Goodbye Edinburgh

It is time for the last posting from Edinburgh and as I have promised some of the friends I have been saying goodbye to for the past week, this one is in the international language of English - so, my Icelandic friends, think Taggart and roll the R-s in your minds as you read!

Little did I and my Beloved know about all the changes life in Scotland would bring, when we left the northern shores of Iceland on 3. August 2005; about all the haggis and Irn Bru to be consumed, about the friends we would make, the dragon to be fought, about trips to York, the Highlands and the Islands, the Greek and Latin medical terms to be learnt, that sometimes life could feel like an elephant to be carried around.

It´s an old cliché that every problem has a gift for you in its hands, but it is a cliché for a reason; it is true. There are a lot of things I will miss when I am back home in Reykjavík; the Old Town and the New Town with all the great, old architecture, St. Johns church enveloped in the busyness of the city, yet has profound silence and loving athmosphere, the roses in Princes Street Gardens, the castle, Bruntsfield Place, the Meadows, the School of Scottish Studies, the library and lunches with the good librarian there, The Scotsman, The Rainbow Kindergarten, the National Museum, the Sunday nights with Barnaby, Taggart, Rebus and Miss Marple, the coffee shops, low-priced groceries and so on and so on - but most of all I will miss the wonderful friends at Maggie´s Centre.

The people in the Family & Friends Group have shared with me their experiences, strenghts and hopes, while on the journey of living with a loved ones´cancer, and taught me that it can be done, with dignity, grace and love. Even though most of the time, "we just muddle along, the best we can," as one of them once said.

My thoughts are especially with a dear friend who this week said a last farewell to her best friend and beloved husband, who was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2001. Their love shone through all and I am sure it will sustain her in her time of grief.

One of the wise women at Maggie´s recently reflected on the fact that in scholarly literature it is said that going through grief takes about nine months - the same time it takes for two cells to develope into a baby, a new life.

Nine months ago we learnt about my Beloved´s brain tumour. Even though we realise that this dragon is not going anywhere and will at some point in the future recur, surgery, radiation treatment, dealing with side effects and finding the correct medication for seizures and headaches is all behind us now. Dealing with the shock and grief of it all is behind us now. I hope. "It looks pretty stable to me," the good doctor said. And so it is.

Now we are about to start a new chapter in our lives and it is time to look forward to meeting again familiar places and faces. I do wonder if it will all look the same as before we left, or if it will be somewhat different. Perhaps the way I see things now has changed more than I know ;o)

P.S. Dear friends at Maggie´s Centre: As you see I did not post the fab pictures from our send-off-dinner at Hi Thai (thank you Lewis for taking us there!) nor the one taken of me and M. at Peckham´s the other day, as I did not ask for your permission to do so, but if it is OK with you - please say so in the comments!

P.P.S. You can have a look at my 20 year old daugther´s blog in English right here, the last one has a pic from the northwest part of Iceland.