Dreaming of me as I dreamt of him...a letter.

(Please note: if you are reading this blog for the first time, you need to start with the post entitled " The reason")

Blog entry preceding this one is "What they don't tell you in the cancer pamphlets" 

My dearest love,

Thirteen years in which we have known, thirteen years in which we have loved…but I knew long before we met that my love was destined from across the sea, half way around the world. I have always, always said that my true love was on the other side of the world, dreaming of me as I dreamed of him and who would have ever guessed that I was right.

Now you know that I am always right, even when I’m wrong – I’m right.  So listen carefully as I tell you of all our rights.

It is right that we have loved each other despite the non-believers who said we would never last.

It is right that we are each other’s match, we are our opposites, making up in the other what they lacked – the masculine, the feminine, together we are one.

Arwyn is the most perfect creation upon this Earth, she is our blood, she is our life; She is our legacy.

I am a hopeless romantic. And you know this. You know I still believe in knights in shining armour, of fairytales, and mythologies. You know I believe in all magical creatures despite the insanity of it all and I think my insanity is what you love about me. You know I place meaning on things like the weather, stars and full moons. …Even though it goes against your practicality.

Around my neck I wear two necklaces. One is the Christmas gift you gave me last year of an Infinity pendant and the other is the Ankh pendant I bought myself in my twenties. The first represents how long our love with last; the other for me represents our daughter, for she is our life. You know that I like owning and wearing jewellery with meaning, and while it took you eight years of our marriage to pick a piece that I deeply love and enjoy, I know that it took you so long only because I am “particular” when it come to my jewellery – and for that, making your life difficult I apologise.

This is not a farewell letter; so don’t take it as such. This is a letter of today. A letter for you to know, to realise that my love for you has never waned over the years or in particular these last 18 months as we battle together the toughest fight of our lives. It is to give you strength when you are at low ebb. It is a reminder that you are and always will be the most important man in my life and Arwyn’s life.

I want to remind you that we have built a house together in which we are raising a family. The family may not have been as big as what we wanted for it appears as though we must struggle through all our facets of life – but this little family is ours, and ours alone. We hold it together, we love it so deeply and together it works; somehow we manage. Yes, I freak out when the bills are due and the money barely scraps together but somehow we work it out and I apologise for all the times I started putting price tags on kitchen items to take to the pawnshop every time an electricity bill came in.

We aren’t one of these family units who go travelling every chance we get because we have to work to provide a better life for Arwyn. But the moments we have together, at home with Arwyn are the ones I truly value. I am glad that before you met me you lived a hundred lives with your friends, travelling seeing parts of the world that I could only dream about. However when you tell me the stories, I am right there beside you. Walking the streets, smelling the air, the atmosphere appearing around us and through you I have lived a hundred lives. I am glad you have lived enough for both of us.

You once wrote me over ten years ago that this is what you wanted,

            “ At the moment I was just letting my mind wander, thinking of you, a future with you. I was thinking of what we’ll look like when we are in our 70’s. What out kids will be like, what our grandkids will be like… and how we’ll spoil them and buy them noisy Christmas and birthday presents to drive their parents nuts.

            I thought more about what little things I’d want to do with you, things like flying the kite…gardening, walking the dog (or will that be dogs?) I think when I look back on my life, when it’s coming to an end, that those are going to be my fondest moments to recall. The grandiose moment (and I hope there will be many of those) will pale in comparison to the smile that will come to me, of my time that will be with you”.

I hope every one of our little family moments have been what you wanted as a family. The Christmas mornings with Arwyn, her birthdays in which we put a present on the doorstep, ring the doorbell to see her come flying down the hallway excited by the thought alone of getting a special delivery just for her. I hope you treasure all our gardening moments, the family that gets ticks together – sticks together. The cuts from that horrendous weed “asparagus grass” that our home’s predecessor planted and all our vain attempts to eradicate it from the yard and the amount of tools that have died a heroic death in our attempts to pull up it’s astounding root system. The improvements we have made to the yard and how our little home feels warm and inviting.

I hope our memories of our pets will sustain you. From our surrogate child, the cat Nemesis who was bought to placate my need to have a child of our own who fell out the bedroom window and clung to the side of the house Gandalf style before slipping off the building to be perfectly fine on the cement below. To the GREAT FRICKING DANE – whose dopey demeanour made you love him despite the drool bath coming from his mouth.

Sidenote: As we got to own two dogs thus completes my contractual obligation you wrote to me one time – although we never named one “Buster” because I felt that the other dogs would laugh at him/her.

I wish we had more family holidays under our belts and for that matter I wish we could have experienced a honeymoon and be completely involved with each other under some island paradise full moon with the waves lapping at our ankles. I am glad we got to do Cairns with Arwyn, and I’m glad we have so much video from the trip. And so I will make sure we have another family holiday together.

I need for you to know, to not feel bad about what is happening to us. You are and never will be a burden and if I could, I would slap you upside the head for even thinking it, but you are safely in your hospital bed, lucky you.

It is not your fault with regard to the lack of an enormous death and total disability benefit. Think of it this way, we are keeping up the tradition of struggling through diversity which we know we can do, and somehow I’ll find a way to keep Arwyn in the princess lifestyle we have kept her in however because we have done an excellent job in raising her thus far, I know in my heart that she would give up everything to save you right now. We didn’t plan on either of us passing away so soon into our lives together – who would? You are not at fault. None of this is your fault.

I don’t need anyone to take care of me after you are gone, because I’m tough, and I’m a stubborn bitch and I’ve had words with my own body and disease and we have come to a mutual agreement that all pain will stop as of this moment, so stop worrying about me my love.

You have told us both often enough of your love for us – but it never hurts to hear it again and again, so keep saying it often it will get you through the nights you are away from us while having treatments.

We love you.

Don’t ever doubt that.

We love you, we love you, we love you, and we love…

Thinking of you and looking very much forward to seeing you tonight.

Our love always, your girls

Princess Lily & Princess Arwyn.

xxxx

P.S Suck it up Princess, you're not dead yet.




Blog entry to follow " The week that was Chemo."