16 February 2009

home is where the heart is

I run the risk that no one is interested or worse, disapproves, but the time has come to announce my return to Canada. Since the beginning of last December I have been living back in England. On one hand this has been a glorious opportunity to see my two grown sons, to live with my eldest son and enjoy his company. On the other hand, it has been an agonising period of absence from Michelle and Maisie. At first it was a divinely providential opportunity to be with my sons and support them while they mourned their mum, Debbie’s grave illness, but it immediately became apparent to me that I had made a worrying mistake.

It is not that I regret being with these two upright and positive young men, far from it; nor that I regret being at Debbie’s hospital bedside while she silently fought the deadly infection which poisoned her, reduced her to a shadow of the woman I spent thirty years with and came close to ending her time, far from it again. It is that I regret my hasty conviction in making this a permanent return. I should have allowed a proper dialogue in Canada; I should have listened; I should have stepped up to the mark; I should have realised the immense worth of what I was destroying.

After thrashing and deliberating, fretting and considering, I wrote, despite fearing the response. To cut a long story short and to spare the personal and excruciating details of many long-distance conversations I/we have reached my/our current position. I am deliberately removing the agony from this episode and also the ecstasy, for they are private emotions special to the participants.

On 27th February I fly from British shores to return to my family on Prince Edward Island, Canada! Needless to say, I am elated at the prospect and can hardly wait to embark on this next chapter of my life.

Thank you all for not judging. Thank you all for reading.