Month: February 2022

I FEEL COMPELLED

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I feel compelled to write this post, through tears. I seem to be always apologising, and I do feel that you all DO deserve an apology.

I am not responding very well to your comments on my posts. Sometimes it is mentioned to me, and each time I feel bad.I DO read ALL your comments, but often I am really struggling and in tears with not being able to see,and with utter exhaustion. Responding is sometimes beyond me. So then when another day comes,I can’t find them. I think I am going to go back over everything and respond, but then I find I just can’t.

It hurts me so badly because I know that interaction is needed on Blogs, and it is both polite and kindly to respond. I wish to snub NOBODY.

I keep trying to make my state of health apparent so that people can understand what is going on for me.

I began this blog in the first place for somewhere to put my poetry. Someone had suggested it to me. I was dubious at first, but then decided to try it. I soon realised that it is a community here and it was lovely.

However, now, I am finding that I can’t keep up. My blindness is stopping me and not for want of trying. I try to post all sorts, but sadly my humour has left me just lately.

I must say that I have thought of deleting my blog since going completely blind. Though it has been my life, and all that I had,being bedfast for a lot of the time, I considered it might be time to give it up.

I don’t want to upset or offend anyone. I know that I make mistakes too and I have also been taken upon that. So now might be the time to go.

So many of you have been so kind and supportive and I don’t want to hurt ANYBODY.

I will think on it. Please be patient with me.
I have refrained from airing my real suffering over going blind, though my book may have done in the end.

At this moment I am heartbroken and in tears.
I will attempt to do better until I decide what to do.

I am a person who needs to write, so we will see.
Lorraine xx

SHOES

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Shoes
Walking
Taking life
To where they will
Strong soles holding on
Along rugged pathways
Onto the highest mountains
Alongside streams in greenest fields
Never giving up keeping going
Soon will be the time to rest satisfied

DIARY ENTRY – VISIT TO SNOWDROP LANE

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Yesterday we went to the little lane behind where my grandparents’ farm was, and the snowdrops were so thick that they looked like a carpet offsnow on the grass verges. I was very sad because I could not see them. Last year I could just about see them though they were very blurred and indistinct. There is something about snowdrops that draws me. Their beautiful white innocence, their vulnerabilty, yet combined with a great strength and ability to survive. They are so beautiful. The sun was out, though it was very cold. We stopped for a while in the lane, listening to the birdsong. Ism no good at identifying bird calls, but I have an App on my phone called Warblr, and it records a few minutes of the birdsong and then tells you which birds are there.

Yesterday we heard a song thrush, a blackbird, and chaffinches. It was beautiful.

I sat there for a while with my memories, wishing that My grandparents and the rest of my family were still here. We now have no connections with anybody and are alone.

We then took a ride through the village and remembered. It was a beautiful if rather sad day.

OUR DOGGY WON’EAT

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Our doggy, Hope, won’t eat. She hasn’t eaten for three days except for one chicken and rice stick two days ago. She is just six years old.

We have tried her with bits of roast chicken which she normally loves. We have tried all her favourite things. Her nose is wet and cold, not dry and warm. Although she is a bit quieter than usual she is still wandering around and in and out all of the time.

We will have to consult the vet tomorrow if she won’t eat today. She seems to be in season but is a dog who doesn’t have then very often. It doesn’t seem to be a septic womb which some of our other doggies have had.
I am worried.

#FOWC

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https://fivedotoh.com/2022/02/27/fowc-with-fandango-insinuate/

“How dare you INSINUATE that I am a murderer,” shouted Roger at the policeman. They were standing in Roger and Sally’s bedroom, the policeman examining the table lamp on the bedside chest, it looked as if it had been forcibly broken.

“Why don’t you go down to Revd. Goodman’s, i think you might find out that he is not what he seems.”

Sally had gone out on the evening of the day after Christmas, ostensibly for Evening Prayer at the church.

“I won’t be long,” she shouted out to Roger as she went out of the door. By midnight she still had not come home. Roger, frantically, had called the police.

“Oh don’t worry. We’ll ve looking closely at him too.”

