How Did I Get Here?

Here's a quick recap on the miracles that got me here today...

It's a wonder I'm here at all. Not just the miracle that is cells dividing in exactly the right way to create life but when she was pregnant my mum had an ovarian cyst burst and under went emergency surgery, there was no guarantee I would survive.  And then when I eventually was born, two weeks late, I had the cord wrapped around my neck.

I had an uneventful and considerably ordinary childhood in the West Country.  Reading the media reports the miracle here is probably that nothing traumatic happened to me during my informative years. I was ordinarily different.  In the way that we are all different, and in someway we all feel alone. I wasn't a 'native' of the village I grew up in, I wasn't one of the in-crowd, I have slightly crazy hair. There's lots of things that make you different.  But I had plenty of love around me from my parents and my two sisters.

I went to school, and got 10 GCSEs at acceptable grades. I went to college, and got three A levels.  I went to university, and got a 2:1 degree.  I left education and started working for a local company where I'd completed an earlier work placement.  I moved to a larger company at the other end of the country, Cumbria.  I moved to a better company, bought a flat and then met a man.

The man, Noel, and I went to Japan for a year to teach English. We met some great people, had some good times and some rough times.  We returned to Cumbria, he found work, bought a motorbike (and then another) whilst I looked for work. I found work in London and commuted weekly. On Friday 13th April 2007, when he was 37, he was knocked off his bike and killed instantly.

I throw myself in to my work, moved in with my sister and kept a safe distance from too much emotional commitment for a good few years.

In 2012 I met a man. A man that enriched me and expanded my horizons.  A man who filled me with love.  He, José, proposed to me the following year and we married six months later in March 2014. Just as I was getting used to being a wife, José fell from his mountain bike and broke his neck on 25 April 2015.  He was completely paralyzed, with complex injuries. He survived for a year but died aged 43 when I was unable to clear his airway.  Our last year was a gift, a miracle we hadn't expected that ended far too soon on 23 April 2016.

In short I am very ordinary, but In my first 36 years I've had to deal with two extra-ordinary accidental deaths that have tested my resilience.