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I think I mentioned that as I walked the Moon Walk and in indescribable discomfort, I was thinking that at least in a few days I would be all right again.
I would be fine after some natural recovery time, but for those on the breast cancer journey, the recovery would not be quite so simple or quick.
My dearest friend Marian lost her fight for life last Saturday and I am sadder than I can say. Her loss feels like a very real pain in my heart.
I knew it would be soon. I saw her two weeks ago and she was impossibly thin and weak. Although she was not talking death, she knew her time was short. I had brought her a pair of comfy trousers to wear in the evening, and she was genuinely delighted with them.
Genuine delight describes exactly how I felt every single time I saw her. For you to understand this, you have to understand something about the nature of this funny, positive and beautiful woman.
We met 10 years ago teaching in the same school in Midlothian. She was a fabulous teacher, adored by her pupils and colleagues alike. She used to say that she was just "playing at teaching." She liked the blackboard and attractive walls, and telling stories.
She always had her head firmly on her shoulders, but you had to see the look on little peoples' faces when she turned up. You had to notice how the most unruly of children became like putty in her hands after a few weeks. Anyone would like to have spent time in her classroom, because the pupils were always so quietly industrious and simply getting on with what they were supposed to do.
I was constantly in and out of her classroom because, as the Learning Support teacher, I had a remit to work along side all of the teachers.
One day, about two years into our acquaintance, we were sent on a Positive Thinking course in Glasgow. The idea was that we would learn tips and techniques of positive thinking and bring our learning back into the school for the greater good of all. That was the theory anyway.
We went off on the course and absolutely loved it. We soaked it all up and determined to apply all the learning in our own lives and into the school.
When we got back to school, not everyone thought it was such a good idea however. Indeed it would be fair to say that the majority of the staff thought that we were off our heads! Funnily enough, we felt a little crazy, but it was good crazy. It was easy to introduce the thinking to the children. Our little ones were not cynical, and within a very short space of time, we started to notice startling differences in some of the least able children, as we built up their self esteem.
That story has its own journey, but out of it developed a beautiful friendship, which blossomed through our subsequent delving into a new way of thinking, which has brought me to the work I do now.
After I left Midlothian and moved to Angus, Marian and I stayed in touch, meeting every few months for lunch or coffee or a walk. Our chats were never boring or dreary or one sided. For my part I always left feeling uplifted.
Just after Christmas at the turn of the century she phoned and told me to sit down. She had found a large lump, about which the doctors were taking immediate action.
From the word go there was no pretence that her cancer wasn't virulent and aggressive, but she determined to apply our positive thinking immediately. We agreed that if positive thinking only works in the good times, then it is not worth having.
She looked in the mirror every morning and asked herself the question "Are you a Victim or Victor?" With the positive answer in her head she would continue her day. Her illness ran the whole gamut so familiar to many of us; mastectomy, reconstruction, chemotherapy, hair loss, radiotherapy, hospital visits and more visits.
After a while she got back to work, and there were a few very good and cancer free months, until the disease came back.
She lived with its progression, BUT she never ever identified herself with her illness. She always said she was living with cancer rather than dying. She loved life and beautiful things. She loved dancing and her friends, of which she had many that I never met.
When I talked to her husband, I realised that I was not the only one who thought that they had lost their best friend. She came into my mind on Sunday morning when Father High mentioned that a famous writer had said that the two most important things in life were "to love and to be loved." That was something Marian often said. It was her ambition and all she wanted, "To love and to be loved." Ambition achieved dear friend.
When I left the church there was a message on my mobile to say that she had passed on. There will be many tears at her funeral, but I'm willing to bet that there will be lots of laughter too. I hope so, because laughter was her signature tune, and it is how I will remember her, a bringer of joy and laughter in the midst of sadness and loss.
– Jo Middlemiss is a Personal Life Coach working from home in Edzell.
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Weather for Brechin
Wednesday 08 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 1 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 25 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 3 C to 6 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South west