WITHIN

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And when you can not go without
Go within
For there is no safer place to be
The cocoon of your true self
Which will always love you
And set you free
Without is full of illusions
Delusions
Deceptions myriad
But within
You will find truth

VACCINATION YESTERDAY

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I had a Covid vaccination yesterday and I could hardly hold my iPad afterwards! I managed to get hubby to help me do some posts but I was cery sleepy. I had the best night’s sleep that I have had in months. I did not get to responding to comments very much. My arm is bettwr today, and I am feeling jubilant. The dog decided to get poirly last night though, so we are watching her closely today. I hope we don’t need the vet.

#FOWC

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https://fivedotoh.com/2022/02/26/fowc-with-fandango-harangue/

It was always going to be a bad idea. Gerry had never been any good at anything practical or new. Pam and Gerry had been camping for a few years, quite happily, until Gerry got it into his head to get a trailer tent. Pam saw trouble coming straight away. However, she had to go along with it. Gerry was stubborn, and always had to have his own way. There was no point in trying to cross him. It always ended in tears and it was not worth it.

Gerry duly picked up the trailer tent one day, and soon they were setting off for a holiday in it. When they arrived at their destination all the camp sites were full. They spent the whole day trying to find a place where they could pitch their tent. Eventually, at eight o” clock at night they found somewhere. Gerry immediately set about trying to erect the trailer tent, but it was raining about as hard as they had ever known it. Pam attempted to help, but they ended up arguing. It was obvious to Pam that Gerry had absolutely no idea how to get the tent erected. The rain was pouring down and they were both getting soaked. After a stressful day, all that Pan wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep. She began to HARANGUE Gerry, but that only made him worse.

It got to gone ten o’ clock and the tent was up but at a 45 degree angle. At least the bed part was there though. Pam decided that that was it. She needed to sleep. The rain was pouring into the tent but it would soon be morning, and they could go home. Gerry had admitted defeat, and Pam did not care if she never saw a trailer tent again. And she didn’t. In fact she never saw a tent at all. That escapade finished their camping days for ever.

UTOPIA!

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What place is this
That has no walls
But swells with grace
Expanding into the void
Full to bursting
No barriers
No borders
All are welcome here
The table is set
The banquet is ready
Come, eat
Be filled
No limits
All, all may come
Come today

Part 11 of MY STORY OF GOING BLIND

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Is God the life force within us? The thing that pushes up through the darkness. Is He the sap that rises in the tree in the Springtime after the dark cold winter? Is He the green shoot that pushes up from a tiny seed through the darkness of the soil, and lives?

Since gettkng cancer and going blind I have been preoccupied with the practical and material problems of life. How was I to live as a blind wheelchair bound person and not merely exist? For me, it was not just a matter of the body and the flesh. I realised that we are made of more than that. There is something within us that makes us LIVE. This is something that I have, as I said in my previous part, struggled with. Some people do give the name “God” to this, but then that conjures up all sorts of other things as well. They are things that I would not want to be associated with. Having struggled for life, however, when I had cancer, I have to say that there truly is something very strong in us that makes us strive for life. I mean, here, not just existence, but life. I could quite easily have felt that my body was in such a state and that that was all there was for me. A mere existence. I could not accept my own that. What made me play music? What made me always dance? Even though I can no longer actually dance, my spirit still dances within me. I hear the music and I dance.

There were so many things that made me alive before I got cancer and went blind. One of those things was bird watching, and nature. Not being able to watch the birds is one of my greatest losses. I still grieve over it. To live in a world of darkness is a terrible thing, and in some way that darkness had to be redeemed. How do you live in complete darkness? This was and still is my challenge. Physically it causes many problems, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually it does too. How do I redeem the darkness?

