Travelling for 24 hours is just plain hard,
whichever way you look at it. ‘Cattle-class’ is called cattle class
because…well, because you are herded in like cattle and have less legroom than cattle
or chickens. Oh yes, then there’s
arriving in London and only one of your bags arriving with you because the
other one is goodness know where, between the USA and a computer glitch over UK
airspace.
A day and a half later they still have no idea where it is. And it
has Jane’s journal in it, her record of her personal journey for the past 12
months. Irreplaceable. And then there’s the cold and arriving home and .......and nipping
round to a neighbours and glancing down at their coffee
table to see the headlines of The Times news paper and seeing the banner
across the front page, “Kate Gross” and then going
icy cold inside as I read the words.
Through our lovely friend Jill Mcmillan I
met Kate a few times and so what Jane & I then read
very slowly to each other changed the day completely. Completely! ...and left us deeply moved
I asked Jill if she thought Kate would mind
us blogging what she wrote for The Times and her husband then has blogged on
their own website and she thought it would be more than fine.
Read Kate’s Christmas message & know
that life will suddenly come into its true perspective, as it did for us
yesterday as we returned to the UK for Christmas.
- TW
 (This is an article Kate wrote for the Times
last week, which was printed today. She asked me to publish it to
the blog as our time with her is now very short. Billy - 11th Dec
'14)
The ghost of Christmas
Future will hang around our table this year. As we decorate the tree, open
our presents and sit down for lunch, I will not be the only one
imagining what these same rituals will be like next December when I am no
longer there. This is my last Christmas; 2015 is the last New Year I will see
in. I am 36, my twin boys are not-yet-six, and I am dying from advanced colon
cancer.
I have had this disease
for over two years, but now I am drawing in like the December nights,
knocking on the door of what Philip Gould called the death zone – the great
winding down we all will face when we have weeks, not more, left to live. We
found out last month that cancer was reproducing wildly in my colon,
abdomen, lungs, liver and bone - ever the over-achiever, my disease has taken
the opportunity of a break from chemotherapy to run riot. So, I have
exited the world of Oncology, a known space of sage Professors and carousels
of bright young Registrars seeking to nuke my disease with an aggressive
phalanx of drugs. I enter the calmer, quieter world of Palliative Care;
regular visits from the nurses at my local hospice, ever increasing doses of
morphine in an effort to quell these terrifying new-found pains that travel
my body. In this new world my quest is for liveable days, pleasant and
comfortable hours and moments of snatched happiness.
 When I was asked to
write this article about Christmas I hesitated. I hesitated because I am
terrified that I won’t make it even that far, and writing down my hopes seems
like tempting fate. Look at Linda Bellingham. She decided to stop her
chemotherapy to give her a glorious “last” with her family, but she didn’t
make it.
And I am desperate to be well enough to open stockings and sing
O Little Town of Bethlehem one more time, and desperate not to mar festive
seasons to come with the grim anniversary of mummy’s demise.
But, like all
things that come with this dreadful disease I have named my Nuisance, I am
not in control. I do not get to decide what speed this final part of my
journey takes. Force Majeure could strike at any moment: I could pick up a
chesty cough from the school playground which would do me in.
The tumours could tighten their stranglehold on my liver well before
it gets its last taste of Christmas sherry. Cancer is cruellest to the
control freak like me. It strips away pleasures, one by one, finally
stripping away my ability to plan anything other than the day ahead.
Come what may, Christmas
won’t quite be Christmas this year for our family. Faced with this
combination of hope and uncertainty, my family learn from Larkin: we know
there is nowhere we can live but days. We can’t postpone our happiness until
tomorrow because we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We have to make the
most of now. The 25thDecember is too far away to bank on, so I am denied my
usual months of pre-Christmas list-making. But today, oh today I can be
sure of. Today I will meet my best friend’snewborn baby.
 Today I will sit
with my children and stuff our tasteful wooden advent calendar with gaudy
sweets. Today I will walk with my Dad along the banks of the river Cam as the
damp December mist enfolds us. And soon, so soon, it will be time to get the
Christmas decorations out and marvel over the brightly coloured objects we
haven’t seen for a year. Primary-coloured, heavy clay bells strung on
ribbons, fashioned by clumsy toddler hands. Baubles covered with baby
handprints. The armless Angel we cherish,amputee or not, secure in her perch
at the top of the tree.
