My name is Susan,
a.k.a. Steph’s Mum. I thought it would be easy to put together a couple of
hundred words about Stephanie from a mum’s eye view. This has proved to be much
more difficult than I had anticipated.
As I am sure any
mum will agree, all you want to do is protect your child and make it better. It
doesn’t take long to realise that there is little you can do and that feeling
of helplessness can be overwhelming. However, wringing hands is not really of very
much help nor is it very practical. As with the growing-up milestones:
first day at school; first school trip; first solo car drive and so on
…. it has been very hard to let go and
allow Stephanie to cope in her way, not mine.
Naturally, she does have absolutely crucial support from Alex.
Naturally, she does have absolutely crucial support from Alex.
Support is also a
difficult area – how much and when? I have been struck with how caring and
helpful strangers can be. We are supposed to be living in a more uncaring
society than the ‘good old days’. I must beg to differ. One of the occasions
that comes to mind and exemplifies the complete opposite was when Stephanie and
I were travelling to Sarah’s (her sister's) Hen Party.
As part of the
journey, we had to travel from East Croydon to Victoria on a Saturday, at about
midday. As I have been a country bumpkin for a number of years, I had forgotten
how crammed the trains become! We pushed our way on to a train. Stephanie
couldn’t really stand, but we had nowhere to go. A senior citizen tapped my
arm. His wife had perched herself onto the table between 2 sets of seats so her
husband could ‘budge up’ and Stephanie perch herself on the edge of the bench
seat. All done with little ceremony.
Have I found the
last few years been hard? Of course, but what has struck me particularly is the
resilience of the human spirit. If Stephanie and Alex can face the bumps in the
road with a we will just get on it attitude, so can I!!
