What a year

What a year...
Hmm, it’s nearly time for my Christmas epistle, and I don’t really want this to turn into my yearly update, but I figure I really should provide some reason as to why I started this blog six months ago and then promptly ‘dropped off the planet’.
At the time I started this blog, the MOTH* and our son were in Russia visiting family for a month. That left me and our three beautiful daughters to fend for ourselves. Fun at times and a danger to the state of my hair at other times!
I got really sick while they were gone. I never knew sinus pain could be SOOOO bad. Honestly – I would give birth yet another 4 times in quick succession rather than have to go through pain like that again. So my plans to get the house decluttered and looking like a Vogue spread while the MOTH was gone (so that he’d be completely flabbergasted on his return) were foiled. Truthfully, so much conspires against my home organisational desires. But I digress...
Well, he gets home and is confronted with chaos and a bed-ridden wife. And the wife is about to have hand surgery in three days and therefore needs to be waited on hand and foot in order to get better. Then she goes and has that surgery and needs to be waited on hand and foot in order to recover from the surgery (you try tying a shoe lace with one hand!) So far so stressful...
At the end of June, a couple of weeks after the MOTH’s return and my surgery, we received the terrible news that his dad had been diagnosed with stomach cancer. Stage IV cancer. Two to three months to live.
Our world tipped upside down.
My husband had just been in Russia for a month. If the man doesn’t work, he doesn’t get paid. And so he made the very reluctant decision not to go back. Instead we decided that I would go. I hadn’t seen Yuri in four and a half years, and I wanted to see him again, and help where I could. We decided that Sasha (14) and Amelie (nearly 3) would come with me.
And so began the whirlwind of passport applications with a plan to leave in 6 weeks (the biggest hold up being the lengthy time required to organise Russian invitation and visas). It was also the beginning of an incredibly frustrating time with Russian medical system. Basically, they had already written him off (perhaps because he was 70 and that is about ten years more than the average life expectancy for a male there). We were told they weren’t even going to try chemotherapy, let alone surgery, even though I was able to ascertain that stomach cancer can respond quite well to treatment. We felt so helpless, and so far away.
After just three weeks we were told that Yuri was going downhill quickly and was not expected to live many more days. In between the tears and the shock of the reality of all of this, I raced around even more trying to organise expedited visas for myself and the girls. This even involved flying to Sydney to pick them up. We were on a plane within a week. It was only when the plane took off that I could take any stock of my emotions and realise the enormity of all this. I felt so scared and overwhelmed by it all.
After 38 hours in transit, our plane landed at 8.10 pm on Tuesday 27th July. Yuri died at 8.00 pm.
We found this out on the Wednesday morning and spent most of the day in shock. The funeral was to be the next day and I couldn’t even get my head around the fact that Yuri was gone. It was an awful feeling.
We stayed in Russia for a month. It was a time of bitter-sweetness. I hope to share more about it in future blog posts. It was sadness tinged with a ray of hope as God was able to use this time to renew my yearning for this land and its people.
When we got back I could not understand why it seemed to take forever to get over the jet lag this time. Ten days later and I was still feeling out of sorts. Emotional upheavals aside, I think the fact I had seen only a few hours of darkness in our entire month over there, and then coming back to early winter evenings, didn’t help.
In any case, my disorientation and feeling of flatness on returning to ‘normality’ did not help when (just two weeks after our return), I received one of those phone calls none of us wants. One of my dear, sweet cousins had tragically lost her life to depression at only 29. Another round of shock and numbness followed by buckets of tears.
I went to Adelaide with Amelie, leaving my ever-hardworking darling MOTH to look after the other three kids and still try and work shift-work. I spent a week in Adelaide leading up to the funeral, which was an entire 15 days after her death (slight contrast to the timing of Yuri’s funeral!). It was an incredibly difficult and emotional time.
Two very sudden and tragic deaths in such a short time. It’s not surprising that it would impact the whole family. When I get tears in my eyes now, dear sweet Miss Amelie looks at me and says, “Who died, Mummy?”
I won’t bore you with all the other little hiccups we’ve had, but suffice it to say, I’ve been reminded again and again of how much a work in progress we all are. Every little hardship is used to shape us. We certainly don’t control the things that life can throw at us, but we can control our reactions to them. I pray that I continue to press deeper and deeper into my Heavenly Father’s arms in times of trial rather than railing against them.
Incredibly, I have felt amazingly calm and anchored throughout this year. I thank God for the peace I have in Him that transcends my limited ability to understand. While the storm rages above the surface of the ocean, beneath the waters are still and deep. When I am tossed around by the waves I try to remember to take a breath and swim down, down to where I am suspended in tranquillity. There I rest and am renewed, ready to return to the surface and check my ship isn’t sinking!

* MOTH – Man Of The House – used with his full permission (actually, I think he kind of likes it!)