I have a bad night and hardly sleep at all. I am trying my best to stay positive but I’m finding it increasingly difficult to ignore what’s coming. Susannah commented yesterday that I was very quiet and asked if I wanted to talk about anything. In my head I’ve been going over and over various scenarios of what could happen to her if I’m gone. I want to make sure that she’s at least financially ok. How do I say this? I cop out and say I’m ok, it’s nothing. But it’s all I think about. 

Today is especially hard as it is the anniversary of my cousin Rachel’s death. She was just a year or two older than me when she died. It was cancer, and although of a different kind, I think I have an understanding of some of what she and her family were going through in her last year. I so desperately wish I could talk to her. Or my Dad who also died of cancer and who I never knew. What were the lessons they learned going through this that they weren’t able to pass on?

We have a small family gathering (small by my family’s standards anyway) of 10 people at K and H’s house. It’s an almost annual event to connect with a set of Wellington based cousins that we rarely get to see. Susannah decides to stay home so I go with Mum. It’s a nice evening and great to have a chance to chat. Near the end of the evening Susannah calls. She says she misses me – when am I coming home? She sounds really sad and I know that she’s had too much time alone to think. My heart aches for her. I went through the same thing when she went to her work Christmas party but that was before the most recent developments. I know it must be hard for her thinking about a potential future alone.  

When we get home I find her asleep on the sofa in the sunroom. I watch a little TV with my niece E who is staying the night upstairs and then I wake Susannah to come to bed. My mind is racing and although I am exhausted I don’t sleep.