IN THE CHURCHYARD

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In the churchyard
Graves stand tall
Angels guarding stand

Peace pervades air
Laden with grief
Sighing a goodbye

Death defies us
Life answers back
Its own victory

The door opens
Crossing the threshold
Into past times

I hear voices
Distant but clear
Speaking their truth

A bell sounds
It is time
Venite adoremus dominum

PART 10 of MY STORY OF GOING BLIND

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Faced with the news that the Medical Rehabilitation Consultant had given me, I knew that in some way, I still had to strive for life, even though it seemed as though I was on my way to a slow death. Although things were manageable at that time, they were not going to be in the future. With my husband in a wheelchair as well life was going to be extremely difficult and complex. My response was to attempt to live in the present moment, whilst still preparing for the future. This was harder than it seemed. Though we contacted various people and organisations for help with my impending blindness, there was no help available. We live in a backwater, and even the RNIB had no volunteers in our area. There was nothing for it – I HAD to try to walk again. Maybe I could prove the Medical Rehabilitation Consultant wrong. This world is full of people who have defied doctors and done amazing things. Maybe I could be one of them. I had been allotted a physiotherapist who was to give me some exercises to improve my balance. I could try there. In my imagination I was walking normally, with a white cross cane, like other blind people. I needed to get rid of that wheelchair.

My efforts were rewarding. Eventually I could walk a little, with two sticks. I refused to let go of my dream. I was not going to let cancer and chemotherapy rob me of my life. There must be a way through things. However, despite my best efforts my body eventually became too painful to contemplate walking any more. Many of my major muscles had completely died, and the process still had not ceased. I was presented with a dilemma. How was I now going to live my life as the blindness bit more? Complete dependence on others was not an option for me, I had a very lively mind and personality, and I refused to become dependent.

My music meant a lot to me, and I continued to play my flute for Mass. In fact one week the other two players were away and I accompanied the congregation alone, on my flute. I felt proud of myself as the notes of the “Gloria” rose up from my flute. It was exhilarating. O was still alive. Sadly, however, there wer many painful episodes at that church as people did not know how to treat a blind person, and they did not want to learn. I attempted to be patient, but there was no moving forwards with them.

A COMPULSION TO WRITE

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What gives me life? It is writing that gives me life. Since being a very little girl I have written, I am told that I used to write letters to my father when I was only 3. He left me and my mother and ran off into the army so that he could join Ralph Reader’s Gang shows. He always had a yen to go on the stage and indeed throughout his life he did this.

When I was eight years old my father had left us to go and live with another woman, but eventually he came back to us. We met him in an hotel and, when he arrived my mother and I were sitting at a table in the restaurant, and he got out of his bag lots of little notebooks with beautiful tortoiseshell covers. He emptied them onto the table along with lots of pencils. It was the best gift I could ever have been given. Even then, writing was part of me.

I have always written things down. I have a compulsion to write things down. It is as if writing it seals it, it starts in my head but then travels down to my fingers, and then through the pen or pencil and onto paper. I love the very act of writing and forming the letters.

I have a desire, sometimes, to “WRITE IT BIG.” Oh I don’t know if you have ever read the book “Mr. God This is Anna.” Anna used to have to “write it big” when any significant discovery about the world was made. I feel just like Anna.

Since becoming blind I can no longer write in that way and I miss it very much. But however I have to do it, I HAVE to write. It is a compulsion. I cannot see myself ever not doing it at all, however difficult the practicalities of it are.

Does anyone else feel like this?

WHAT IS THIS CUP

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The following poem was written as a kind of question. When life gives you shit, is there ever going to be anything better? I wrestle with this question all the time. Is there anything beyond this life? If not, then life is very unfair. Do we just go to dust and that is It? No one knows the definitive answer to this question. I would like to think there is something better beyond this life, but it is something I struggle with. Anyway, this is just a very short poem that I wrote some time ago.

What is
This cup we drink?
Not just sorrow or joy
But laden with fullness of life
Until
The end
And the golden dawn greeting us
Dissolves what went before
Our souls are bathed
In light

