Day 5 Week 1

Have you ever felt that you were no longer inhabiting your ownlife, but had somehow been transported into someone else's? That's just where I am at the moment. I shall give a very brief background thumbnail by way of an introduction.

I am 50, have been single for 14 years and have brought up 3 children by myself through many interesting and challenging situations. Without wishing to dwell that has included homelessness, illness and financial hardship - but believe me I am not a gloomy depressive and the main reason I have been able to stand up to everything is I have been blessed with a hearty Irish sense of humour and English stiff upper lip. I work in adult literacy in further education and am surrounded by the best bunch of friends anyone could hope for.

I have 3 children H (boy) aged 24, LLM and training to be an officer in the Royal Navy; R (girl) aged 18 and at University in London and middle one C (boy) aged 21 - yesterday- and as of Sunday last a serving Officer with the British Army in Afghanistan. For the purpose of this blog I shall focus on C, his life and the effect that has on the rest of us.

C flew out on Sunday and it was one of the most surreal days I have ever known. May God forgive me but in the preceeding weeks and months I had dealt with the inevitability with a combination of denial, avoidance and at times actually hoping he'd have some slight medical condition (nothing too serious or life threatening) which would call a halt to the whole episode. Yes as a mother, I had actually been wishing harm on my beautiful boy in a kind of trade-off against fatality at war.

But the day came and all I could do was watch the clock and imagine with sinking nausea how close he was to gunfire. Then against all expectation, just when I thought he was landing at Kabul I received a text from him. My heart leapt into my throat as I opened it, what would it say? Would it be some final admittance that he'd made a mistake and should not have signed up? As I read the words 'Mum, stop over in a hot country. I need a huge favour', I thought I was going to vomit. Then it went on 'Would you ring Vodafone, details below and set up a standing order for monthly payments by direct debit............' I wanted to simultaneously laugh and scream. Here was my son on the way to war with all the horrendous brutality that would contain and possibly the last request he would ever make of me was that I would do what a mother always does and sort out paperwork.

Monday was taken care of as I was in hospital having yet another operation on my leg, there's nothing like general aneasthetic, pain and a life threatening condition as a distraction. That said he was never far from my mind. Once I was back on the ward (fittingly at the hospital where they filmed Carry on Doctor - alas Hattie and Dr Kilmore did not put in a ghostly appearance), my phone rang with an ordinary looking number Ididn't recognise and when I answered it a very familiar voice said 'Ma, I'm here, how are you?'. The call lasted no more than thirty seconds before we were cruelly separated by failed technology but his voice sounded so near and so close and thank God alive. Apparently Afghanistan is hot and dusty.

I am now at home and as I heard someone on the radio say, I've come to dread the News and an unexpected knock at the door is terrifying. But as a friend whose son mercifully survived the 6 months said to me, 'you mustn't cry in front of him. He must remember you always laughing'.

Our village is being blessed this evening with a visit from StTherese of Lisieux, who is not only the patron saint of florists but also of serving soldiers at war, so I am going to be taking my crutches to pay my respect to the relics, and as soldier's mothers have done for years, asking her to protect my son from harm, keep him safe and spare him the horrors of war.

Speak soon. Soldier's Mum x