Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals

I sense the arrival of the dawn through my closed, sleepy eyes because my bedroom is bathed in the light of the sunrise behind my curtains. I glance at the alarm clock that sits above Anton’s ashes next to his side of the bed. 05:53. It’s even earlier today but Thandi has been restless. My poor dog battles pollen and grass allergies like nobody else I know. Currently her jowls and nose is a pallet of scabs, and there are light patches of fur on her flanks and paws that are visibly raw from where she’s licked or scratched herself. It’s already been 2 months on anti-histamine pills, and another 4 or 5 to go. We know this from experience. She might relish the sun of a summers day like most of us, but those allergies aren’t comfortable.

The journey of the sun through to the Solstice is rapid, like a freight train bustling through its stations from point A to Point Z. I really should make a point to start closing my shutters at night to avoid the early wake-ups, but there is something about those first rays of the sun that hit my window or kitchen terrace that makes it easy to climb from bed, pad through to the kitchen and turn on the coffee machine. Gratefully the temperate month of May- weather wise that is- is still cool enough that I am quick to climb back under the duvet covers to snuggle withy my book (let’s be realistic) phone and scroll mindlessly for an hour before I wake up the girls. Perhaps I’m feeling guilty this morning because I have a very subtle hangover. I probably enjoyed last nights wine a little too much, and after tossing about it my bed for half an hour, I give up on going back to sleep, so I open the curtains, toss my phone aside, intent on doing something for a change. We’ve had an unprecedented streak of sunny days and I suspect my garden is parched, so I throw a dressing gown over my shoulders, deliberately leaving my indoor Birkenstocks by my bedside, and already can anticipate the cool dew-covered grass on my bare feet. Grounding is what the mental health gurus and some social media personalities call it. Being a child is what I call it. Regardless of what it is, I am happy to sink my feet into the new carpet of grass that I have managed to grow this spring.

To contradict my mindful approach to grounding, I do tiptoe out via the kitchen where I warm up my coffee machine, remove the Terbodore enamel mug from my cupboard (Anton insisted on buying it last summer) and run a long black coffee into it.

The hit of my black bitter coffee hitting my lips is a serendipitous moment in the coolness of the May dawn. Obviously the birds are already murmuring. I soak up the way the first light streams gold across my terrace. The jasmine, bright green in her newness is radiant. I marvel at how nature recovers from the death that is winter, and I know deep down in my soul, that this will become the metaphor for my life.

May has been an incredibly tough month to navigate. It was something I didn’t see coming. Finally, after weeks months of battling an expat hurdle, I received the news that Anton was dead. As macabre and blunt as that sounds, what it meant was that I have finally received news that my husbands’ death has been registered in South Africa. Another 10 days and I finally had the scan of the certificate. 15 weeks following his passing. Finally, I can have my lawyer start his estate execution. Finally I can apply for the insurance, the retirement annuities. Finally I can freeze his bank account, which is already in arrears. And yet, it takes another million emails and phone calls and emotions that dredge up the sadness. I do wonder what time frames to expect before this matter is sorted out. And am I not receiving Anton’s work insurance benefits because of the delay with his South African Will and Succession? Alas, the answer eludes me for bureaucratic reasons. I remain wholly in the dark about this compensation.

As one does when faced with life-altering news, I burrowed down rabbit holes in March and April last year, looking for (understandable) information online about brain cancer, how come a family friend in my home town survived 10 years with a brain tumour, yet I had been warned to put my affairs in order. I questioned the odds and wanted to know why this had happened, how did we miss the signs, and really only wanted to accept that Anton would get through 5 years. I discovered a couple of Instagram handles and took to following accounts where the information I could take in was mindful. Helpful. Insightful. I also realised that its happens to be Glioblastoma Awareness Month in May. Mind you, we can create our own awareness occasions if we have enough clout, and I know within my core that it really is just a moment, along with various other cancer awareness moments. (And yet, we can’t miss ‘Pink October’ for breast cancer awareness, or ‘Movember’ for prostate cancer awareness, so perhaps I need to rethink my stance. Google tells me that May highlights 3 different cancer awareness programs). The associations surrounding the brain cancer awareness month do so to mainly raise funds for research funding. Apparently this cancer is under-researched, and few people know anything about it.

Cue 2025, and the alerts started ringing that GBM awareness month was coming up. I wanted to be able to do my share, to highlight the shit side of this cancer. To offer my experience to someone, who like me, was desperate for assurances a year ago. I wanted to know that I wasn’t alone, that there is a way to come back from this. I even started this entry intending to clarify Anton’s journey, how we thought we were the unique batch who would get 10 years, 5 years maybe. How we never celebrated a remission after radiation. We should have. How we went from a mostly clear scan in middle September, to a full blown tumour ‘bleed’ less than 3 months later. How I will never understand the science nor the fact that anyone really understands these tumours. And I got half a week into those writings, and cried. I cried all the time if I was on my own. I had to force myself to stop reading other people’s testimonials because either someone was newly diagnosed, and I was triggered, or they had family passed away 5 years ago already, and seemed to be ‘ok’, or there were people who are survivors after 2 years and I just couldn’t deal with it anymore. I muted the accounts, because the only person who can go through is is me. I’ve realised immersing myself in that space wasn’t doing much for my mental health.

