Love Like You've Never Been Hurt
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The CBB -> Ste Therese's House
#1: Love Like You've Never Been Hurt Author: Xanthe, Location: London PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 5:38 pm
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It's silly for people to think Prim somehow doesn't mind, or doesn't understand. She hasn't stopped asking because she's forgetting mummy, but because she's realised she's not going to get the answer she wants, however many times she asks. It's silly for people to think that just because we've got all this other family now that it doesn't matter that all the family we knew until a few years ago are gone now. I lie awake at night, sometimes, turning everything over and over in my mind. I don't understand how uncle Jack couldn't find a way to make mummy better. And as for Uncle Jem – he's not just a doctor, mummy was his sister. If Primula were ill, I know that I'd do anything, absolutely anything, to get her better again. It's not as though mummy had TB or something – she just looked tired, really, more than ill. I can't believe she just gave up on living – she must have kept fighting, but I don't know that Uncle Jem did. I think he gave up, and so did all the rest of the grown-ups. It doesn't matter how nice they are to me – it's not the same as having mummy here, and they should have done something more to keep her here with us.

Studying medicine is absolutely exhausting. It's hard work for anyone, but I always feel I have something extra to prove because I'm a woman: to the patients, to the doctors, to the other students, to the nurses. I've wanted this for years though, and I'm determined to succeed, so I spend hours studying and revising – treatments, drugs, diseases, conditions, anatomy, physiology. There's the practical side of things as well – rotating round the different wards of the hospital, learning so much it makes your head spin and then having to help treat patients through that jumble of knowledge. I worry about getting something wrong, and hurting someone, or maybe even doing something worse. At the same time, though, I couldn't see myself doing anything else. I don't expect I'll marry, but I'm not really bothered about that – I'd rather spend my life doing something useful, like this. I try to keep up with Beth and Gwensi, but I rarely make it home to visit my family. Prim's come to stay with me in my digs a few times, but I'm too busy for anything outside medicine these days, really.

Love is such a funny thing – catching you when you least expect it, and simply sweeping you away. I'd spent so long fighting shy of feelings like this that I really believed I was becoming immune to love. I've even held myself a certain distance apart from my friends, from my family – kept just that little bit to myself. I know exactly what I've been afraid of, and that's losing people. If you don't let yourself fully connect, it can't hurt so much when you lose someone. The thing I could throw myself into fully and unreservedly was medicine, and, if I'm honest, that wasn't always for the right reasons. A rising star of paediatric medicine I may have been, but what was pushing me on was the people I hadn't been able to save – as if I could somehow compensate for that. It was as though my brothers stood somewhere just out of sight, watching what I did, and I needed to show them I was trying to make up for still being here, still being alive. I've learned you can't save everyone, however much you want to. I've learned you can't get everything right, and that you can't really save the world, however hard you try. I've learned you can only change things so far, however hard you push. But, with Lawrie, I am learning new things all the time. I am learning how it feels to let go; I am learning how wonderful it is to gaze into someone's eyes and see your own soul reflected there; and I am learning again how wonderful everything really is. The most important thing I am learning, though, is to love like I've never been hurt. Life is simply too short, especially as I feel my own life is in some ways just beginning.
#2:  Author: brie, Location: Glasgow, aka the land of boredom PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 5:49 pm
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Wow.

Thats really all I can say. Wow.

Thats beautiful Xanthe.
#3:  Author: Mona, Location: Hertfordshire PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 5:51 pm
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That's lovely Xanthe. Thank you.
#4:  Author: Carolyn P, Location: Lancaster, England PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 6:03 pm
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You write some beautiful pieces Xan.
#5:  Author: Woofter, Location: Location? What's a location? PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 6:16 pm
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Brilliant, thanks Xanthe.
#6:  Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 6:51 pm
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Lovely - thanks Xanthe.
#7:  Author: Tan, Location: London via Newcastle Australia PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 8:27 pm
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You capture Daisy's spirit so well - it must have been so hard for her.
#8:  Author: Elle, Location: Peterborough PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 9:09 pm
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Beautiful, thank you.
#9:  Author: wheelchairprincess, Location: Oxfordshire, UK PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 9:22 pm
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Amazing Xanthe, thank you. Will you write pieces for the rest of that quote?
#10:  Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 9:31 pm
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Thank you Xanthe.
#11:  Author: Lyanne, Location: Ipswich, England PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 10:18 pm
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I'm choked up now, Xanthe. That was very moving.
#12:  Author: Xanthe, Location: London PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 10:48 pm
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wheelchairprincess wrote:
Amazing Xanthe, thank you. Will you write pieces for the rest of that quote?


If I can come up with something for "live as though heaven is on Earth" I'll write it - I've a few ideas, but nothing definite yet... "Dance As Though Nobody's Watching" is done & posted...
#13:  Author: Sugar, Location: second star to the right! PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 11:40 pm
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Lovely Xan, thank you!
#14:  Author: Elder in Ontario, Location: Ontario, Canada PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2007 11:57 pm
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A second lovely vignette, Xanthe; you have the captured the spirit of just what was driving Daisy so vividly in that last paragraph, first in medicine, then in her love for Lawrie.

Thank you.
#15:  Author: Chair, Location: Rochester, Kent PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2007 12:02 am
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Thanks, Xanthe. They were really beautiful and moving.
#16:  Author: Cath V-P, Location: Newcastle NSW PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2007 1:26 am
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Thank you Xanthe, that was very moving, and encapsulated so much of Daisy's feelings.
#17:  Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2007 3:08 am
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Oh, I like that. Very Happy

(once I figured out the paragraphs were disconnected in time. Silly brain didn't register that "snapshots" meant just that! Embarassed)
#18:  Author: keren, Location: Israel PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2007 7:27 am
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I'm glad youve got these bunnies
Can you remind me where the quotation is from?
#19:  Author: Karoline, Location: Leeds, West Yorkshire PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2007 10:55 am
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Lovely Xanthe, thank you
#20:  Author: Vikki, Location: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!! PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2007 6:03 pm
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*hugs Xanthe*
Thank you hunny, that was beautiful - goosebumps again!
#21:  Author: Sal, Location: Walsall / Aberystwyth PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2007 7:46 pm
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Wow that was beautiful thanks Xanthe Smile
#22:  Author: JoS, Location: South Africa PostPosted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 8:20 pm
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Very moving - thank you Xanthe.
#23:  Author: linda, Location: Leeds PostPosted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 9:50 pm
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Xanthe, that was so very moving. What beautiful snapshots of Daisy. Thank you so much
#24:  Author: Tara, Location: Malvern, Worcestershire PostPosted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 11:33 pm
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Moving and insightful, Xanthe. Thank you.
The CBB -> Ste Therese's House


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