Part 9 of MY STORY OF GOING BLIND

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I have had many dark experiences in my life, from being a small child, and I believe that those experiences gave me a strength to deal with anything that came my way. When the chips are down you either sink or swim, and however painful and difficult something is, the life force is very strong within us and we strive for life. If someone is pushing our heads underwater we push back, trying to preserve our lives. We fight for life, naturally. I know this from when my mother tried to push my head into the water in the washing machine when I was 13. Terrifying though the experience was, something within me rose up almost in defiance and though the feeling of wanting to run away was very strong. We naturally want to flee from horrible things, and I did in fact want to run away, but of course, I could not as I had nowhere to go. Yet somehow or other I wanted to live. It was at that time in my life that, crucially, something completely unexpected happened to me. As a result of it, I found a new, more loving environment in the church down the road. Some girls had invited me to go to the Youth Club at the church with them. I enjoyed going very much indeed. I loved to dance, but also I loved to spend some time talking with the Deaconess there. I had always had an inquiring mind, and even as a very small child I had walked down the long lane from the farm where my grandparents lived, with my grandmother at nights, looking up at the night sky and asking where God was. I have no idea where I had heard of God, for I had not started school yet, and it was certainly not from my grandmother. However, as I looked at the thousands of stars in the sky I wondered where there could possibly be room for God. My grandmother told me that she didn’t know where He was but that He must be up there somewhere. As I was talking to the Deaconess I was attempting to fathom the mysteries of the Universe, until one week, quite suddenly the Deaconess stopped me dead in my tracks by saying,

“Lorraine God loves you.”

This was weird. I had never heard of anything like this before, and, after a while, during which I did a lot of thinking, I fell on it hungrily and thirstily. That helped me to get through what I was going through at home. Through this experience I learned to love myself and to see myself as someone of worth. It was the absolute antithesis to my mother’s way of thinking and being. It gave me strength. As I have gone through my life however, that simple faith has been tested and tried, and I have continued to wrestle and to question. When I had cancer I eventually found some comfort in it, though at the same time there was a battle going on between that faith and my rational mind. I had faced many questions regarding faith and suffering before, as I engage in doing a degree and then a Masters, then a Ph.D. in Theology and Philosophy. I knew that there were no satisfying answers, but something inside me yearned for that love that I had been told about as a 13 year old. I have always said that love is the oxygen of life. We cannot live without it. When I was 18 I went to a Teacher Training College. And we read that seminal book by John Bowlby entitled “Child Care and the Growth of Love” which confirmed for me what I already knew through experience, that love is the most essential of needs that we have. When I had cancer I did not have loving family and friends around me, and I had to wrestle with the idea of a God Who loved me. I wanted to be able to believe in one desperately, and maybe I did for a while, in order to get through. However, when the blindness really started to bite, I had many problems with an idea of a God, but I then began to explore the idea of the darkness of God
and God as darkness. After all, at the very beginning of everything there was only darkness. This gave me strength because it brought a God of darkness into my experience, where other human beings could not go. I was so lonely, living in a world where no one else lived. Everyone else inhabited a different world. I could no longer talk about their world, nor they mine. It felt as if all meaningful communication had gone. Things were okay if I could talk about the world as it exists for the fit and healthy and sighted, but if I attempted to talk about my world, people ran away.

Despite all this, however, I still pushed on up, like a shoot pushing up out of the dark soil, striving for life. I have experienced some very bad moments though when I have not wanted to live, and have contemplated leaving this world, but always, in the end, life won.

PART 8 of MY STORY OF GOING BLIND

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Following the appointment with the Medical Rehabilitation Consultant I think I was in some measure of shock. The way in which things were presented to me it seemed as though this was quite normal for someone who had gone through my particular form of chemotherapy. Yet there were questions in my mind as there was a young man undergoing chemotherapy at the same time as me who managed to keep working right the way through it. His cancer was not as advanced as mine was, and yet there was some doubt as to whether the chemotherapy would work on him. Chemotherapy affects everyone differently. So does cancer. I will call him Phil, though that is not his real name. I could never understand why he was able to receive his chemotherapy in a chair whilst I had to receive mine in a bed because I could hardly sit up and was very weak. In fact, Phil seemed quite normal, though of course he could not have been as he did have cancer. I often used to compare myself with him and feel angry because I was unable to be as normal as him. I spent eight months in bed, whilst he was still able to go to work. Sometimes I would be brought to tears but, in a way, I knew there was no point in becoming bitter about it. I had to get through it, and try and stay positive. There was, however, a great deal of fear inside me. I struggled with my emotions, and in the end had to drink deep from the well that was inside me. I had learned, during my childhood, to have an iron will, but that does not mean I did not feel the fear. Often, when I woke up in a morning, I wished that I didn’t have to wake up to this nightmare. Somehow or other though, I found a way of going on. In a way, being given this news by the Medical Rehabilitation Consultant was nowhere near as bad as being told that I had cancer and it might kill me. Since then, however, there have been many times when I have thought and felt differently. As the blindness has begun to bite, and I see nothing in front of me, I have often felt that I would rather have died than live like this. How does one deal with such powerful emotions? I have no answers, only my own story such as it is. We all do what we can with the cards we are dealt. For me, I knew that I needed to be able to walk if I was not to be completely dependent on someone else, and so I still tried, despite what the Consultant had told me, to walk. It was not, however, to be, in the end.

