Something that i really really struggled with when i was waiting for the big surgery date to come around, and still plays on my mind a lot now, was the attempted suicide of an ex girlfriend of a good friend of mine and manchilds.
I'm not going to criticise other peoples decisions or choices for how they want to conduct their own lives. I dont think that you can truely know the path that another is walking on without walking it yourself (and you especially cant know from the outside looking in).
And I know that you cant tell people to appreciate their health,lives and loved ones because its true that you need to experience the negative in order to value the positive.
I just wish,i just WISH that i could have gone to her at the time (I'm ashamed to say that i was too angry with her for attempting to throw away something that i was so desperately trying to hang on to,to have gone to her then) and somehow conveyed to her that the worries and concerns and all encompassing problems that seem too hard to overcome,will pass.
Life does move on,its a brutal fact.Its also hard work,we earn the place that we get.And when you are put in a position where it is completely out of your control and it may all get taken away before you are ready to go- Its like someone has flicked a switch and all of a sudden your life is in HD.

believe me when i say that it is the little  things that you notice first,everyday occurances that on a regular day might just pass you by bacause they are so,well,Mundane.So ordinary and so taken for granted.
I found myself wondering about the treatments not working or the surgery going wrong- would i ever get that double scoop rum n raisin ice cream that i kept putting off for a better day? What about the trip over to castlepoint to show MissK the lighthouse- it was always there (after all,wheres a lighthouse going to go??) so we just kept shelving the idea until a better time.

What if i died. I mean, stop and imagine it- you.My reader.
it wont be the 40 inch flatscreen or the hot car that you miss when it comes down to the wire.
What if you were given the news that your time was limited. What are the things that you have always wanted to do right down deep inside? we all have them. And i dont mean climb Mt Kilimanjaro either- i mean the things from your childhood that you had,or wished you had.
Building a fort in the lounge for the kids and eating dinner in it -  they will remember that more than they will remember another dinner time at the table.
Or fish and chips on the beach or taking your child fishing BUT not on a weekend.Imagine it,if you both had a day together when you should really be at work and school.
How special our lives are is directly corralated to how specially we treat each other and the amount of time that we MAKE for each other. to CREATE those amazingly wonderous occasions .
my most amazingly wonderous childhood occasion memory  is of  my Dad taking me and my brothers caving up on Tinakori hill  and discovering 'gold' (crunchie Bars in gold wrappers).We took torches,it was dark inside,there were wetas and it was BRILLIANT.
Some years later i realised that he must have sneaked up to the caves earlier in the day and planted the chocolate bars for us to find...and do you know what? That didnt make the memory any less special.
If anything it made it more special- he went to all that trouble for us. i dont know if he stills remembers it but i have never ever forgotten.
All i can hope is that when its all said and done,that my family will be loaded up with similar such memories of me.

Dad and MissK round the South coast
2009
Needless to say,she adores her Grandad