this is my first entry

I don't know about you - but I really enjoy this time of year.

The busyness quotient is back down, or even below its normal level, I have time to finish reading all those books I didn't get time to read during the year, there is more than the usual amount of hang out with the family - and just general time to stop and think, ponder, imagine, and reflect.
Looking back at what I've just written its occurred to me that I shouldn't have a generalisation about all that stuff. It probably reveals something of who I am and what I value.
I suppose today I am in a more reflective mode than normal.
I found out yesterday that my mother is dying of liver cancer and I am more than 16,000 klms away living in a foreign land.

A weird realisation swept over me as I tried to sleep. Apart from parents really, there is no one who authentically loves you unconditionally (and even for some that is not reality) As I look at my own children I realise that no one loves in such a safe way as a parent. Divorce, sibling dysfunction, individualism - they have all scraped away at relationships to erode them from the finality they meant in former eras.

Maybe I should stick to using my own family analogy rather than painting society with such broad strokes.

Then come all the other realisations - What will my 70 y.o. father do? How will he live? Who will look after him?
Then a wave of vicarious sadness as I realise all the experiences my mother will never know - watching grandchildren become adults - how they turned out as people, holding great grand children, the 'I told you so' moments as her own sons experience the pain of aging. All the stuff I would like to be around for. Then inevitably comes the 'unfinished business' questions. If you had one last time with your mother - what would you say to her? I suppose I should be glad of the opportunity, but the selfish side of me shakes its head quickly and prods me back to self absorption.

My own grandmothers died when was less than 10. The only way I remember them is as authoritative old women. They were wonderful people who loved deeply and sacrificed much for my own parents - but I didn't know or appreciate that until they were already dead.
Then I think of some of the daytime TV show interviews where people with terminal diseases comment that it has been the best thing that has ever happened to them. Is that just staunch heroism or is there real truth there? I'll have to reserve judgment on that one.

I'm just feeling a little lost today, and I don't really want to found.