Dear Alex, Light?

Dear Alex,

Warm October day, light all around and the distance I can see vast...reaches my soul, certainly makes me whole. Despite the anxiety, the apparent need of my heart to burst from the confines of my chest, the pain that leaves me with, the headache. I know what the feeling is though, there's no point searching for reasons.

The dog has been back and forth to the vets for the past fortnight, had 3 operations and now I await results of the biopsy they have done. To those who don't have pets, you will not understand. I don't mean that in a patronising way, but without ever having experienced having 'man's best friend (they are called this for a reason) or your old faithful by your side, through it all...you just can't understand. His eye is red and swollen, they think it is a tumour. On hearing this I physically go weak at the knees and have to sit down. I sob down the phone to my vet. I just cannot help it. Oliver was the 'original' the dog I got but a few months before meeting you. How adored he is, how soppy, how happy he is just to be with us. I have a feeling that al is being stripped away from me. You, perhaps Oliver...And I am so sad.

Although today the focus I have been able to have on you and for you, being gentle, compassionate, patient- not that I am not usually  this way with you- but today I felt different, rose above any sadness I had, had not a thought for me, just felt for you, tried to listen to your inner being, because, as I thought to myself this morning, because perhaps the wailing is your spirit, your soul calling out in agony. You can't put it into words, because it is a feeling deeper than any of us has ever felt, the pain of what you are going through. Maybe, I think, this is at the root of your noise and behaviour? It makes sense. Especially that nothing can break you out of it, because it is all you can do-groan and wail, I would understand why.

At the dinner table, you point, point to the French doors, saying 'light, it's light' I keep calm, ask you what you mean, you explain simply that there is light in the left eye, like the shape of an 'o'...I question, request ion, ask if it is something you see, or a hallucination, like a floater or something in your eye, you say,' no it's not that, it is definitely light'... I leaped inside, but do not want to get my hopes up that something may be happening there...I will question you again tomorrow. I am trying not to be excited.


This afternoon you calmed for several hours, you smiled even.

Alex, please come back, please don't let your soul give in to how horrific and crippling this is, please let yourself be loved by me, by the kids, accept this, it's yours to gather and possess and hold on to and keep, to make you stronger, to give you courage, and I need you to see this. Don't let your soul be defeated, keep on coming back and let yourself be healed...by all who love you, all who believe in you and all who are behind you.



me xxxxxxxxxx