Just as well that I announced last time that I will blog less frequently - I wouldn't have had the strength to write this post sooner anyway. I'm not sure I'm ready for it now.
A couple of days after my last post I received the devastating news from my father back in Hungary that my mother had had a massive stroke. The doctors didn't give him any hope that she would survive. She died three days later never having regained consciousness. It came out of the blue - she was in generally good health, but she did have high blood pressure and had stopped taking her medication because of the side effects. I spoke to the whole family over Zoom on Christmas Eve and she seemed fine. They even went on a nature trail during the holidays and there were no warning signs. She was 75 years old. Her mother died of a stroke at around the same age as well, as did my other grandmother, so I'm probably genetically predisposed myself.
A few days later I ended up in A&E too with very high blood pressure, literally off the charts - no doubt caused by the stress. I wasn't unwell just very panicky so the out-of-hours GP sent me in at 2 am. I'm on medication now and my BP has come down but it's still higher than normal. Because of this ongoing health concern on top of the escalating Covid situation on the Continent, I can't go back for the funeral. I'll see my family some time in the Spring/Summer instead, when hopefully things will have normalised.
Here's a photo of me with my mum in summer 1988 - ready for my first day at work. She worked in the same business park, so we caught the bus together. I remember that day as if it was yesterday.
While all this was going on, I still kept making art and posting on Instagram - frankly, that's what kept me going. I didn't make any public announcements, just carried on as normal. I don't like drama and attention - keeping busy and pretending everything is ok is my coping mechanism.
I did snap a photo of my desk on Monday - after all, it's WOYWW.
Here's a digest of some of the art I made for the January challenges on Instagram...
- a series I'm doing on corrugated cardboard for the #happyyouin22 challenge:
- a couple of journal pages for the #creativeunfold2022 challenge:
- and this page inspired by Laly Mille's WOTY (Word of the Year) lesson for #artjournalwithlaly:
Originally, my word was 'freedom' because I want to achieve a level of artistic freedom - and I added 'brave' as a sub-word in light of what had happened. Life goes on for those of us left behind.
Hope you're all well. Please take good care of yourselves xx
