An Incubus has visited

Cancer has become this house.

I have thrown the windows wide. These dark dank demons who have eaten our peace. Who have drawn the air from our lungs and sucked the pleasure from the little everydayness of our dull lifes. The shedim must leave this house.


mazziḳim, lilin and tilane.


Demons of the dark and the evening. The demons who harm and hurt.

An incubus has fathered this tumour that makes us cry and twist and despair.

The news from the Consultant yesterday was poor. Mum cried. She went to see her sister and was bathed in her tears (auntie Margaret is a determined weeper and wailer). She visited her remaining brother who nodded, bowed and went silent (Unce Iain is a determined raconteur, a man of laughter and then some).

And then she came to this house and my brother arrived fresh from his ward rounds and she washed dishes and laughed at Jamie’s poor jokes and smiled and said Oh well. And insisted she pay (too much) for the takeaway which was delivered because none of us adults had the energy or the ability to make a meal (who can think of food when the soul is sickening and an incubus has fathered the tumour that forces us to stare so long and hard at life and living and what it means to be alive).

She has refused any surgery until she has her holiday. She wants to have her July month. Palma with my wee ones for two weeks then Almoradi with the rest of us for the remainder.

My brother tried to insist she let him phone the Consultant (a man he knows). But my Mother can be determined and she said no.

As for me – I have gone into a self-regarding little mess. Feeling intense and ugly anger and rage and self-pity. And am at home unable to face the demands of work. The truth of the cliche revealed in all its mean glory. That there are more important things…


We must and we will recover from this.