30/09/2020
Hi lovely people, I don’t write on here a lot I find myself writing stories and thoughts on the Instagram feed if you want to check them out.
It was a poignant day last Friday 27th September. A year ago last Sunday September 27th 2019 Keri Valentine had her final diagnosis of Motor Neurone Disease.
I have been keeping track of the last year bit by bit , trying to assemble the missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. Trying to understand what happened and how Keri’s illness progressed so fast. Time was precious to us , Every minute of everyday we had to live completely in the moment we adjusted to whatever the new day brought.
We had to live with a lot of acceptance of the situation and found a way to find the flow and move with change with little Resistance, it wasn’t east but we found the formula to life. If we hadn’t been able to let go of change and accept that life is fundamentally in a state of flux and impermanence I think this would have sent us down a dark path and time is what we didn’t have much of!
Instead within the trauma we found the illuminated Light path, it wove a web of love that carried and held us so gracefully on our journey into the unknown . You see we weren’t willing to sabotage what we had built up in our lives,we lived authentically and had many trauma’s which had previously survived. We new instinctively which direction to go in to solve this problem and to come out of it intact spiritually.
Keri’s illness did ravage her body like no other illness , that’s the painful nature of Motor Neurone disease . We new what to expect as we cared for Keri’s Mum for 2 years who died of Mnd 3 years before. But we rose above the illness , Keri didn’t want it to define her at all and that’s what she managed .
She surrendered to the disease with absolute grace and kept her beautiful spirit and sense of self intact right to her final breath, I was so very proud of her.
This time last year we were at Derriford hospital and she was given her final diagnosis by the specialist in Mnd diagnosis. He would test Keri’s Muscle
Impulses by electrical conductivity . A very uncomfortable procedure and very painful. As a Doctor he seemed to be very cold and un emotional and Keri didn’t warm to him at all ! This test began a month before and was possible but inconclusive .
The second time we saw him for tests on the 27th September 2019 at Derriford he confirmed conclusively that Keri had Motor Neurone .
But in reverse to our first meeting his persona and demeanour had changed , he showed so much humility and said in his dry German accent . I am so sorry , I want to shake your hand with my left hand sincerely, as this is literally the closest to my heart . He showed so much compassion and we cried.
We cried on the journey back we were stunned and in shock obviously. We new that the diagnosis was coming as The physiological effects for Keri’s body were increasing day by day.
It was clear now what we had to do . To live well like we had always done. And live in the moment with passion like it was our last !
We got back to Humble cottage , we sat down and said to each other :
What are we going to do, ... this is really really s**t! Life can be so so s**t!
A moment passed with watery eyes and many tears , then a space unfolded for a smile to connect us. In that moment we said , perhaps we should get married again and celebrate us our lives. Let’s get married again wedding no3 . Life deserves this , let’s celebrate Love and the people we Love, our community our family.
We asked some friends who run the DIY art venue The Fish Factory Penryn if we could use their space, they said they had 2 dates one for the end of October 2019 or one on October 4th.
7 days later we had the most beautiful Love in and celebration to celebrate everything that life brings , tackling it with unconditional and wonderful love . We chose the earlier date as time was working differently for us now.
It wouldn’t have been possible without everyone coming together and sharing what they could offer , it was truly amazing!
It showed the strength of unity, anything can be pulled off given the right intention . To have a shared purpose , an all powerful collective energy , together and one to focus on the importance of life. Keri and I were made up and blown away by this amount of shared unconditional Love , it made for a profoundly beautiful but bitter sweet day. But one which emphasised the importance of living in the moment and being present in this world.
This day actually fuelled our journey for what was to come it gave us the strength to weather the storm and focus on the light which was LOVE.
We are ever Indebted to the generosity of our creative amazing community who helped so so much with fundraising to adapt our little cottage . Buy all the equipment we needed, stairlifts , wheelchairs , Wav vehicle you name it. This would give Keri absolute freedom whilst still the illness progressed. It meant that I could become her primary carer and stop work which was essential. This made Keri so happy and it meant there were no financial barriers to what we could accomplish and barriers that needed to be removed could be lifted straight away. We were both self employed and had no safety net ,this absolutely held us and meant we didn’t have to worry but just keep living in the moment with open hearts.
I have been keeping fit since Keri left us, running a lot with a good friend Megan Clarke, spending time in nature healing and hiking . Wild camping with Kane Valentine on the cliffs of West Penwith Cornwall . Meg and I started talking about running a Marathon in August for hopefully this April, this is dependent on health . My body coping with the stamina of a challenging elevating training Programme. I’m on 7 mile runs now and increasing! 2 weeks ago I was interviewed and got a place on TEAM MND at Brighton marathon to raise funds for Mnd research .
So here we go wish me luck in the Dark autumn and Winter nights whilst I train , get up to speed and focus on getting through the dark months !Raising my stamina in honour of the beautiful memories of Keri Valentine and Diane Stuttard , thinking of Barry Stuttard and Angela Shields ######
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE ###
