Rolling Hand Grenades Through Doorways

Alison and I made our way back through the Repat Labyrinth and locked in our plans to tell my parents.  We had organised to meet them after lunch at their house - we hadn't said that we had a special reason.

We arrived to find only my mum home.  Hmmm.

"Howdy Mum, where's Dad?"
"He's just gone to pick up JB and M"
"Oh cool"

NOT COOL!

Mum and Dad help out my sister and bro-in-law by collecting and hanging onto their beautiful kids after school some nights.  So we were about to be invaded by these little bundles of smiles and energy.  Unloading this news on my parents and expecting them to keep their shit together enough to look after the kids and not make them worried, was too much to ask.

Mum was making cups of tea, whilst Alison and I tried to communicate a plan B without seeming suspicious.  Sending each other texts across the table etc.

Then Mum told us that one of my other sisters, Jodie, was heading over to collect her dog George.

When Jodie arrived she chatted for a few minutes before Alison executed her unilateral plan.

"Any Jo, we have something to tell Maxine and Gerald, do you mind taking JB and M for a walk to the beach"

Jodie got a whiff of the situation and before we knew it we had an audience with my parents and a bit of time for them to get themselves sorted before the kids came back.

They took the news very well.  Asked lots of questions, shared positive cancer stories about friends and relatives and we sipped our teas.

It didn't stay that way.

Jodie came back and the kids were ushered into a the TV room.  We told Jodie.

As we drove away I lost it.  I had been really good at controlling my thoughts, but I couldn't help thinking about hearing that from one of my kids, and how I had just left that with them and driven away.

I could not get an image out of my head, an image of rolling a hand grenade into their doorway and walking away.  A few more victims on this cancer's list.

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Next step was to tell our own children.  We had done a fair bit of planning, particularly Alison, and we executed our plan well - we had a lot of reason to feel positive and we laid this out for the kids.

Then I headed off and  rolled a few more grenades that night as I told the rest of my immediate family.

It turned out that nearly the whole Spurr gang ended up back at our house, apart from one niece studying in Sydney and a couple of nieces who were otherwise engaged and and my brother in law who was with his young kids.  It was so nice to have my parents, all my Spurr brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews in the same place.  Noisy, banter, laughing, pizza and a few tears.  It felt like it was what everyone needed.  It was so nice to see Ned out with his adult male cousins having some sort of ball game related therapy.  He mentioned the next day how special that was to him.

We all had something else in common now - we were al victims of cancer.