We can’t bank on
anything. But that doesn’t mean we stop hoping for it. With a break in
the pain, I can get out of my bed and my planning gene kicks in, as
irrepressible as hope. What do I want this Christmas? I want to do the simple
things again. Christmas is about precious rituals carved out over the years;
learned from my parents as I grew up, now taking on a new shape in my own
family. On Christmas Eve, I want my husband, the boys and I to go to cinema
to see Paddington, have a crudely un-festive lunch of burgers and then go and
sit in the shadow of Isaac Newton’s statue at the Trinity College crib
service. I want to be able to get up at 6am to the shout of “is it morning
yet?” and “Father Christmas has come! He’s come!”
I want to toast my 100 year
old Gran and smile as I see generations of one family around the table
suffering our annual ration of Brussel sprouts. I want to see in 2015 in the
wilds of Suffolk with my best friends and their kids, and a massive rib of
beef. These are more than plans. They are iconic rituals which havegestated
over the years. Repetition has scored the grooves deeply into our lives. I
know these things we do will not die with me.
 Let’s say I do get that
far, let’s side with hope and say I make it to the toasts and the turkey and
the carnage of present opening. I wonder how we will cope with the presence
of Christmas Future at the feast. I am sure two rambunctious five year old
boys will help keep him under control. And we are a pragmatic lot, our
family, so I suspect we will welcome him in with some black humour and offer
him a mince pie. An unwanted but acknowledged guest, better at the table than
knocking menacingly at the window. Better we welcome him in and recognise
that whilst my time-horizon is now as truncated as a toddlers, for those
sitting next to me the idea of a long afterwards when our family is three,
not four, is ever present in their minds.
I wonder if we will
struggle more with the burden of lastness and the expectations of
perfection it brings. There are few things I distrust more than the bucket
list; I find any potentially wonderful experience easily ruined by the weight
of expectation. I can celebrate this year being the final Christmas Dinner I
eat - I never liked turkey much anyway. But if this is the last time I will
open stockings with my children at the crack of dawn, then I will want it to
be perfect. And, of course, it won’t be. Even if by some miracle I am fit
(tish) and well (enough), like every family we will have our festive niggles.
My darling, consumerist, selfish little boys will cherish the plastic
Minecraft figures I bought them under duress more than my hand-crafted,
memory laden gifts I have prepared for them. I will expend precious
energy shouting at them when they refuse to wear a “smart” shirt and
trousers for the big day. They will see more of the Mini-Ipads which Father
Christmas has been asked for than my precious face. My husband will hate the
jumper I buy him, as he does every year. The dog will steal a leg of turkey.
My parents will have a terse exchange over the gravy, and only I will want to
watch Downton Abbey
 Christmas always brings
with it these stupidly high expectations, whether it is the lastever or
whether you have years more celebrating ahead. We have expectations of perfect
families, well-behaved children, thoughtful gifts lovingly received, peace
and harmony replacing squabbles and nagging. If we are not careful, reality
will ruin Christmas. Not just for our family, what with all this
fate-tempting writing and my sky-high hopes, but for all of us. So I
like to remind myself that a real Christmas includes the bad stuff too.
Not just the gingerbread house, but the arguments over who will get to eat
the sweet-filled roof. Not just the carol service, but the cold, wet wait at
the bus-stop afterwards. Not just generations of family under one roof, but
snidey bickering, competitive gift-giving and marital disharmony. And for us,
this year, not energetic mummy running the show, but mummy lying on the
sofa. Mummy sleeping through present opening. Mummy reaching
for her ‘special Calpol’ to ease the pain. Dad taking too many
photos of mum. A little cry on each others’ shoulder at the end of the
day.
The Christmas idyll is
never an idyll, for any of us. So my promise this year is to enjoy all of it.
These days that lead up to it, not just the main event. The grumpiness, anger
and frustration with my best beloveds that are a reminder that I am alive and
red blood still pumps through my veins. I am pale imitation of the energetic
parent I once was, but there is still pleasure to be gained from Christmas as
a spectator sport. Though my Christmases past are blissful memories, I do not
need to live there. The present is no idyll, but it’s what we have. And I
intend to enjoy it. May you all do the same.
Kate’s book Late Fragments: Everything I Want to Tell You (About
This Magnificent Life) will be published in early Jan 2015.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Late-Fragments-Everything-About-Magnificent/dp/0008103453/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418402946&sr=8-1&keywords=late+fragments
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