So, here is where, perhaps, my memoirs will really start. Another key point, a nodal point, late in 1964, with me aged 27, married and expecting my first baby. Increasingly worried about balancing the needs of a sick mother, recently diagnosed with dementia, an elderly father and a husband with a drinking problem.

The death of my parents came at a difficult and troubled time of my life, quite apart from the sadness of losing them. It was also the prelude to the worst time of all, less than two years later: the death of little Andrew Walter Tudway, my firstborn, in 1965. I am happy to talk about him – indeed to share him – now. He is still a very precious part of my self even though he is gone from this life. Please don’t be afraid to read about him – but also don’t feel bad if you want to skip parts of my memoirs, that alright too.

But if you’re still with me, let’s get these things over, face the darkest time so far. I think people are divided into those who, when woken in the night by a scary sound, either sit bolt upright, eyes straining, or hide under the blankets. Basic fight or flight. Neither of them is better or worse or more or less useful than the others. On the whole, I’m the former. I need to know what’s coming to get me, not feel something creeping up and pawing away my defences. Of course, there’s also the freeze option for later; eyes wide, mouth shut, maybe frozen for years.

My mother’s illnesses started in about 1960 – when she would have been 62 – and I was in my early twenties and a medical student. I remember her taking me for a walk in the park behind our house and telling me she had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. I think I was completely inadequate to support or help her; I didn’t know what to say. I hope I hugged her at least, but I can’t remember much about it.

She was treated in a ward of  ‘our’ own hospital, the Middlesex, by an eminent neurologist with no interpersonal skills whatever. Being told that she had it mildly did nothing for her. She knew it would get worse and it just added more guilt to the ‘I’m a therapist, of course I can cope’ syndrome. In fact, the tremor was not particularly evident, but I understand from other patients that the stiffness, the ‘locked-in’ feeling is worse than anything on the outside.

About four years later she was diagnosed also with bowel cancer. Treatment in those times was fairly brutal and she had to have a permanent colostomy. She took it very badly, becoming deeply distressed and depressed. She found the hygienic aspect terribly upsetting and her increasing tremor made the management difficult. It drew up many feelings from her early childhood, perhaps especially from her upbringing in India, of being rejected, somehow ‘dirty’ and unacceptable. To this was added the professional therapist’s humiliation at being unable to heal herself. Negative aspects of early religious teaching on the need to rise above disaster probably surfaced too

Of course, it is only with hindsight I can see these underlying strands. Particularly now I’m old myself and have had a lot more life packed into me, whether I wanted it or not.

We can face old age and the gradual loss of our faculties with defiance and bravado initially. Or we can try hiding from it in denial – and all shades in between. Let’s face it. ‘Life’s a bummer and then you die’ about sums it up for the period of time – long or short – that one needs in order to become reconciled and accepting of the Final Things. I’m not quite there yet – but I’m working on it. It’s a bit like a seesaw. Sometimes I’m OK with the idea that I will die, at other times I want to wail like a banshee, “No… NO… NO!!!”

I do try not to use any religious platitudes either. However we deal with such miseries, there aren’t usually any easy short cuts. I have found that insights and life-enhancing changes have as often come to me from secular, even anti-religious sources and especially from conversations with friends of all sorts, religious, atheist, or spiritual of all shades and of none.

My religious beliefs and the wonderful Mystical experiences I have been given are a tremendous help to me and I am truly grateful for them. They give me a wonderful sense of order and Love governing the universe. I believe they come from ‘God’ and are God – but they don’t exempt me from sharing periods of doubt and despair, as experienced by most people I know. I don’t expect others to necessarily believe in my ‘Truth’ just because I say so – it’s my deeds, not my words, that will count at the end.