Fifty

Giddy Up

I have found it to be a strange feeling turning fifty and having a 6 year old. She’s nearly 7, both of us ‘winter girls’ as she likes to say. “We are the Winter girls who like Summer aren’t we Mama”.

Yes. Yes we are. This is the winter of my life now I think with a jolt, this half century bringing with it the whisper of mortality. Even as I know how that hovers on any given day and at any age. My heart and soul feel the shoots of spring even as my body and mind say otherwise. I’ve only just begun I whisper.

It’s World Cancer Day today. We know so little really when it comes to ‘Cancer’, (like it’s one thing, *rolls eyes*). The ‘genes plus environmental trigger’ thing not really even coming slightly close to bringing us answers for childhood cancer for example, so so little is known. Most people now have had pretty intimate experiences with cancer, all those who have are the quietest on feeling any certainty on the subject in my experience, we are the ones who ‘don’t know’ even as we are the ones ‘who know’.

My son turns 13 this Summer, a happy, healthy boy. 7 years out from his successful treatment and with an evolving understanding of what he went through, he asked me if we could google what he had when his friend’s Mum was very ill. Yes we can do that, I said. Together. Let’s always be together when we google things like this I said. ‘His’ Cancer has had a name change we discover with what can only be described as excitement - oooooh look we exclaim!

Nodular Lymphocyte Predominant Hodgkin Non Hodgkin Lymphoma was what we were told it was in 2018 or NLPHNHL for short - I mean … it really was crying out for a new name. We discover it was formally renamed Nodular Lymphocyte Predominant B-cell Lymphoma (NLPBL) in 2022. “This change reflects its distinct biology and closer relationship to B-cell lymphomas rather than classical Hodgkin lymphoma” … hmmm we sigh …

“Unlike Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma, this entity is CD20-positive, possesses “popcorn” cells, and behaves more like an indolent B-cell lymphoma” we read. Popcorn making it sound more fun than it is. My son expresses disappointment that the prognosis is favourable with a very high likelihood of successful treatment for the ‘most patients’ … “oh I thought it was rare to survive this Cancer his remark deflation draped like this makes less of his ‘achievement’... what a bummer. I quickly skim past and flick the page away before he reads “roughly 20% of patients experience a relapse often years after initial treatment” and “first degree relatives, parents, siblings or children have an estimated 19 fold increased risk of developing the same disease”

I’ve learnt to take statistics with a pinch of salt. We are All So Rare.

It is important not to google things like that when you’re on your own I say. Or if you do and you find worrying things that you come and show me and we can work out what it means. Okay?

Okay Mum.

The worry never leaves you. It never goes. You have to learn to live with it. You have to find lightness and joy and friends who you can journey down into the dark places with. Ferret around in the ferny fronds, make your faces wet with those damp leaves. Friends who don’t get scared in those caves and who can help you find the tunnels back out, holding your hand and wheezing with laughter as you stumble back up and out into the Now. It is so relaxing to spend time with friends who can dwell in death and then back to life. Hilarious, silly, fun life.

My friend Ruth texted me last week, a few days ahead of my 50th birthday party, “I love that the dress code for your birthday party is - light up the last throws of winter/late stage capitalism like the beacons of hope that we all are”

We did that, we really did and it was silly and fun and sparkly and life affirming. We are all teetering on various cusps it feels. Personally, collectively, globally. Like my house on Monday this week, the after party detritus still not processed, we’re not even at the part where it’s got worse before it can get better. Tuesday felt like a lot. The idea of the global ‘Tuesday’ hurtling towards us is daunting to say the least. We’re gonna need Art, Music, Stories, laughter, we’re going to need to organise and rest and dance and read and grow things, all kinds of things. We’ve always needed each other. That need is becoming ever more clear. Our communities, our neighbours, our friends and families. All the villages.

My daughter has loved playing dress up in my party clothes piles, “ooooh can I have this when you die?!” she delightedly exclaims. You can have it when I’m still alive Flo” I reply, ‘I don’t have to die”

“...oh yeah sorry, I don’t want you to die. But CAN it be mine when you DO die though?”

She goes on … “also, I’ve been thinking. It’s my birthday soon and if you need you can borrow some money from my piggy bank”

“What for?” I ask

“In case you need help buying me my horse for my birthday”

This is not new news, she’s always wanted a real horse. A few wolves. A number of dogs in various shapes and sizes, Cats, lots of cats. And a Koala.

It feels very apt this year though, as we all gallop into 2026, the year of the fire horse. I tell Flo and Arthur that it’s the year of the Fire Horse, Arthur listens with interest. Flo is twirling and then stops stock still and says “pretend I’m famous and you have LOADS of questions”

As we say quite alot in our friends whats apps groups “GIDDY UP !!”