May is also the month that marks the anniversary of my Mom’s passing 10 years ago. You would think that after 10 years, the grief that lies in that would have eased. And probably it does. But compounding emotions, the fact that May is Mother’s Day month in both South Africa and France, that we rushed to her bedside for Mothers Day in 2015, as well as a series of setbacks have all taken their toll, and my heart has been heavy this year. I suppose the memories of my Mom’s last weeks have lines quite similar to Anton’s that the anniversary dates sit at the forefront of my mind.

As you must have realised by now, I tend to pour out my grief in the form of free writing. Apparently it’s deeply remedial. Here’s an excerpt from the last 25 days, scribbled down into my phone, in moments of quiet or grief. Take from it what you want.

We are parts of a whole. 

Hey Babes,
It’s 7am, the last Sunday in April. I got out of bed to open the curtains so that I could see the sun rise.
Today - already, and I’ve been awake for 30 minutes- is an emotional overfilled basket .
Today 10 years ago Mom woke up in hospital after she was checked in for breathing difficulties. For her- for me- it was the beginning of the end. Why do I hold onto dates like this? Because your journey was a little bit similar wasn’t it? Like her, you pushed through your cancer diagnosis until you couldn’t. Until you both ended up in hospital.
She was there for 3 weeks. And she came home, where she died surrounded by everything she loved. She was mostly aware of her surroundings whereas you were in hospital for 5 weeks, your state of consciousness depleted daily. You wouldn’t really have known you were home- or would you?
So it’s Moms 10 year ‘anniversary’ on my plate. The date has been looming and I thought I’d get through it without grieving this year, but really just become a reason to feel apart from you again.
Later today I’m heading out to a small French town where I’ll join C2 for a 5km Trail Run. When I signed up on Monday, I figured “what the heck, it’s only 5kms, it will be a good thing for me. Won’t it?”
Now, a mere couple of hours away from the ‘race’ I’m having doubts. I WILL be the slowest person there won’t I? I’ll be the one lagging at the back, stopping to catch my breath, to slow my heart rate. And I will feel so awkward among the race organisers that they’ll have to hold the route open for this overweight mom, that I will feel like I’ve lost. I don’t want to show up anymore. I don’t want to lose, to look like a failure. 
All I want for myself is a win right now. I don’t want to just be coping. I need a win.
A failed French test.
A failed job application.
A failed level of discipline. 
A widow. 
A single mom. 
I’m still waiting to see how many attempts it will take for me to pass my drivers test- for now, I’m expecting failure for my first attempt because it’s easier to get through that disappointment, isn’t it? 
There are So Many Things that need to be achieved at the moment, and every single loss is starting to wear me down. 
How much  I hate how I do this to myself. How my head runs to places it doesn’t need to go. 
But the almost worst thing is- I wouldn’t be doing this race if you were around, would I? Either I’d be working because you wouldn’t have got sick, or I’d be home with you, at your bedside. I do know though, that you would have stayed with me at the end, and been there to support every single foot I put down, every single moment I stopped to catch my breath, and just be there for me. And now you’re not. 
And despite it all, I know it doesn’t matter if I come last in this little race. I know what matters is that I did it.

May

 Perhaps it’s been another day of failure. Failure to thrive. I’m holding on. Waiting for that Little Win. The Good News.  Just something that goes my way. 

Years of anxiety flood my senses. It’s not enough that I have my health. It’s not enough that I have an oasis in my hand. The fear of having it taken from me is real. My foundations are rocky, built on seemingly unstable ground. 
But I’ve been taught otherwise. I’ve been taught that all gains come from hard work. That faith is the only stable ground. That I need to believe in myself. 
It’s bullshit and I’m tired. I just want a day where I don’t have to worry about something. To concern myself with the rats that made a nest in my garage. That the lawn in my oasis is ruined and I have to fix it. That I own things I don’t need. That bank accounts don’t run dry.

I didn’t come last in that Trail Run race. I was supported so deeply by very caring friends. I’ve rebooked a French exam. I’ve made plans to take myself on a little bit of solo travel, to do something that has eluded me for a long time. I’ve realised what I can control, and what is out of my control. I’ve walked across the piece of my garden that DOES have fresh soft grass, and I’ve accepted that I will achieve a bigger patch in time. and that’s okay. And while we are definitely NOT on the breadline, we should be more mindful. And come summer time, I will be working.

Now, in the periphery of my mind I can hear Thandi barking furiously from the comfort of my bed. She has sensed movement in the garden and doesn’t like it. Which is not to say she’ll come and fight off an intruder, but just alert someone to the danger approaching. Within minutes a very grumpy 14 year old has stepped out onto the terrace, glaring at me through the swollen morning light. She’s just in time actually, to help me, because having already filled my watering can several times to fertilise my late tulip bulbs and peony crowns, there appears to be a block in my irrigation sprinkler and my intention to water the lawn in the coolness of dawn is now annoyingly stopped and I need the extra set of hands. It’s become the same exhausting mental energy knowing that all these chores that used to be shared all fall on to me. Water the lawn. Try to remove weeds. Clear the refuse. Do the laundry. Make the beds. Cook our food. Clean the toilet. Clear the recycling. Change winter for summer tyres on our car. Enrol a girl into high school. Do the shopping. Sort out insurance. What would my life look like if I had never married?

May draws to an end. For a period my social hours are overflowing: decadent margaritas and authentic Mexican tortillas here, a celebration of babies there, garden parties everywhere celebrating 50ths and 40ths and joyous life.

Projects, exams and tax submissions are all due. The end of the year is around the corner. Sort of anyway. Day by day the wheat in our backyard swells ripe and golden, soon to match the golden hour sunset walks. Sometimes this simplicity is the most satisfying.