Day Sixteen

1. Dam Germs!

So today I realised why I was feeling so uninspired and struggling to write on here yesterday as I woke with a yukky winter lurgy. As all mothers to children like Wills will know, the first thing I thought about was him. I am trying so hard to protect him from bugs and germs at the moment, and making sure all of us stay away from anyone sick. The last thing I want is for that phone to ring and for him not to be able to receive a potential gift because he has a fever. This, of course, is the worst time of year for that. I doubt a cold would stop his transplant but if it caused a fever or nasty chest infection it could. Thankfully, despite being immunosuppressed, Wills isn’t too susceptible to coming down with bad colds. It’s the stomach bugs that have been his nemesis.

The second thing that comes to mind is that if we got the call I’d have to stay away from him as he will be so highly immunosuppressed over the initial days and weeks. In fact, for the first six months will need to stay isolated from big crowds and busy social situations. I may get away with being able to stay with him but with a surgical mask but, in an ideal world, we both need to stay fit and well this winter. It’s ironic that I added a footnote to his Halloween party invitations to say that no one should come with a cold….only to go down with a heavy myself later that day. I’m beating it up as best I can and hoping it’s gone in a few days. Not least, because I am going to Amma’s Darshan on Wednesday and want to be well for that as I’ll be going to the late night session. It’s something I’m really looking forward to and have a feeling it is going to be a very moving spiritual encounter for me. Something life changing. I’m spending time each day now preparing myself for me to receive whatever it is I find there as best I can by reading, thinking, meditating and opening my mind and my heart. I’m looking forward to sharing more with you about this later in the week.

2. Becky Blue

I spent sometime this afternoon looking through pictures and seeing if anything inspired me to write. This character sprung into my mind with a pretty strong voice. I quite like her and she intrigues me. I think I'll keep going with her. She can be a friend when I need to escape the very autobiographical world of 'Something Precious Inside.'


I read once that you know you’re in love when you find someone who completes you and you can’t be whole without them.  Joshua doesn’t just complete me, he re-created me. Joshua calls me Becky Blue. He says it’s because of my eyes.
“Deep Azure, like the oceans that surround Jamaica. Piercing!” Joshua says.
“Your eyes penetrate deep into my soul. They move me. When you look at me you touch me in places no one else has ever been or seen.” I’m not sure that I have seen inside Joshua’s soul. I’m not sure that’s even possible but it sounded good when he said that. It made me feel special. Like I had some kind of magical power. It made me feel like I was more than just Rebecca Cartwright. It made me feel like Becky Blue.  So I started to hang around with Joshua more often, then as often as possible.


But no one has seen Joshua since last Wednesday. He hasn’t been to school. He wasn’t at the football club on Tuesday. He hasn’t even been to church. Every Sunday morning, without fail, he’ll be there. Even when the party was so good on Saturday night he hadn’t been to bed at all. He’d go home, freshen up and be there looking like he’d been sleeping sweet all night. Joshua said he had to go because his parents expected him to and because he needed to  say sorry to God and to his mum for a week load of sins.
“I wipe that slate clean every week,” he said. And that meant he got to scribble on a nice clean surface on the way to school on Monday morning. But not today. No one has seen Joshua since last Wednesday. Not even me and I don’t know how much longer it will be before I have to be Rebecca Cartwright forever


Dad always calls me Rebecca. In sixteen years he’s never once nicknamed me or shortened my name. Not when he called me in when I was playing with my dolls in the garden. Not know when he texts to find out where I am and when I’ll be home. Always in full. Always Rebecca.  It’s nearly six so he’ll be calling me in any moment. In any moment he’ll knock on the door and ask if he can come in to talk about how my essay is going and what I fancy for tea. He’s OK today. Today, he’s thinking how he can help me get the grades I need to get into sixth form. Today he wants to ask me about the A Level subjects I’ll be choosing. Today, my dad believes I have a future instead of being convinced we’re all about to die imminently in a terrorist attack or from bird flu or something. Dad’s been OK for a while. Maybe he’s better now. He hasn’t worked on the shelter for nearly two weeks. He hasn’t been down there since last Wednesday. Since the day that Joshua disappeared.

3.  Battling Nagging Thoughts! 

Much as I am looking forward to Wednesday, I also really fear it. I have just spent the last hour, an hour when I could have been reading, resting the cold away or, if anything else, making pumpkin pie, instead brooding on every single possible scenario that could happen when I am on the other side of London to William. I have been sitting with my pad, waiting for some writing inspiration to cut through the snot fuelled fog in my head, and all I have is a margin (because I was fully intending on filling the main lines) filled with train details, night bus routes and the times I can get back the quickest and easiest…. and then my brain started panicking and brooding about the times in the early night, when I may still be away, when it will be hard for me to get back. I am going to Amma’s last session in London. It’s an evening session, starting at seven with Puja, or prayers, followed by mediation and late Darshan, where she gives those healing hugs of hers. This is followed by Devi Bhava, a celebration of prayer for world peace. I would really like to do it all, spend a whole night in meditation, prayer and spiritual self discovery.

I have written before that Amma welcomes all religions to her sessions and her Ashram. I have been reading more about her in the last week and about Christian leaders who have met her, experienced her Darshan and found a deeper understanding of Christ and God, as well as their own place and calling. Some have gone on to become her devotees and spend time in her Ashram, never losing or chaining their own faith but gaining a deeper experience of being in the presence of God.  If I’m going to go and experience this for myself I would like to immerse myself in it and see what it teaches me and where it leads me. A kind of ‘mini Ashram.’ But there is this nagging feeling that that call will come right slap bang in the middle, at the hardest time to get home. There are only five hours that are hard. Up until 11.30pm is easy and after 4.30am is equally easy. It’s not even impossible in the five hours between. At worst it would take two hours to get home instead of one. Still, I have almost convinced myself not to go but then I remembered back to William’s last transplant call. He was on the table in an emergency operation and there was a lot of discussion between our London and Birmingham teams before I was even told. Then an ambulance crew turned up to the recovery room, where he was still unconscious but the doctors decided to wake him first. The crew left and no one came back for over two hours. So, although we have to get there immediately, there is some wriggle room for me to be able to get home. They tell you to carry on with life, not sit by the phone at home all day. But I know this will bother me. I guess this is one good example of why this whole experience will be so good for me. Tp learn to meditate properly and get rid of those ‘what if..what if….s’





If you are not on the organ donor register, please do click here for more information and to sign up.

If you are enjoying this blog, please help me to keep going and help crowdfund my Three A Day: Waiting project  and get some lovely postcards and an anthology, limited for only those who support and invest in the project.