Loss

I read a very moving article detailing an interview that Bob Geldof gave, in which he talked about how he was affected by the loss of his daughter, Peaches. He talked about walking down the street, suddenly getting a "sense of her" and being physically winded by the sensation - of needing to duck down a side street so he could cry without being snapped by paps. I know how he feels. Not, thank goodness, about paps. My anonymity pretty much means I can blub wherever I like, the worst that would happen would be quizzical and likely fearful side glances from fellow Northern line commuters. No, I know what he means about being overtaken suddenly and uncontrollably, by that helpless feeling of loss. This week I have been at home, recovering from a chest infection. I have been anxious about it, because this weekend I am down to run the Race For Life, my annual tribute to my sister Lauren, who I lost 18 months ago. Lauren's grave is too far away for me to visit regularly, and when I do visit, I have honestly to say that it is a pain to get there - up the unforgiving M25, queue for ages on an A road running alongside Epping Forest, weaving through the mourners - it is a busy cemetery, with funerals and stonesettings every half hour. Getting out of the cemetery is even more of a nightmare than getting in, traffic making it a feat of cunning to be able to make a right turn towards Essex, which I always need to do - having made the journey that far, I would habitually visit my family, who live out that way, before returning home.  But look. When Lauren was really sick and in a hospital even further away, I had no problem jumping in the car and driving the 90 minutes (on a good day) there and 90 minutes back - sometimes twice a day - to see her. My issue with her grave is, that though I visit it out of respect, I don't feel that that is where she is. She is inside me. Whenever I think of her, and I do, at least a few times a day - the response I get is from inside me. And sometimes that response is very, very painful. Until yesterday I was resigned to giving the Race For Life a miss this year. Nobody should trifle with a chest infection, and though I was feeling a lot better, the weather forecast was dodgy etc etc. But yesterday I was taking a walk, and over on the other side of the road I saw a woman who resembled my sister, so closely I called her name out. This woman was of the same height and build, had the same dark, soft, curly hair. She was even wearing similar colours to the clothes my sister used to favour. As I caught her up on the other side of the road, it became clearer that this was not Lauren - indeed, you might think I would have known this immediately, for obvious reasons - but, and Bob G would understand this, it made perfect sense to me that Lauren might actually be alive, and all that had happened was that she had gone on an incredibly long holiday for the last 18 months. Even as I realised this woman was not my sister, I stared at her profile, willing her to be Lauren. Then being really angry that she wasn't Lauren. And then crying my eyes out, sprawled on a bench at the nearest bus shelter, overwhelmed by the disappointment, and the reminder of my loss. I recovered, finished my walk, came back home, and by the time the kettle had boiled, I had made up my mind. I was doing the Race For Life. It fulfils a lot of functions, this event. One of them, something that Cancer Research UK knows full well may even be the main motive for its participants, is catharsis. I need to do this to be in the company of people who understand this loss. I need it to restore my perspective and get back to the business of, as Bob G put it in his interview, "getting on with it".  So. I have her name pinned on my back, I've tanked up on antibiotic, and I am Ready To Go.