Thank you for allowing me my rant. I really, really needed to do that. As Juliet said in the comments, everyone deals with cancer differently, everyone suffers a different kind and grade of cancer, everyone has a different prognosis, and everyone should be allowed the grace of dealing with it as they want, not as someone else thinks best. And yet there are so many people, well meaning or not, who just ladle out that guilt. It is your fault you have cancer, and you are coping with it the wrong way, thus you will die, and then it really will be your fault and I will be standing on your grave to tell you so.
Oh well.
The garden is doing magnificently. I have had much produce come in - the All Seasons carrots just did me proud, as did the Massey Peas and the field peas from the mulch. The beetroot are being eaten, the brussel sprouts are sprouting, I have too many potatoes to know what to do with, and the tomatoes are finally fruiting (I have yet to pick one, though, but I have 8-10 bushes all planted out and doing well). The zucchini, the leeks, the fennel, the pumpkins, the bush beans … all doing well.
My sister Judy has been staying with me for the past 2 weeks and she has been a trouper in the garden. She has weeded, she has cleaned up generally, and she has spent hours one day picking and shelling the peas.
Which brings me to The Disaster which I can still barely think about without bursting into tears. My big deep freeze was packed with soups and casseroles (meals for when the builders get here) and peas and carrots and sundry other veg (and all my elderflowers for more elderflower wine!!!) when one day last week I absent-mindedly switched it off (how else could it have been switched off? I don’t know). Everything lost. The meat I can deal with, it can be replaced, but the peas and carrots and elderflowers … they represent the backbreaking winter I put in to get the garden into shape, then all the work - the growing, the watering, the picking, the shelling, the slicing - and then the satisfaction of salting them away in the freezer. Everything lost. All that work. It has devastated me. Nothing seems to be going right for me now, and this …. it is as if everything I tried for has been in vain. When I found it (about 5 am one morning) I had to wake my sister and sit on the end of her bed and sob and sob and sob. It has been a massive blow.
The peas and the elderflowers are the worst. I can’t believe I have lost them. No more elderflower wine for me this year, and who knows where I will be this time next year?
January 8th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
i’m so sorry to hear about the loss of your lovely vegies and flowers, and most particularly your elderflowerwine. it sounds like you’ve put in so much hard work for them. take care.
January 8th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
Oh Sara, how awful for you. Of course you would be devastated. I couldn’t begin to imagine how bad you must have felt, and still feeling. Hang in there, something has to start going your way soon surely.
Barb.
January 8th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
Oh no Sara
It’s always a huge risk with the freezer. It’s happened twice with me. Power failure of 3 days a few years back and then of course no power after the fires for many days. I can feel your devastation.
I much prefer freezing to other methods of preserving so will preserve with it.
January 8th, 2010 at 11:44 pm
Ah Sara what can i say but bummer with the freezer…such a lot of work wasted.
Have also just read your angry post and not only want to say you go girl but also how very true every thing you wrote was.
I think you and I may have had a discussion about a year ago about us being the strong ones….Did nobody understand that we were more scared than all our friends and family put together.
Anyway just wanted to say Hi and tell you that you wrote it much better than I could but I agree with every word.
Oh and by the way how is the parrot? Lol
xxx
January 9th, 2010 at 12:57 am
You need more hugs.
*heaps more massive hugs*
Emma.
January 9th, 2010 at 6:06 am
Sorry for your loss Sara. It is so frustrating to have all your hard work go down the drain. We have a similar problem to Jarrah with blackouts due to fires, so I really feel for you.
January 9th, 2010 at 8:25 am
I am so sorry! Lordy, that is wretched. I know how upset I get when my freezer dies and my specialty ice cream melts, but vegetables that you have worked so hard on? Hugs for you!
And if you cannot think of a way to dispose of your potatoes, I know someone *cough* who would love to have homegrown potatoes!
And I hope you don’t mind if this dorky college student follows along on your blog, wishing she had a patch of earth behind her building to grow some edible food!
January 9th, 2010 at 9:49 am
Oh what a bummer Sara, I wish I had elderflowers to send you but have not spotted hide nor hair of them in NSW.
I think you’ll just have to tuck into a scotch or two instead.