PART 7 of MY STORY OF GOING BLIND

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I left the seaside town that day feeling utterly exhilarated. I had walked. I felt wonderful. I was not going to be in a wheelchair any more. I was going to walk. Little did I know, however, what was just around the corner. I continued to attempt to walk with just two sticks. Sometimes I could manage it but sometimes I couldn’t. My balance seemed to have gone, and I was beginning to feel a little wary of walking any more. Sometimes my legs just would not go, and I felt as if I was about to fall. In consternation I visited my doctor. He looked at my body and told me that my muscles had atrophied. After asking me some questions and examinng me further he diagnosed neuropathy. It had, he said, affected my motor nerves. This was why I was unable to walk. It was a side effect of one of my chemotherapy drugs – vinblastine. He printed off a sheet for me giving me all the information on the condition. He then said he was going to find a Specialist for me, preferably one who specialised in chemotherapy damage. He said that there may not be one locally, but that somewhere in the U.K. there would be one. He may have to send me away.

I did not know what to make of this news, but I must say that I felt glad that there was a recognised reason for why I could not walk. It wasn’t my imagination, and it wasn’t because I was not trying hard enough.

In the end the doctor could not find a Specialist with experience in what he called peripheral polyneuropathy that had been chemotherapy induced. Instead, he referred me to the Medical Rehabilitation Consultant. When I went for the appointment, the Consultant asked me to get out of my wheelchair and walk some steps unaided. With my very first step I fell against the wall of the room, and he darted forwards to catch me. He was shocked by the extent of the damage. He told me never to try and walk, but to remain in a wheelchair always. It was too dangerous for me to attempt to walk.

I have to say that I was shocked at that appointment, for that was not all that he had to say. It was progressive. It would not stop here. He asked if I could swallow and, thankfully I was able to say that I could, though fear gripped me that in time I would not be able to swallow. Was this what was in store for me? Indeed, the muscles in my face and particularly around my mouth has been affected. My face was changing. Peripheral polyneropathy causes the muscles to die, and this had happened all over my body. My digestive system was damaged too and this was not going to get any better either. When all of this was put together with the lung damage that I had suffered at the hands of one of the other chemotherapy drugs – bleomycin – making breathing difficult, I did not exactly feel good when I left that appointment. On top of that, of course, was the growing blindness. My future was not exactly looking good.

How did I respond to all of this? At this stage I responded by saying that I would overcome it all. However, eventually some bad days were to come, and at times a deep depression and blackness set in. This is still true today. I have my moments. But I was to continue and try to defy the doctor and I did in fact walk again for a while, with two sticks.

#FFFC

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https://fivedotoh.com/2022/02/21/fandangos-flash-fiction-challenge-157/

It was some years since they had been here. They were standing looking at the start of the track that went up the mountain. It was here where they had begin their epic trip up Scafell Pike. They had been younger then, but the experience had been so exhilarating that they wanted to relive it. Could it be as good as that day all those years ago when they had sat and eaten their lunch in the best restaurant ever, looking down upon the world from the top of the mountain?

