I have spent the last six months watching a beautiful friend of mine slowly lose her husband to Cancer. He also happens to be the father of her two gorgeous boys and an incredibly divine human being whom I have been privileged to know and adore. It has re-surfaced so many sad memories for me, being that we had such similar stories as well. She too met her man when her first born was around 18 months old, and then they created a second together to complete their little family. I wish more than life itself that she was not facing what my family have faced. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. This year we are entering our fourth year without Trenton. I have so many mixed emotions about this I don’t even know where to start. I realise now from watching my mate go through this hell just how helpless you all were when you watched me facing the same tragedy. Helpless….. what a perfect word to describe how you feel when someone is dying, or who has died suddenly, when they were way too young, and way too nice, and way too important to their family and friends lives to go so soon….. It will never make sense to me. Isn’t death supposed to put things into perspective? We don’t know how long we have here on this Earth. We ought to always think about that, and make every day count….. every minute in fact. But we don’t. We fight, we question everything, we whinge and moan, and want for more than we have. Constantly. Why is that? Obviously when you’re living through such an horrendous experience yourself, you see just how important every second is and how petty everything else seems to be that would normally bother you. But it doesn’t take long to fall back into old ways. Watching this family try and tackle the worst scenario that a family can face, I have found my wounds re-open just a little bit more each day. I keep re-living the night that my husband fell at the end of our bed gasping for breath…. and I can’t stop thinking about what I would have said to him if I’d been given the time. I know I’ve said it before, but I wonder exactly what would have been important enough for me to take up his last few minutes or hours alive. To be honest, nothing would have cut it as his time was too precious. I would hope he’d have had something to tell us, some wisdom to pass on, some secrets to unleash….. but I feel pretty confident that he didn’t keep anything from me. And his wisdom shone through every day in the way he loved his family and friends. This just makes me want to erase that whole part of my memory……. (Not my life with him of course, but the part where I watched him die.) You can’t un-see, un-feel or un-remember an experience like that. Last night we had a family melt down….. and the girls howled again at what they had felt then, and what they still feel now about losing their Dad. They told me that I could never understand because my Dad was still alive. Of course they are right….. You are not supposed to lose your parents when you’re still just a kid. But a lot of things are “not supposed” to occur. Becoming a Mum at only 25 was a surprise to me, but losing my husband and best mate at 35 was not on my “things I’d like to achieve in life” list either, that’s for sure. The next few days, weeks, months and years are going to be so hard for this family. I want to wave my magic wand and have it be 2020 already, so that the pain is not so raw, and they have proven to themselves that they can survive the worst thing that life can throw at them. But I bloody can’t. Instead, like most of you did, I have to sit by and watch on helplessly as he slowly loses his battle, and they slowly lose their beloved Dad and husband. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. It’s fucking unbearable. I look forward to a day where my girls and I stop seperating our lives into “before Trenton” and “after Trenton….” It’s awful, because I can’t remember life before he was in it, but it’s impossible to imagine that he’s never going to be in it again. Even now. Hold those loved one’s tight people, hold onto them for dear life……. for life is ever so dear. xxxx