Wishing you all the best
Cheers
January 9th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
I was thrilled to see you post but gutted by the reason. Very disappointing. I’d be gently caressing every bottle of produce in the larder telling them how much I love them.
January 10th, 2010 at 1:15 am
Sorry to hear about your freezer. It does suck when a simple unintentional action leads to a big problem. But if you haven’t started a compost pile, I guess you could start one now. That is if your neighbors don’t mind the smell at times. That is only good thing I can think of when dealing with produce that goes bad. Hope here’s hoping that your next batches have a much more different fate. One that leads to a plate.
January 10th, 2010 at 7:43 am
Damn and blast Sara! I mean the meat and veg are replaceable if irritating ( not to mention the wasted efforts..grrr) but a source of alcoholic beverages and home made at that to be lost as well…
By the way I did have two cats many years ago..one of whom turned off my freezer while I was on holidays ..unless we had some very malicious spiders or cockroaches!So I would blame a cat!
Hugs ..
January 11th, 2010 at 10:24 am
A scotch or two? How about a scotch or five!
Poor Sara.
January 11th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Damn and blast.. I know how you feel when blood sweat and tears are wasted.
*Hugs*
January 11th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Oh God, Sara, how heartbreaking!!
What a blow. I would cry buckets if that happened to me, too. My freezer is worth it’s weight in gold.
I really hope you are learning how to make gin from all those potatoes now.
Hugs.
January 13th, 2010 at 11:17 am
i know this is kinda cliche but “its always darkest before the dawn” -_- that probably didn’t even help. its almost as bad as your whole garden has not been whipped out by frost. :’( oh the joys of Canada. i managed to save my roses. but that’s all.
I’m sure by next year all will be well, so don’t fret.
you have a lot of love and support around you. 
*hugs*
January 13th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Dear Sara,
I’ve only just come across here after doing a bit of research, and I should definitely get the I love your work gushing out of the way straight up, so: I love your work.
I read your previous post and what bothered me the most about all the guilt trips these people seemed intent on sending you on is that they’re all on about trying to tell you how you shape your reality and being positive will heal you and all that prattle. I’m all for positive thinking, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t help but feel the fundamental flaw in all their proselytising is that in trying to tell you to shape your own reality they’re all just trying to get you to do it on their terms, particularly if they’ve got a product right behind it they’re just waiting to sell you.
Blech. I just wanted to say that reading your work is a pleasure, but reading that post…I really respected it. Standing up for your right to fear, in these circumstances, while people are trying to puke rainbows on you…my thoughts are with you. <3
January 14th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Hugs Sara
My five year old fridge freezer blew up again this Christmas and I was mighty pissed off. I can only imagine a fraction of what you must feel.
The builders will just have to eat the potatoes. I have a potatoe cookbook I could send to you.
Love
April 16th, 2010 at 10:35 am
Hi Sara,
A reply to your “Angry Post” as I couldn’t leave a comment after the actual post.I have been a fan of Nonsuch Project since you were a member of GE although I have never commented before.
In December 2007 my mum (61yo) was diagnosed with Non Hodgkins Lymphoma stage 4. We have been dealing with it since then and it has now come to the end stageof the illness which has caused a lot of other problems with heart and lungs. In Spetember 2009 my father in law (63yo) was diagnosed with stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer with a prognosis of between 3 months and 18 months.Sadly he lost his battle on Easter Saturday a couple of weeks ago.
What you wrote in your post hit the nail on the head both for the person suffering the illness and those closest to them.I often found myself sobbing in the car after seeing both mum and my FIL because I was told “don’t let them see you cry” “it’s not good for them”.I was never cheery but I also never cried in front of him. Now I have guilt thinking “did my father in law know that we cared”, that we were devastated when we heard the news, that I would go to bed every night thinking “how he must be feeling knowing he doesn’t have long to live”. I never cried in front of him because I stupidly listened to people. If I had he may have also let out his fears.
Mum lets it out through anger and frustration. She was always the one who was there helping everyone else so now having to totally depend on everyone else is depressing her. Luckily we have a great extended family of aunts, uncles, cousins who are understanding of the situation and are there to listen to her and tell her it is okay to feel like this. The doctors have told us that others in mum’s position have not lived to the point she is at, that she is a fighter and that her anger to her situation has actually made her keep going.
Thank you for your post and keep well. You are an amazing person.
Clairy