Gruelling

That's the best word I can think of to describe yesterday, on a number of levels. In a purely physical sense, it was a long day, a 500 mile, 14½ hour round trip, of which I was driving for almost eight hours, up at 5:00, not back home until 9:00 in the evening, an endurance test by most people's standards. That, though, was probably the easy part, certainly the sort of thing I've done often enough in the past. More significant was the emotional component of the day. For me, personally, it was mostly an indirect issue - I'd always got on well enough with my mother-in-law, but it would be an exaggeration to say that we were close - but it was, of course, a different matter for my wife and daughter. They both held up pretty well in the circumstances, but, needless to say, there were some difficult moments during the day. My wife was with her dad and her sisters for the church service, while I was a couple of rows back, sitting with my daughter, so the girl was my immediate focus at that time. She always has been pretty close to her grandparents, and, to make matters worse, it was the first funeral she'd ever been to - she was only 5 when my mum died, so didn't attend on the equivalent day. I did the best I could to help and reassure her - I just hope it was enough. The same goes for the actual interment and after, back at the family home, when I spent more time with my wife.
Oddly enough, though, perhaps the most affecting moment for me of the whole day involved someone else entirely. A man, who when I first met him, nearly 20 years ago, was 60 going on 40, robust in every sense of the word, and who is now a frail, elderly 80 year old, who has been in terrible health himself for most of the last three or four years, and, as we processed out of the church behind the coffin, looked like nothing more or less than a little boy lost. My father-in-law. If my relationship with my mother-in-law tended more towards politeness than warmth, I've always got on really well with my father-in-law, right back to the first day I met him, even if we've had to agree to disagree about many things, especially 'political', in the broadest sense, issues. It was so upsetting to see him as such a shadow of his former self. Cliché, I know, but a cliché that so fits this situation. Thinking about it now, maybe the reason his plight so moved me was that it reminded me of the last months of my own dad's life, another strong man hardly ill a day in his life until he was reduced to frailty by heart disease, albeit at a much earlier age. And, I suppose, there's a selfish element, of being made aware of my own mortality, the knowledge that one day, maybe decades hence, but maybe not, my turn will come.
Having got through yesterday's trials, this morning has had its own challenges. By 9:30, I'd had an anxiety attack about going back to work tomorrow, my wife in tears about our finances and a stand-up row with our mortgage provider. The only good thing is that I've come up with an idea, that I'll put to my manager when I next see him, which might just reduce the chances of me, or my colleagues, ending up in the same position as I did a fortnight ago. It might not come to fruition, but at least it gives me something potentially positive to cling to as I head back into an environment that I really don't want to be in, but can't, seemingly, escape because of the fiscal consequences.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B