I find that families are definitely the places where emotions are experienced the most. Perhaps because this is where our most significant relationships are. This week has been a bit of a roller coaster as simultaneously, in two different family spaces I have been hit with events that have both elated and disturbed me.
Thursday lunchtime my daughter Jodie called , a bit breathless because she was walking but she is expecting her second child and she had just had a 3 month scan and she wanted to tell me her news.. which was she was having twins - identical twins!! To say I was shocked (gobsmacked) is an understatement. There are just
It was only a quick call but its one of the moments when you feel your life will not be the same again and you start to imagine the implications, as I did over lunch with Taraneh (Jodie's step mum) who was just as excited as me.. That evening Taraneh spoke to Jodie and she told her that the person doing the scan had seen a possible abnormality..I felt totally deflated as the consequences flashed in front of me and thoughts of how my daughter must be feeling - she has an anxious three weeks wait until the next scan.
On top of this I also received the news from my sister in Australia that my 87 year old dad is likely to be very ill with lung cancer. He's always had a bad chest - bronchitis in childhood and emphysema in later life but somehow he has soldiered on. The move from Lancashire to Australia with my five brothers and sisters in 1972 has also helped as has his 25 years of retirement in the beautiful seaside town of Narawallee on the south NSW coast. I always knew that one day I would get a phone call or something like this would happen. I spoke to him briefly and he seemed quite cheerful reminding me that he was 87 and he'd had a good innings.. He is going to talk to his GP tomorrow.
So its been an emotional week with all sorts of emotions churning around and I know these will influence my decisions about what I do.