The sun was shining, and everything looked good. They set off up the rugged pathway. Soon, they found themselves in the midst of the thickest fog they had ever known. They had heard about this, but had never thought it could happen to them, especially on what had been a bright and sunny day. Refusing to panic, they made their way slowly forwards, and it was not long before they came to a place where the fog had cleared, and they were looking at the most beautiful lake ever. They looked at the track that continued up the mountan and debated whether to continue up the mountain or not. Two hours later saw them sitting in the beautiful sunshine dangling their feet in the water. The mountain would wait while another day.

DIARY ENTRY

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am feeling rather pleased with myself. Last night I managed to post my poem “Wounds” using just Voice Over to navigate WordPress. I did it by just messing about with it because the videos on it are so technical and complex. I felt like I had won a million dollars doing that. I also managed to find my way to Commentsbusing it, though that was a little bit harder. I deel great now!

ALTAR IN THE WOODS

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I will build my little altar
In the woods where fairies play
Where gentleness reigns
And sweet voices sing
Where playfulness is the religion
And there is no judgement
For being as children
Is the way to finding heaven
Where transparency is the path
That everyone walks
Light as a feather
No black coats
Or white plastic smiles
Whilst behind the eyes is evil
An arrogance that only power can bring
A need for position
And a cruel icy coldness
I will build my little altar
In the woods where fairies play

THE AXEMAN

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AN OLD POEM BUT I FEEL IT QUITE STRONGLY TODAY

The madman came and put his axe to the tree
Hell bent on cutting out its sacred core
Demons gathered to watch the killing spree

The sap rose then on seeing the madman’s glee
The tree stood tall ready to go to war
The madman came and put his axe to the tree

Red berries glistened in its sturdy lee
Mesmerised the madman watched blood pour
Demons gathered to watch the killing spree

The madman believed that he was truly free
In spewing evil opening hell’s door
The madman came and put his axe to the tree

Holy innocence cried to One in Three
Blood and water cleansed the madman’s gore
The madman came and put his axe to the tree
Demons gathered to watch the killing spree

DIARY ENTRY

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I am still having problems dealing with blogging and my loss of sight. Whilst I can manage to post usually, although with some difficulty, I tend to take a long time sometimes to respond to comments, which makes me very sad. I then try to go back over my posts to respond to everyone. I know that I miss some. Deep apologies for that. I feel worried that I soon may not be able to use my blog at all. I try to come in and can seee NOTHING. I feel such a terrible sadness at that. It actually breaks my heart. I am trying my very best to keep going because the day I have to stop I will die inside. I am still exploring new ways of doing things, but life has been hectic lately, with two power chairs dying on us. We have been in chaos. A very worrying time. We have now bought two new ones but that was a right performance too, and the wheelchairs will not do what we need them to do, like going through the front door, going in the car etc. We have been besieged by problems! So getting to know new ways of doing things has taken a vacuum seat. I am really sorry if I have missed some of your comments. I love to receive them. Abd I WILL try and respond to everyone in better time! I bet there are loads of mistakes in this but I can’t see if there are and hubby is asleep. I hope to be soon as well lol. X

A COMMON FALLACY

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It is often assumed that when you receive a cancer diagnosis you will have family and friends around you to comfort and support you. When I was diagnosed I was sent a video showing a cancer sufferer being surrounded by so many people, loving her and supporting her. It seemed to be assumed that this was the norm. I can, to this day, remember my feelings at seeing this video. They were of anger, sadness, despair, grief, longing, and much more. You see, I had no supportive family and friends. We had not long lived in the area, and I had been Carer for my husband who had had to give up work and retire early due to post polio syndrome. He was now in a wheelchair. This meant that we had not had the chance to make any friends.

As for family, my family was toxic and, though I had attempted to cut myself off from them in the past, they managed to get back into my life again through the cancer, and they certainly were not like the one depicted in the video. I longed for a family like that, but it was not what I had. In fact, part way through the chemotherapy, my mother prevailed upon me to go to Switzerland for Assisted Suicide.

“It is your duty,” she said. “We are only a small family and we can’t cope with you.”

In fact, they were not doing any coping at all. My husband was doing it all. They merely came to see me for an hour on a Sunday morning. Even then, my mother wanted only to cause havoc. She had to have the television on loud in my bedroom, and talked loudly all the time to my brother. I was so weak and ill that all I could do was lie in my bed. I was unable to even lift a fork or a spoon to my mouth. I longed for my mother to come and just sit quietly beside me and hold my hand. But that was never going to happen.

