Life and Death

Too many people I know are dying. I know in some Freudian way we all are, but I just wish it would slow down a bit. Four of my friends have died within the last six months, a count that is surely way out of the average. My family back in Blighty are turning into professional mourners, trudging from one funeral to the next and it is all getting pretty depressing. I daren't even answer the phone to home anymore for fear of more bad news, it is time now for it all to stop please!

Bad news is the one thing that really brings distance home here in Delhi. It is really difficult to grieve when you haven't got anyone else to share it with. At home we would have gone out for drinks and reminisced about great nights out and youthful follies but here in our little ex-pat bubble it means nothing to anyone else.

You can't tell the mums at the school gate you lost a friend yesterday, what do they care, they didn't know him. So you just get on with it. Have a quiet thought for the person on the day of the funeral and keep on keeping on. It didn't help that last week was the one year anniversary of The Bogan's death ('A' and I's best man). Barely a day has passed over that year were I haven't thought about him and the emotion is still pretty raw.

It has made me think so much more about my own mortality,something that has never bothered me at all. When life is bordering on the perfect death makes you realise how quickly it can all be taken away from you, how short our time is and how much needs to be crammed into it. The truth is that life at the moment is bordering on the perfect. We are so happy in India and I can't think of one down side to living here other than it is going so fast. Our first year is nearly up and it has gone in the blink of an eye. The weeks and months are flying away and I wish I could just put my foot on the brake and slow it all down a bit.

It only seems days since we received the terrible news about my mum. At the time my first thought was would she ever see us out here? Would she survive that long? Really terrible thoughts that now seem in the dim and distant past after she is Finally in recovery and has made it out here with Dad.

Emotion was running high when I greeted them at the airport, I think Mum had probably gone through the same thought process as me. Now she was finally here standing in our garden, the reality hit home and the tears came. It was like we had put the final big full stop at the end of what has been a terrible sentence. She didn't look great (I subsequently found out that was more to do with 5 glasses of wine and 5 brandy's on the plane and a hangover as opposed to the cancer) but I didn't care, she was here, alive and well and we were going to make the most of it.

Make the most of it we did too. We flew down to Goa and had a fabulous time on the beach. Real happy times, Seeing mum and dad with the boys - who's worship of them is at hero proportions - was something that will stay in the memory for a long time. Days were spent on the beach and round the pool and as the colour came back to mums skin it was like watching her come back to life again. Evenings were spent boozing and laughing and buying 80 quid bottles of wine because dad Miss-read the menu! Normal Conde fun stuff,living your life stuff, cramming it all in stuff and forgetting the past stuff.

I realised while I was down there that these are the times that you 'put the brake on',Slow everything down a little bit, take a step back and soak it all up. Life can seem to be running away too fast but you just have to stop and take a look around you and savour the great times.

That is my intention from now on, I am going to make the most of the time we have here in India and savour every last moment. Appreciate all the terrific times we have to come and have a ball. Bogan, Danny, Lee, Jean and Jambie would have liked that.