Extremes. Hot and cold. Bright and dark. Summer and Winter. Easy and Hard. Laughter and Tears.

That is how my life has been in the last few weeks. By most standards I have been through a lot in my life but I didn’t see it as having been ‘through’ something.  I always knew I was different to other people  it was something I felt but it never bothered me somehow. Besides I had my dad’s sense of humor and my love of life to get me through and it did.

I just kind of fleetingly wondered why I would have been born into a family that was so disconnected and have such an unemotional mother. But then someone had to, why not me. Besides I was not any worse off for having experienced all that disconnectedness. I think I was better. I had empathy and a lot of care for people and I could go the distance when others needed to stop and that meant something.

My mother always needed someone to blame so when my sister drowned in our swimming pool when I was twelve it was God and my elder sister.  The event shattered both our young lives, hers more than mine. It was something she would battle with for the next 40 years.

Of course I had my own battles to fight so when at 25 I gave birth to my mentally disabled son, due to a Drs negligence in the birth process I was shattered. How could this be happening again. He was in ICU and on the brink of death for the first 3 months but was a fighter and made it through. The next few years were also challenging with lots of hospital stays.

How do you know what you’re made of until you have to dig deep. That’s the enigma of life. You don’t until you have to dig deep. And it’s amazing just how deep our well really goes. We would truly amaze ourselves. I was just in a life position where my well was tested, a lot, so I know the extent to which I can dig. I am one of the luckier ones in life.

I think Christopher’s brain condition, no, I believe his brain condition prepared me to be able to help and deal with Nic’s brain cancer.

Its the strangest thing, the thing he was afraid of the most is the thing that’s farthest from the truth. But I could never convince him of that. He was so scared I would forget him, our lives together and the memories we made. His spirit is with me now as it was when he was well. Sometimes it makes me sad and a tear will escape and I just acknowledge how hard it is living without him. Don’t hide it or deny it or even try to fade it. Just feel the pain and hope it won’t last too long this time, for I know in time the pain will not be there anymore as it’s a process.

Moving to Dubai was good for me in many ways but the first time I experienced hardship. Real hardship. The things I’d gone through did not prepare me for what I’ve encountered here. But I’m not the kind of person to give up on myself or the happiness I did find here. There are many cultures here, but I don’t think they are truly representative of the nations to which they belong. For if they did, the world is a hopeless place and I know the world is not hopeless place.

My world and the perceptions of my world have been rocked and shattered but that does not mean my well is dry or that I am any less a person. It just means I need to adjust the way I get my water.