I have just been in Sydney for a few days with some colleagues from the new job I am about to start. Two of them stayed on for the weekend, but I came back Friday evening with one of my colleagues, S - a woman who is nearly 60 and very inspiring to me in terms of what she has achieved in her career whilst still being a very human person. She is a mother of two sons, by the way, and a grandmother.
Anyway, we had a few hours to kill in the airline lounge before the flight. Just to back up a step, on the way to Sydney a couple of days earlier we had watched the film "Evening" and it had unsettled me a bit. As you know, I am still coming to terms with my CF status and every now and then I have to deal with the emotions around it. Evening is a film that focusses very much on motherhood and passing things on through the generations, and has a main character who thought she didn't want to have children, found herself accidentally pregnant, and then realised from the wisdom of the older women in her life, that this is what would truly fulfil her as a woman. Grrrrrrrrrrrr. But it bloody unsettled me for a day or so.
Anyways....S says to me out of the blue "are you two going to have children?" It's hard to explain, but because of the kind of person she is, it didn't feel so bad coming from her. I just said "no, we won't." She nodded and I added "Sometimes I feel a little sad about it, but..." and she immediately interrupted me with "NO - oh my goodness, no, don't be sad".
I stared at her (probably in amazement to hear this coming from a mother) and she said - "J [another female colleague who I knew was CF] and her husband can't have children. She told me they were thinking of other ways to do it and I said 'J - don't do it. You have a fabulous life - don't wreck it. Having a child would ruin everything'."
Then she said "I sometimes stop and wonder how my life might have been without children. One of my sons is wonderful and I am glad I have him but the other has been such a problem".
I told her how refreshing it was to hear this because people always tell me that you don't really know love until you have a child etc etc. She said "OH RUBBISH. That's complete rubbish. You enjoy your life."
I just could have hugged her. It was like being with a mother figure who totally validated being CF.
