An Epitaph for the Living

My 100 year old Nana was given two weeks to live two weeks ago as she was diagnosed with pneumonia and is currently getting decidedly better day by day.  Incredible.  She is now saying that this is probably the last year that she will bother writing Christmas cards. Oh the optimism.  We had a few hairy conversations over the last couple of weeks as the doctor decided to speak to Nana about her predicament but as she didn't feel well enough to have her hearing aids in then she couldn't really hear what he was saying.  'It is only a matter of time...' was taken the wrong way and she thought that it was only a matter of time until she got better, whereas that was not what he was insinuating to her at all. Although, having said all that, she is the one who is now decidedly on the mend so maybe it was us that got the wrong end of the stick after all.

It boggles my mind that she was born in 1914.  That when you talk to her about the war she says, 'which one?'  That she could have been a child in Downton Abbey, (which is basically a historical documentary as far as I'm concerned... ;-)). but now, we are more convinced than ever that she will outlive us all.

I very gently broached the subject with my boys last week when she was pretty unwell. There is no skirting around the subject when you have two small boys however.  All my pussy-footing around was a little pointless when Zak summarised it with: 'so she might die then'.  Yep.  That's pretty much it my love.  I know Sebi is one of a kind (to put it diplomatically) but even I was surprised with his response of: 'Lucky Nana'.  I enquired why, in particular, he thought that potentially dying of pneumonia made one lucky and he shot me a scathing glance and said: 'Because then Nana can play with Toby...' (dead cat - whole other story - see blog post from about a year ago) '...and WE still don't have another cat'.  There is no arguing with that logic and I skulked off into another room trying to congratulate myself that I had passed on the news without upsetting anybody but actually rather grateful that no other members of my family had been around to hear it.

So Nana lives to fight another day/week/month/year/decade.  Good for her.  Living under this critical cloud on a daily basis does have then tendency to make even the most sunny of us rather morbid.  I convinced myself I definitely had incurable bowel cancer in the middle of the other night.  In the cold light of day I realised the actual diagnosis was piles which I had contracted via karma for laughing at my dear friend, (who absolutely on the pain of death I apparently cannot name), for the same complaint the week previously.  Oh happy haemorrhoid!  I sent my silly husband off to his 48 hour long Christmas party yesterday with the cheerful cheerio of, 'Have a lovely time and don't die', which he objected to slightly, but I thought was pretty sound advice.  I am soon going to open a bottle of champagne to celebrate (a) all of us being healthy and living, (b) it being Friday and (c) Stuart being somewhere with a free bar and therefore not trying to drink any of my bubbles.  Happy weekend lovely people and cheers to looking on the bright side of life!