I lost my love, now my daughter’s ill

DEAR BEL,

I’VE been reading your page for what must be years and always find you help those with problems so much. But I don’t know where to start.

I lost my husband just three years ago and I’ve surprised myself at how well I’ve coped since I lost my soulmate.

Last May, our elder daughter Jane was diagnosed with cervical cancer at 54 and it has shaken us all to our roots, as you can imagine.

She’s been having chemo and radiotherapy, to no avail. Now she has secondary lung cancer (grade 4 and terminal) and they have told her she has 12 to 15 months to live. She has four children; two are married and the youngest, who is 17, lives with me.

I know it’s not all about me and I hate to complain about pain and the grief I feel for their dad. So I try to keep it to myself, but I feel so lost, so alone even though I have a big family.

I’ve lost interest in reading, knitting and gardening — just asking myself, ‘What’s the point of it all? What’s the reason for us being here?’

I just can’t see the point of life sometimes, with all its worries and wars.

I have total faith in an afterlife because I’ve had so much proof of it — from before my husband passed and since. He has come to me and held me and shown in so many small ways that he is still around me.

I also don’t know what to say to comfort my daughter as she refuses to talk about the future and I just want to reassure her. Do you have any advice? HELEN

It IS no surprise to me that you ask what is the point of life. this perennial question has cropped up so many times during the 19 years I have been writing an advice column, and inevitably my feelings on the answer vary from mood to mood.

today, the sun is struggling to shine, but the wisteria looks exquisite and the earth smells rich and full of promise after so much rain. that — and the love of my family, forces its way to the fore, yes, even when I have felt very down indeed because of events beyond my control.

Last week, I ended my reply to ‘Linda’ with the encouraging words, ‘. . . a realisation that life, no matter how painful, is most definitely worth living’ and I make no apology for returning to the theme.

Of course, you are still grieving for the love of your life, but do find consolation in the sense of his presence, still in your life. I wonder if you have asked yourself just why he is determined to confirm your belief in an afterlife?

Does he want you to give up on the family he loved too?

Or does he want you to be strong now – strengthened by the love you shared? take some deep breaths, look out of the window at the sky, and ask yourself that important question. two years after your husband’s death, the family was shattered by another blow – and now you have a vital role to play. Living with you is a 17-year-old boy who (every day, even though he may never mention it) has to face the brutal truth about his mother’s life expectancy.

I absolutely understand how lonely one can feel when the family seems preoccupied with their own lives and problems.

Having said that, you are not alone because you have your late husband’s constant presence, as well as a grandson to support, and a daughter who needs her mother.

Every meal you cook, every pair of socks you shove in the machine, every quiet question you ask, all help that grandson. And the fact that you are doing it will help your daughter accept the future she understandably does not want to talk about.

Can’t you see that what you are already doing is offering ‘reassurance’?

Let her observe that you can be strong, even though still living with grief for the father she must miss, too.

the great French writer Voltaire wrote these wise words: ‘We must cultivate our garden.’ think about what it might mean. We can do nothing about ‘worries and wars’ but we can read, knit, garden and support those who need us: the living and the dead.

Is there any other purpose?