The year 2011 was, by any standards, pretty bad. In 2010 my mother-in-law – a lady with whom I had a very good relationship and who was the very antithesis of all the mother-in-law jokes – was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Despite two very major operations and treatment from the National Health Service that was, despite our fears fuelled by the typical bad press the NHS so often attracts, startlingly good, she died in July 2011.
Quite apart from the mental anguish that such an event produces for all family members, there are also the sheer practical aspects of the matter to consider. Initially, it was taking her to the hospital to receive the chemo treatment that was recommended, which occupied about four to five hours two or three days a week. Then, when she was readmitted to hospital when it was clear that the treatment – which was at best a palliative, no more – wasn’t working, it was daily visits. These involved about a forty-minute drive each way, and then perhaps two hours at the hospital, and sometimes we were visiting twice a day. With that level of commitment – which we were only too pleased to make, obviously – almost all other aspects of our lives were to some extent put on hold.
Until the diagnosis of my mother-in-law’s condition was made, I had never properly appreciated the fundamental truth of the expression that when one family member gets cancer, everyone in the family gets it. It really is, in all sorts of ways, a life-changing experience.
Then the family had to move into what you might call the admin phase: obtaining probate, clearing the house, deciding what stuff to sell, what we wanted to keep, and which of the several charity shops in Sevenoaks we should visit next, carrying large bulging sacks. The staff at several started to greet us by name, which I’m not entirely sure was a good thing …
But we moved on, just as everyone has to.