To battle cancer is hard enough in itself, but to have to battle alone, as I did, is even harder. And then to have to deal with a toxic mother adds to it all. In the end my husband turned her and my brother away from the door.

I am often asked how I got through, and the answer is that I don’t know. In fact, I wonder myself.

Part 6 of MY STORY OF GOING BLIND

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I threw myself into life following the receiving of the news that I was going to go completely blind. After all, I had survived cancer – so far – and was still alive. No longer did I have to go for any more dreaded chemotherapy and I would gradually become more myself again. There would be no stopping me. During my life I had faced so much and this was just one more thing to face. At that point I could still see colour, and shapes. I could see some things albeit in a rather blurred fashion, if they were close to me. I could also just manage to see enough to use my laptop. Using binoculars I could also see trees and flowers and scenes in front of me. I had always loved music and playing instruments. I found myself a place doing this by joining two other people and playing my flute for the Mass on a Sunday evening. This was quite difficult and challenging because the man who led us did not choose the hymns until the Sunday afternoon, and as he always chose very modern ones that I did not know, I had to find them and on You Tube and learn them off by heart by 6p.m. Reading music was impossible for me. It was quite a scramble, but I always managed in the end. This was something that I loved doing. It made me feel alive. The people in the church got used to seeing me in my power chair tap tapping my way down the aisle to the front of the church. Everything felt like a great adventure to me. This was not going to overcome me. I was full of hope, and some faith. Hope and faith are very different things and I have always said that faith is putting one foot in front of the other and just walking even when you cannot see the ground in front of you.

In my enthusiasm I attempted to walk. I figured that if I was going to be blind, then I would need to be able to walk otherwise I would be completely dependent upon others, which I did not want. So, one day I asked my husband to drive us to the seaside town that was about thirty miles away. Normally I used a power chair, but on this day I was determined to walk. I figured I could walk, holding onto the railings on the promenade. It would be wonderful, with the sand and the sea below and the gulls sitting on the railings, shrieking for all they were worth.

My husband parked up beside the promenade. In a spirit of determination I opened the car door, and put first one foot out onto the ground, then the other. Could I do this? Yes, of course I could. It would be the first time I had walked in over eight months. I needed to get across the promenade from the car to the railings. So I held onto two sticks. It wasn’t far. I could do this. I pulled myself up into a standing position, then put one foot forwards. All was wellm so then I put the other foot forwards, then again, and again. I could hardly believe it. I was walking. The gulls were shrieking and kids were hurtling past on bikes. I got to the railings and held onto them with my left hand. Slowly i made my way along the promenade. It was a dream. I was walking.

In my mind I saw myself getting better and better. I might be blind, but plenty of people were blind and could get around with the aid of a white cane. I was going to be fine. This was indeed a great adventure.

A LEAF

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A leaf is a leaf
Whether on the tree or on the ground
Whether green or yellow
Red or brown
A leaf is a leaf
Beauteous in all its shades
And even
When dying
A leaf is a leaf
Though death may come to the leaf
We glory in its fiery demise
We love the leaf
Alive
Or dying

LIQUID LOVE

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In the liquid silver stream of your love
I rest awhile
And feel my body become light
Floating where it will
No fire can put it to rout
Though fierce it tried
Upheld by love’s strong hand
I find my way
To that place where sorrow
Cannot darken my path
Nor tears mark my face
A place of light
Silky smooth
Glowing
Never ending

CRUNCH

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Crunch, beneath my feet,
Splinters ,
Red and gold and brown,
Rich colours sharp as glass,
Now crushed with jagged points
Daggers drawing blood.
“Give me the Spring” I pleaded,
“Just the Spring,
And then do what you will.”
I knew the score,
Although I tried to hide,
Denied the truth I knew inside.
There were no signs that I could see,
Nor pain to waken fear,
Until the day that red appeared,
The blood of autumn’s death.
I’d had my Spring,
My summer too,
Now autumn brought me winter’s death,
Red, fading into white, and blue.