To

[Guest guest]

Hello ,

What a very inspiring message! Heidi's too. When I was about 10 My

mother started to be ill with pancreatitis. She faced several years

of illness, surgery and worse illness to follow. She died in 1965

after many years unable to eat and in a wheelchair as well. She was

very young, only 42.

I have no anger towards her although I have always felt guilty that

I left home to go to university and she died the following year. It

is only as an adult that I have been able fully to empathise with

what she went through. I have no siblings and my father tried to

cope with a very difficult situation. I did miss having a mother in

the same way as my friends did. My mother spent months at a time in

hospital and was often ill in bed when she was home. Even when not

actually confined to bed, she could not go out alone or do any of

the normal jobs in the house. However, I treasure every remembered

converstaion and piece of advice. I know just how much she loved me

and I knew it then.

I do thank God that, although I have had illness since childhood, my

attacks, even at their worst in the 1980's, did not stop me doing

most things with my family. If I had to have this horrible

condition, it has not affected me as badly as it did my mother.

Whatever happens to me now, I have lived to 58 being able to work

nearly all the time. My attacks of dreadful pain and malabsorption

have made me value every single pain-free moment, and even those

which are just relatively pain-free, and have made me realise just

what my mother must have suffered.

It was all the painful thoughts about my mother that went through my

mind time and time again when I got my own diagnosis last year. I

did feel guilty for all sorts of reasons. But I feel no anger. I

just know I return the love she gave me as positively as she

possibly could given the terrible cross she had to bear. And of

course, I do have happy memories going back to my early childhood

before she got sick. I rememebr how she comforted me when I had my

attacks of terrible pain and I wonder if she ever suspected that I

had what she had. (Her symptoms were not quite the same as mine have

been.)

Well, I have just rambled, ispired by all the thoughts of mothers

regretting lost moments with their precious children. The children

will understand, either now or at some stage in their lives.

Thank you.

With very good wishes,

Fliss (UK)