Growing Wings-

https://www.facebook.com/2048713088758078/videos/915685082100889/ 


This fundraiser is to raise funds for our friend who has been diagnosed with Stage IV Cancer . She is a single mother to to an inspiring and unique young lady.  Mother and Daughter are Autistic, and are both advocates within the Autistic community. 

This is an update from her blog Growing Wings, a living journal of memories, ice-cream lessons and rainbow letters between an Autistic, Single Mumma Bear and her tween Autistic Bubba Bear, as they traverse Stage IV cancer together.

As we travel this most spectacular coast line on the final leg to our beach destination, this seems appropriate to re-share. It’s Mumma Bear’s truth, and fitting with Bubba Bear’s chosen song for tonight. ❤️

T. xx

Bette Midler, The Rose: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aXXqDWsCzuk

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Your Mumma loves you BB, always and forever.

Letter for my Daughter #1: Life's' Lessons

Dear BB,
We were playing, laughing together on your bed last night, when you suddenly burst into tears and asked, "How do you still laugh? How is it possible for you to think of anything except the cancer"?

Oh, my gorgeous one, there are times when the certainty and realisation of my cancer presses down on me like a huge, cold boulder, suffocating me. Times when I curl up in a ball on my bed and cry. Well, not just cry, but howl and howl big ugly tears of grief and fear and helplessness. We cause ourselves so much suffering and hurt by being afraid, being fearful of change, fearful of the unknown and fearful of being hurt - and us folks whose neurology is Autistic; with our challenges in shifting our thought patterns, and our inate need for familiarity, well, we tend to cause ourselves the greatest suffering of all.

It often seems - from media, advertising, and people not being open - that a life well lived is one where we have blissful childhoods and happy teen years, enter the career of our choice and excell, find the perfect partner who loves, honours and revers us, find our dream home and pay it off effortlessly; and then, when all that is done, go caravaning or fishing in our old age.

But, my precious girl, life is just not like that. Its more a roller coaster ride where we can never be sure what lies over the crest or around the corner. And, it is filled with lessons and learnings that in themselves teach us that a life deviod of confusion and suffering, is often a life devoid of any real meaning - for it is only through difficulties they we truly grow.

We can't always control what happens to us in life, gorgeous one, but it is so, so true, that we can play an active role in how we respond to what happens. Being positive doesnt lay in words, but in action. Taking a positive approach and choosing to look beyond my cancer - choosing to smile, to laugh - doesnt mean ignoring the obvious and pretending everying will be better in the morning. And, it doesn't mean the pain goes away, or the fear dissipates. It means changing the focus of the lens you are looking through. Its choosing, conciously choosing, to adopt the best and most constructive approach possible. Its about facing up to a situation and calling on every ounce of your resources of optimism, courage and determination; rather than allowing yourself to remain seated in despair and defeat.

Remember last week, when you asked me what "terminal cancer" was. You had heard the term school being used to describe someones grandmother. Do you remember my reply? I explained that "terminal' was a common phrase for people who were not going to get better from thier illness, but that I choose to see terminal as something that is for buses and trains and computers, not living, breathing people. That's changing the lens; its conciously choosing how we look at things. Even if the outcome is the same, our chosen approach to an experience, is what is really important.

It can take great courage to face the unknown, to take up battle in an uncertain and sometimes ugly fight. It takes even greater courage to venture into the darkness of emotional and psychological pain that comes with that battle, to take self responsibility for dealing with the pain, to no longer blame anyone, or anything, for how we feel - to learn, and accept, that the lens we focus through, truly is our own choice. Choices arent always easy, but they always exist.

Facing the truth - that I wont always be around to see you grow up - is the most painful thing I've ever faced; wretchedly, heartbreakingly, agonisingly devastated doesn't come even close to describing the pain I feel at the idea of not being in your future. But, it is also the depth of this pain that propels me to *live* with a life-limiting illness, rather than spend my time dying from one. Every moment, every single millisecond moment with you - laughing together, eating ice-cream together, snuggling in bed together, listening to your thoughts and opinions, smelling your hair, hearing your quiet breathing, crying, being here to pick you up when you momentarily stumble - is worth an eternity of pain.

The greatest lessons in life can be such difficult, painful learnings I know; and it probably feels so unfair to be learning them when youv've not yet even entered your teen years. But, in this ever-changing world we live in, I have so much hope, my gorgeous one, that the self-insight, maturity and acceptance learned on this journey of ours, will give you great strength and character, to take with you into the future - that there will come a day, when you reflect back on this time with a wisdom that tells you, "that time in my life was hard, it was sooooo bloody hard, but I wouldn't change those lessons for the world". I know you can do it my precious one, I just know you can ... and you will.

I love you my BB,
Always and forever
Mumma xxx ooo