What really matters …

Ah yes, we’re suppose to be in Paris today if we had been able to take snowy walks in Megeve and Zermatt this past week. Not only did the omicron and Macron stop us from entering France but my unexpected situation meant we weren’t able to travel anyway.

Mum had so much fun planning everything for this past week and literally the next day, news of the omicron hit the news. As Mum was waiting to see which way the variant was moving and gave herself deadlines to cancel reservations, the sudden discovery of lumps in my abdomen put a halt to all plans regardless of which way the variant was going.

It’s just one of the many things on our bucket list that we might never get to do. That’s one of the realities of my situation that hits home hard for Mum.

We had plans to take a month-long train journey throughout Italy – just being adventurous, jumping onto trains and head for all the places Mum had still to visit with me.

And our birthday celebrations, after two years of not having been anywhere, was going to be a mega trip! It was all mapped out – Ibiza, Cap Ferrat, Vence. Woohoo! It was going to be fun.

But as the pandemic lingered and borders closing, we thought we’d return to staycations in the UK – there are still so many places to visit and we have done plenty. But it all depends on how I am doing.

ACCEPTANCE is our key word, and the other is NOW and being TOGETHER – we live each day as it comes. But hey! I think we’ve done enough for a lifetime of memories. We can count our blessings.

May’s comment: The bucket list of things I still wanted to do with Darcy and George are endless – and ambitious. But in a recent bucket list post, I had said we will continue to do so until the day comes when she would rather stay home. Who knew that the time had come so unexpectedly and quickly.

For years we’ve been ticking off our bucket list at neck breaking speed but even then that’s not fast enough. Our bucket list began a long time ago and we have hundreds of thousands of miles of memories, some captured on camera, others just the wonderful feeling of sharing moments with Darcy and sometimes George.

It is easy to get emotional thinking of the unfinished lists to tick off with Darcy – still so many things to do, people to see and places to visit. And then I remember all the things we have already done together. And for that I am grateful that we never waited for reasons and others to do things. We chose a fast paced life and managed to tick off quite a few on the list. Never leave til tomorrow what you can do today.

When this next chapter of our life began, we were reminded to live in the NOW because looking into the future is too sad. We must make the most of the time we have together, as every one of these moments will never come again. It may not be adventuring out to new and exciting places but instead spending hours on end sitting on the sofa watching TV. When she was a puppy, tired from chasing squirrels in the park, she would fall asleep lying on me.

Then she became too cool for school. But these days, she would fall asleep lying on me and snoring so loudly that I have to increase the TV volume. These quiet moments are precious.

Though each day brings on a different challenges as we manoeuvre this chapter of our lives, what matters now is that we are doing this together.