Really letting it go

Tomorrow Paul and I are going to his Mum’s house to use her incinerator. We are going to burn all of my Mum’s paperwork. I no longer have a legal requirement to keep it so I’m getting rid of it all. It’s hard to do but my Mum is not in these bank statements & bills etc.

The biggest and hardest thing I had to do before tomorrow was decide if I could finally let go of my Mum’s hospital letters, copies of sick notes and the notebook I wrote her terminal diagnosis and treatment plan in. 

I’ve blogged about this before. I’ve agonised over the idea of getting rid of them.

I suddenly felt this morning that I have to let this go. My Mum was not her illness. She was not cancer. She was the best Mum in the world. She was kind and funny and generous and the best friend you could ever have.

I want that Mum in my head. I don’t want the cancer, the pain, the sadness, the guilt, the anger. I want my wonderful Mum. I want my amazing memories.

I have to really start putting this behind me.

So just a few minutes ago I tipped out the bag of hospital stuff and I let myself read it. I let myself sob my heart out at what my Mum went through.

And then I tore the whole lot to shreds. Every last bit of it.

Now I’m still crying but I don’t feel guilty. My Mum was not her illness and it’s time to really begin to let the illness part of her life go.

I had 29.5 years with my Mum before she was diagnosed with cancer. Those are the times that I want to mark, that I want to remember, that I want to share with people.

I feel so sad right now remembering what she went through. I wouldn’t have wished it on my worst enemy.

But I feel good that I’ve finally managed to shred the papers. And for good measure I’m going to incinerate all the shredded paper tomorrow.

I think if my Mum could see me now she’d be saying to herself that it’s about time I got my life back.

I think it is too.