So chemo must have finished at the end of October, then Joel appeared for a week to say goodbye before he and Gina went off into the sunset for their adventure. Strange to say goodbye to Joel with no Nathan there, I'd already lost him to the exoctic clutches of American Eagle in New York. We skated over the goodbye because to dwell on it might have been a bit painful for both of us. Neither of us wanted a repeat of the day he left for college.
There's something very undefinable about your relationship with the first born. First borns, first loves, it's all very unforgettable and special. This is Joel's story.
When you have a baby, the world is immediately divided into the people who have had a baby, and therefore have some clue of what you've gone through, and those who haven't. Jennifer came in to the labour ward to take Joel away and count his fingers and toes. She said,
" I know, it's awful isn't it. But you soon forget, people do, or they'd never have another one. And just imagine, our mother had three!"
I remember trying to put it into words to tell Sean. Who knows why, it's just how it was with me and Sean.
"It really hurt. I shut my eyes and there was this blinding white light that was the pain, and I was moving towards it, and I thought, when I hit the light I'm going to die. And then I was there and Joel was born."
"That's interesting," said Sean, " I suppose it's one of the times when people are closest together, but it sounds like you were thinking what Joel was thinking."
And blessed by that statement I always felt that Joel and I would understand each other, with or without words, ever since.
So Joel and Gina went off to the other side of the world on the 9th November 2006 and I just let them go. What else was there to do ?