Chapter 13 - Flanders

139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162

I visited Sutton, the nearest town to the Royal Marsden Hospital, to look for a briefcase. I couldn't find one and ended up just wandering around the shopping centre. I found myself looking into the distance at the table where we had taken Max for a hamburger after he had been admitted to the hospital for his second cancer.

He had sat there looking pale but happy. He had a cardboard sick bowl with him which he was wearing as a hat. I remember being very quiet and watching him eat. I'd wondered if this was the last time we would see him 'normal' and how we would cope with his second cancer. Sara and her sister were joking with him. As all these thoughts about that day swirled, I realised that I was staring into the middle distance and straight at a Mum we had known in the Royal Marsden Hospital.

I went over to talk but had difficulty with the words. She was very kind and sympathetic. 'The bottom must have fallen out of your life'. That described perfectly how I felt. She said how she thought of us all the time. I wondered how many other people we knew were doing the same. We talked for about ten minutes.

I went back to the car and bawled my eyes out. These ghosts and memories would spring up so often and catch me unawares.

Reigate Park became a place which I used to visit often because Paula loved to go there for walks or to cycle round the lake. It is a large and beautiful park which is half woodland and half open space.

Like a stuck record the memories of a particular incident used to flood back with each visit. As soon as we reached the lake I remembered the last time we went there as a family with Max. It was just before Christmas, about a month before he died, and we took some semi-stale bread with us to feed the ducks. Max took great delight in eating about half of it and giggled when we asked where it had all gone. He was in a wheelchair and terminally ill. Sara and I were waiting for him to die. I remember watching people watching him. He looked thin in the face but apart from that there was nothing to indicate the seriousness of his condition. I wondered if they realised that this child would soon die. Of course they didn't, he was laughing and joking and full of spirit. This incident highlighted the barrier we had with the outside world. I used to think that perhaps it was only us who had these feelings, but I met other parents who said that they too had a problem reconciling the outside world with their situation.

I endured these suffocating memories on Paula's behalf until repetition lessened the pain.

149

Copyright © 2001