IslayBlog.com -> 2008 ->
Tuesday, 22/Apr/2008
Off to Germany
This is going to be a tricky post. It has almost nothing to do with Islay, but is more a personal post. Not one I was hoping to write on my birthday (yes, it's my birthday today, but that doesn't matter to me at all now), yet it is also in a sense very fitting to my birthday. Tomorrow morning I will board a plane to fly to Germany to visit my mother. I had only hinted about it in the blog so far, but it has now rather quicker than expected only last week reached a stage where I can't and don't want to hold back on it any more. My mother has terminal cancer and probably not long to live any more.
Nothing to do with Islay (apart from that my mother loves Islay as well and has visited Islay three times), but as I've said before this is my personal blog about Islay, there's a person, a human being writing this blog. Without my mother I wouldn't be here in the first place, without her support in so many things in my life I might not have discovered Islay or started to write about it. Partly through me but also through her own interest she discovered Islay for herself: After her first visit in summer 2003 she joined me on WalkIslay in April 2004 and then made her final visit last year in 2007.
So tomorrow I'm off to see her for a few days, in worst case for the last time. I hope to be with her again, in particular in the final moments, but then these things are impossible to plan. She is quite weak and needs a lot of rest, so she'll probably only be able to talk with me for relatively short periods. I hope I can show her my thanks and gratitude.
I might continue blogging during the periods where my mother is resting, I might not be able to. I might find it helpful to take my mind of things to write about something I (and my mother) love, I might not. I will only really know once I'm there. We have known since October 2006 when she was first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, but it might only really hit me with its full force when I see her tomorrow.
There are quite a few people on Islay and elsewhere who know, thank you all very much for your encouragement and support. It is difficult to fully express my thanks, but it is really appreciated.
With hindsight I possibly should have visited her earlier and cancelled the visit to Islay last week, but then again she wouldn't have wanted that and it also looked still much better when I left for Islay just over a week ago. In a way the wonderful time I had (and could tell my mother about) combined with the encouragement from everyone I spoke with about my mother will help me to get through the next few weeks.
Thank you.
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