Dear Alex, The choice we all have...

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September 3^rd 2012

Dear Alex,

Parking myself up in front of the computer (earlier than usual, I hope to sign off before 1am tonight too!) I have decided to write off the negatives, the stress that engulfs, and focus on all the positives that lay ahead, and have occurred…

The kids and I come in this morning to your beaming smile as you hear their voices, your laughter as they immediately commence a barrage of requests for this or that and you smile broadly as I ask you if you had expected a mellow Monday morning? I have a meeting with the person who has put you on the list for the centre nearer to us. And Mitzi and Esmie stay relatively quiet to allow me to ask the questions and listen to all she has to say. Monty and Lola amuse themselves playing on the computers and eating a lollipop-well, desperate times and all that!

It turns out that although the other centre is not ideal, our hands are tied and it’s the most suitable of all there is to offer…I can only take this one step at a time, deal with it in bite size and hope there is a plan in all this that is there to move forward and not back step…

The centre is a fair way from me, but apparently it’s the nearest that will still offer frequent therapy-essential for you. The other place nearer, is not very therapy oriented and offers therapies only twice a week. I am advised that if the funding is there (albeit not unending and NHS have suffered cuts quite severely in the last 5 years) to take it. After this next step-well, I will just have to get fundraising and hope that some arrangement can be reached with you getting the physio, all that is required and that you will then be further on and your ‘Makingwavesforalex’ fund is fruitful enough to give you the chance you need…

After a morning of news and funding restrictions and grizzly children and having woken determined to make this a good day, you are distraught when it’s time for us to leave. So I tell the kids our afternoon plans are going to be pushed back, and we’ll have lunch there and see you afterwards. You calm and cuddle me tightly and say ‘thank you’.

You seem more tense, you seem aware, you are very distressed, so the kids are wonderful, they play on their scooters outside and I tell them I need some ‘daddy time’ and that I need to talk to you.

This morning I had woken up, feeling love, feeling overwhelming love, from everyone’s messages of support and encouragement last week, and I look and can’t wipe the smile off my face at breakfast time as I bask in the chatter of our kids and how love is so strong, so powerful, it can put such a smile on my face even after the week last week, and the prospect of our future looking fairly bleak as it stands at the moment. This inspires me to tell you that in fact, you have not been diagnosed with something terminal, this is not a path towards the end of your life, that you are fixed, and firmly on the path to recovery. You’re going nowhere but being carried along by love, from us, yes, but by so many others that the love is strong and powerful and like a wind behind you pushing you on. You have your mind, and as you have your mind, you also have the capacity to roar…like the lion in your own conscience that you always told me to be. You can visualise the lion, as distant, faded as he may be, he’s there, and you can challenge your thoughts, make the decision and you DO have the power to control, or at least to try and practice (and through practice…) being a lion in your own consciousness. That in you deepest moments when you fell you have no hope, no control, as scared as you must be, that you still can control your mind, as difficult as that may seem.

The fascinating thing was that although you cried, got frustrated, after continuing to talk you through it, you harnessed your emotion, you looked spurred on, determined, and holding me tightly, you understood the path you were on and what you CAN do in the part YOU have to play in it.

I think you felt a sense of relief that I know you are still Alex, you know you still are, and that the choice you still have is to ‘use the time that is given to you wisely’….in the words of Gandalf the Grey…

As do I, I can’t do much about this situation at the moment, but I do have a choice, I can buckle under the pressures, take the stance that this is too much for me, and give in to feeling resentful and how unfair this could feel, OR, and the stance I so determinedly battle to guard, is one of faith and trust in the Most High, that I am equipped, by the people who have chosen to listen, give their time, their emotion, their love and their support and encouragement, and let the waves of this carry me in the direction love always does carry-the most powerful of waters, supported, fast flowing in the right direction. Of not giving up, but grasping firmly at hope and the hope others have for you too…

So although nothing has really changed as to where you are going, desperate funds are still needed, I shall not buckle! I shall not break! I shall be strong and determined, because I do have the choice to be that way, even though it seems the harder thing to do and to be, it is the most rewarding, and it will carry us through, anchor us in the sea of troubles we feel we almost capsize in sometimes…

So I want you, Alex, to choose, to believe, to feel the love surrounding you, the fact that this situation has not taken away your love for us, our love for you, and no matter how hard this is, we WILL come through…

Thank you everyone for all the love and support, it’s carried us and is carrying us through this next vulnerable and frightening stage…

God bless everyone for all that each and everyone of you are, and let this week be an almighty week, going into it with the sound of roaring and determination!!!

Me xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx