more celebration, perhaps the most special of all. We got another chance at life. Rex has been pronounced free of cancer (melanoma) after a traumatic few months. Although the medical pundits say he has a moderately high risk of recurrence, for now we can fly again.
I was so scared of losing him. I thought my life was over just when I had started to live. But of course it wasn’t and it won’t be. The strength and resilience I learnt at your side guides me still, allows me to feel my pain, to understand I’m not being punished, that life just threw me a curved ball when I least expected it. With support from close friends and family, I did cope.
I have had the most wonderful year since I retired. I have never been so happy, contented or calm. With my body free of pain my mind and spirit ran free, giving me glimpses of paradise here on earth. I feel good about myself, that what I am doing is right for me. The dogs and Rex have thrived with the quality time I have for them. I can hear them. I listen to what they say.
The garden talks to me too. This is my passion, where my creative energies come alive. Amidst the forest of native plants, grasses, herbs, spring bulbs, brilliant deciduous autumn trees, orchids and roses are emerging in pots and across archways. The garden is ever changing, just like the weather and me. I walk in it, sit in it, marvel at it and drink it in. I dream of what I can do, then I make it happen, bit by bit. And then I walk, sit, marvel and drink it in some more.
The parrots and rosellas still come, but now the smaller birds, like eastern spinebills, honeyeaters and pardalotes are returning. Fishes and their babies swim lazily and carefree in the newly planted pond. The ringtail and brushy tailed possums have moved in too. This is definitely the place to be. I love it. So do the plants and animals.
Walking, meditating and writing are part of nearly every day. Each morning as I write in my journal I allow my thoughts and feelings to wander freely across the pages, to reflect on life and living, and all things both large and small. It is here I find you most often, hear you, talk to you, reach out to you, and revisit what I learned about me with you as my guide. I talk to my journal as openly as I talked with you. I reveal myself and in so doing accept who and what I am and better understand what is happening to me. I even let Rex read my journals when he feels the need. I’m not scared by it. Funnily enough, neither is he.
Amidst all this spirituality, reflection and freedom to develop the new me, I found I needed an intellectual challenge. I turned to business and finance - setting up and running our own superannuation fund and investment company. For the first time in my life I feel truly happy, a happy that pervades deep into my soul. My world is smaller, more secure and so beautiful. I allow the people in it to care for me, to love me and hold me. The dogs adore me and want to be with me. I am on my own a lot, but rarely feel lonely. I have found a peace I never knew existed and glimpses of paradise to entice me on for years.
All my treasures, mementos and guardian angels have been resurrected to adorn our house and garden to ward off evil spirits. I know the intense pain I feel at the moment is a legacy of our brush with death. I feel a deep certainty the pain will go, although my body takes longer than I would like to heal. The old wounds are deep, but they no longer haunt me, cannot hold me in their sway. I am at one with Rex, closer than we have ever been; yet I am free, free to be me.
Gregory, I treasure my time spent with you. Because of it I can seek out and treasure all that is precious in my life. I know I will also have a life worth living even if Rex can’t be with me forever.
We go overseas for two months in September, autumn in Europe. This will be the journey of a lifetime, the journey we never thought we would make.
I find it hard to write to you. I grieve anew, yet I feel you are with me. If I write again it will probably be in autumn, from one hemisphere or another.
May your life be as blessed as mine.
Love Christine
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