The Road to Recovery

It's been a sad couple of weeks. Last Wednesday, I had my first real sports injury, a partial hamstring tear and on Friday, I lost my mum-in-law to be.

The hamstring injury keeps me away from running for about 3 weeks, just when I was beginning to get some rhythm after a considerable break from long-distance running. And poof! My hamstring goes bust. In the midst of dealing with it, and it is a HUGE deal to me to miss marathon prep, my fiancee's ma passed away.

That took the wind out of my sails. And it was so sudden! Everything happened in a day, just like when Papa passed away over two years ago. It was really sad, even more so because she'll miss the wedding in a couple of months.

I'll be honest here. I didn't get to know her as well as I'd liked to, but we got on well. We'd make fun of my fiancee together, talk about cricket a little and exchange pleasantries. She was extremely warm and treated me like a son. I'll miss not having her around.

My fiancee's been very strong about it and I'm proud of her, but I won't write more about that here to respect her privacy. I think people's feelings on the loss of someone very dear should be kept private unless they volunteer to speak/write about it.

We've spent the last week dealing with the loss as a family and it's been tough. Like all such losses, I know this is one we will never fully get over. That's just the way death is. It leaves you wondering what just happened. Especially when it hits you so suddenly.

You wonder if everything you shared was a big dream. Those family holidays, the day your parent slapped you for doing something wrong, the surprisingly good report card you turned in every once in a while (read, 5 years in my case)... it feels like a different life. Surreal.

Where did they all go...