There's Something I've Been Dying to Tell You (29 page)

My decision to stop the chemo is personal and probably the only thing I have left to myself. I know you boys will be upset and probably go through a cross period with me, but you have to respect my needs. I know you do.

I know you will both feel very abandoned and I can’t help you through that, but one thing I can assure you is that Michael loves you both very much and he will need you as much as anybody because you are his link to me. We are all very different people and will not always see eye to eye – that much we know already – but what I can see from a distance is a group of men who have one thing in common, and it makes you listen to the others, and it makes you realise you are not the only person on the planet and there are other ways of living life. Sometimes the road we choose changes dramatically and we have to adapt pretty sharpish or we get lost. That is what I am trying to give you, I suppose, a view of life – and in this case, death – that you can adapt. You are both so amazing and, believe me, you are very strong.

When the moment comes to say goodbye let’s just hold hands and love each other, as we surely do.

Letter to stepson

Hello Stepson,

I always smile when I say that because people must think how strange to call you in such a cold and removed way. But if you remember we had a laugh about it once when I was texting you about coming home for dinner and we laughed that a girlfriend might see the text and think I was another woman! So I became the Evil Stepmother. I have known you a small part of your life but a very important few years. You were nineteen when you arrived off that plane looking like a Beverly Hillbilly! I remember whispering to Michael, ‘Oh my God, is that him?’

You have changed so much, Brad, and for the better in every way. You have helped me understand my two. I have been much tougher on you than I ever was with Michael and Robbie. It is easier in a way because I am not your mother, or sister, or whatever. I met you as a person in your own right and had to get to know you. With our own children we just assume a knowledge of them as they are growing up. This is completely wrong, of course, and I realise as I write this that I am writing to a young man I have come to know and love.

It has been difficult for you, I know, to come here and live a completely different life, but you have coped brilliantly. I hope that your mum will understand that in no way does this lessen her place in your life, that will always be sacred, and I hope that through our relationship you have learned more about your mum and maybe even your dad and what they went through.

I also need to say that I cannot include your sister Stacey in much of what we talk about because I don’t know her as well. But again, I think you will be able to help her, Brad, in ways that no one expects of you, because you have seen so many different sides of life that you might never have done if you had just stayed in America. Well, that is a definite – you know what I feel about Americans in general, or rather Middle America where the sun don’t shine!

Stacey needs to stand on her own two feet, which is bloody tough I know, but you can help her. She will probably hate me for saying this, but Stacey, I have learned so much from being surrounded by all these men. Your boys need more than just their father now. They need granddads and uncles to give them a balanced view of what being male is all about. When I split up from Michael and Robbie’s dad, they had no one male to turn to. My father was not well, and anyway they had been put off their grandparents by my ex because I think he felt threatened by them. Brad is your bridge, if you like, to other paths in life and this is what I keep banging on about, because it is so important to learn as much as we can about how life works.

Brad, you have been amazing these past couple of years and you will reap the benefits for the rest of your life. I admire your ambition and desire for the good things in life, just don’t forget to feed your soul.

D.H. Lawrence said, ‘Money poisons you when you’ve got it, and starves you when you haven’t.’

Get out there and reach for the stars; you can do it but never settle for second best.

Just one more thing . . . Please look after your dad. He will need you very much and don’t argue with him, just agree and say, ‘Yes, Daddy knows best’ and he will be as happy as a Somerset hog in s—!

To Michael

Remember:

That morning in Spain,

The full English going down a storm.

‘You want a mortgage?

Not a problem Miss B.’

Already an intimacy,

A connection with a like soul.

Watching me in your car mirror, your flash hairdresser’s car!

Sussing me out, weighing me up.

Remember:

A day of laughter and sunshine,

And way too much wine,

Then goodbye and thanks and back to London for me,

You returned to the bar for another glass of Riscali.

Then texts and phone calls,

An invitation from me,

To dinner, anytime.

‘Your daughter is with you?’

Oh damn . . . How lovely!

‘Bring her as well,

Not a problem at all.’

Remember:

Instant contact, electricity and passion,

Certainly lust and possibly need?

Reaching out for affection, while grappling to find

That still small voice that says

What?

Ah now we have it

A sentence so simple

So hard to define

To learn to trust once again

To step over that line.

Remember:

Then came death to our beginnings

Losing my parents in one month

I quickly found you

The centre, the nub of it all

My rock, my knight, my lover.

You made me wake up and grab the life

That was offered, so real and so different

From the sham I was living.

So alone and so lonely

Just me and my boys.

Thank God for my boys.

Could you breach that wall of motherly love?

Not easily, but you did.

Remember:

Truth and lies?

People trying to crush us with their cynical mediocrity

Their sad distorted negativity.

‘Not a problem,’ you’d say

‘Not a problem at all.’

You can do anything

Heal a wound or burst a boil

Life does not scare you

Not nothing at all.

But death does, doesn’t it, my lover?

Death is unfair and cruel

Not in your remit at all.

Remember:

How we talked of our life together

When all our chores had been done

Twenty years, fifteen at least

To open our box of ten years together

Yes short but oh so sweet.

Don’t give up now, my lover.

Do some of the things we promised we would do

Please guard the door and the lid to our trinkets

Our box of ‘remembers’.

Remember:

You always aim for the best

We have had it and you will keep alive, though I’m dead.

It’s only a word so say it, spit it out

Toss it away in the wind

Think only of good things and now this is it

I have come to the point, round and round I go

They are almost unspeakable

So precious have they grown

As always I tell you

In my own way

I love you Michael Pattemore

There’s nothing more I can say.

Christmas 2011. This was the last Christmas we all had together before I started doing Panto and it is the kind of Christmas I had wanted in 2013 but I suffered a perforated colon which saw me in hospital instead. I can now only hope we will have a big get together like this again this coming Christmas, fingers crossed.

Flying in as the Fairy Godmother. 'Where's the bar?'

In my birthday suit on our wedding anniversary and my birthday.

Michael and me in Paradise in Pangkor Laut on the East coast.