldn't even listen to that song when I was a teenager, without tears! I tried so hard not to choose such an emotionally charged piece of music, but the song was screaming at me, in my mind, even when I was at Mam's bedside as she passed after a few days without sleep... Me and m'lady were sitting with her from us waking on Sunday, as she was deemed close to the end from pneumonia, until she actually passed at almost 6AM on Tuesday.

The track we leave the crematorium too will be a pacey dance track called: Walk on water by Milk inc, which Mam loved and described as her song.

It may sound like the last year has just been hell and there were no bright spots. This is not accurate though. Even though Mam's brain was badly damaged by the stroke, she was still incredibly sharp. witty and her comebacks were epic, better than ever before. She became nicer too, I'm sure I shouldn't say that, right? But it is true!!!

This has been the first time I have heard warm words of love from my Mam in my 52 years as a trainee human. There is something about having to break up pieces of chocolate and hand feed a person that brings you incredibly close. Each night when I left the care home (every other night, if I am honest, we ensured that others would visit on these nights, rather than double book, to give us respite), I would say:

"Night night Mam, sleep well, love ya lots"

To which she would respond...

"I love you more"

This broke my heart each time and I became patently aware how much I had always wanted to hear warm words of love from Mam. Oops! Sorry, I thought I was in a therapy session for a moment...

One good arm but still ready to retry knitting!

In this way, I have gained so much from the tragic events of 2024, but as always the 'cosmic piss take' is that you get to finally experience what you could have had, but only at the moment it is taken away and you shall have it no more. Ya gotta love life, right?

I don't do God, although I describe myself as very spiritual, but before you start to write comforting words below my massofwordzzz, I should tell you that I am alright, I am OK, I am fine... Even though on a level that will soon materialise, I guess I'm not, paradoxically, I still am...

I am ecstatic that after writing the eulogy, I get to be here, writing again... It's like remembering who I am or was or will be or what-bloody-ever!

I have missed it so much.

It's just a shame the circumstances are so different.

Well as we have all heard many, many times. 'The blockchain never forgets', it is a permanent ledger locked in a block of permanence, that is why it occurred to me to share my Mam's eulogy here and in some ways, immortalise it... Or her... Or something...

I can't remember how to format, how to tag, what post settings to use and so many other things.

Full disclosure: This post was supposed to be a few sentences and then me sharing Mam's eulogy, but just like old times I have wroteandwroteandwrote and I am SO HAPPY about it!

However, I don't think I should plonk a further 3000 words below this many words already, do you? and on second thoughts, I suppose it is fitting that I post it after Mams family hear it at her final send-off. Yup, that makes perfect sense.

So in hindsight, this was the post for a eulogy that never was... A new level of bizarre, rambling, oddity, even for me...

After I exit October, hopefully relatively unscathed, I would like to try and work my way back to sharing my thoughts and processing the stuff in my head through being a blogger, a writer, a thinker, an excessive word abuser...

Or just as Steven.

No! Not 'that' Steven...

Today's vastly improved, recovering, soon to be belatedly grieving, Steven!

Thank YOU for taking the time to read my post and if you're one of those amazing people who like to hit the comments section... Then I doubly thank YOU!

Either way I want you to know that you are appreciated! Keep taking the time to connect with each-other both here and in the 'so-called' real world and try and look after each-other, because as you already know...

I am an incredibly proud member of #TeamUK I love the global community immensely, but it is nice to have a home-team banner to add to my posts. The banner was made by the inimitable RoastMaster General himself @c0ff33a If you are an active UK member and would like to be added to the teamUK community on Discord, just let me know 😎

Any images in my posts are either 'taken by me' or 'created in Canva by me.'