Sweet Molly..

...One's absence from this spot these past few days has not been some self-imposed Lenten penance (that by and large being encompassed by the sundering of self from alcohol for the duration), but rather an inability - not yet fully overcome - to put into words an event occurring at the very beginning of it all on the very Ash Wednesday.

As previously mentioned [See previous naturally], Robin's dictum about the unexpected twist being the real deal of the season hit home all too soon.

Lent properly encourages a radical review of existence, self, life, God, purpose, sin and redemption: the whole darn Xtian thing in fact. One's own sense of one's place in this scheme of things is never these days unaffected by having lived - and great thanks for the living of it - with a life-threatening illness [See much previous on sarcoma] these past six years. Not exactly an ever-present Damoclesian sword hanging over the head, more perhaps an enduring perspective that informs so much.

An aspect of that perspective has always been a sort of selfishness in that I grasp this thing to myself because I could not stand it if it had happened to another - especially someone close to me. It is my dread thing and I would not have it any other way.

But I have known too so many others who have not just lived with it but who have also died from it, and these are not all adults. I have been close to many mourning parents via Internet support groups and never is there a harder moment than opening - and seeking to respond to - that post that comes with news of a dear child's death. (I speak only as a reader - what can that moment by like for the bereaved parent who settles to write such a message?)

On Wednesday evening - I knew it was coming - there was a television programme called 'One in a Million' about two children with potentially fatal illnesses who were being treated at Great Ormond Street Hospital. From the pre-broadcast information it seemed all too likely that one of the children featured had an illness either the same as or comparable in process and effect to my own - it turned out the latter. But worse - it was a given that for one of the two the programme would end with bad news. I knew what that news would be and sadly I was right.

How can one watch such a programme knowing in advance that for one set of fearful, tearful, desperate parents the outcome would be the worst it could be? With that knowledge I very nearly couldn't, but I did.

One of the two was sweet Molly, aged just four years old. She had Wilm's tumour - an effect of pre-natal kidney cells that somehow genetically forgot to turn themselves off having first helped to shape the kidney in the womb. The result was a catastrophe of malignancy that had spread to great lumps in her lungs - her 'baddies' as she called them.

GOSH were not optimistic when they viewed these lumps on a PET scan. One was close to the heart, all three could be life-threatening if left alone; but then also surgery itself could be a killer if it went wrong. The scan only indicated what was to be faced by the surgeon. He would only know what to do for the best when Molly was on the operating table and under the knife. There would almost certainly have to be a balance between seeking to excise the whole of the tumours and risking an internal injury that could prove fatal.

Molly was wonderful throughout. Pert and bright - a natural for the cameras - dancing, skipping, playing, chatting with such glee about all and anything. Her mother - pregnant with her sister-to-be - wept as she narrated that Molly had told her she was glad there was another child coming, as that would be a comfort for her mother when she was gone away and that she (Molly) would always be looking after them from that far place. Molly was just four years old. Consider that and the wisdom and compassion of one so young.

Molly was also - as E was at that age - a complete 'Daddy's girl', so it was Dad who had to read her stories as she lay inside the scary PET machine and it was Dad who had to carry her, crying with fear, into the operating theatre. He too wept - not at those moments because he had to be strong for her - and this Dad wept too at what that must be like to endure.

Surgery - shown in all detail - was a far greater success than could have been expected. Not only were two of the tumours - including the one close to the heart - fully excised, but also later the parents were told that the histology was benign. No promises for the future, but at that moment great joy. Molly might live.

But she didn't. We last saw her on her first day at primary school. A big hug for the anxious Mum from the Headteacher and, as ever, a special Molly moment: she was yes thank you looking forward to school because she wanted to "learn to stand on my hands!"

Then that epitaph the whole programme had been anticipating: school was in August, by Boxing Day Molly was ill once more with new tumours and before the year was out she died, peacefully in her sleep at 3.00 a.m. on December 30th 2006.

Not two months later we were watching this all on television, a final brave - and it was brave - public farewell and tribute by her parents to her great life, and a thank you for the doctors and nurses who had tried to save her life.

May her dear soul rest in peace and may her grieving parents be comforted in their great loss.

...Those are the best words that I can find to express why the words are so hard to find.

These are other words, the closing words of T. S. Eliot's poem for the day 'Ash Wednesday'. Let the last speak for all.

"Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn

Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying,
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings.

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell,
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover,
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth.

This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks,
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood.
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will.
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated.

And let my cry come unto Thee."