What a tough week!

The past week was fairly exhausting, apart from the whole swimming thing where I never realised just how unfit I was, but I perservered for 3 days and I'm hoping the motivation will still be there next week. Caitlyn actually loves the "new school" as she calls it which is the creche they have there for when you go to the gym or to swim and you can leave your child for 2 hours with them, or actually I think she loves the fact that she gets to take her lunchbox with her and sit at the little table having whatever I packed for her. This swimming / creche concept is great. It gives us both a chance to get out of the house.

So apart from the swimming which was exhausting, I must say that it has been a fairly sad and perhaps emotionally draining week for me this week. It wasn't because of anything we are dealing with, but what so many others are / have been going through.

First little Aisling who despite my non-stop prayers that she would be found, was found, but unfortunately passed away. I cannot even begin to imagine what her parents and her big sister and extended family must be going through. It must be like living in their worst nightmare which you just don't wake up from. A nightmare that started in a moment, one fleeting, brief moment and won't stop. It just keeps going.

Then I learned that one of the girls who was with me at school passed away probably around 4 years ago and I was incredibly shocked to learn that she was shot and killed by armed robbers who broke into her house. She had a little boy at the time who is now living with her mom. I know that this is a reality for so many in South Africa, because let's face it crime in South Africa often walks hand in hand with violence and all too many people are highjacked, raped, killed and tortured. I've often wondered how many children have witnessed their moms, daughters and sisters being raped and their family tortured and gunned down right in front of their eyes. I often wonder whether these kids will ever learn to cope with these kind of things and whether they will grow up being really really angry adults. Yes, yes, I'm probably going to have so many South Africans shouting at me right now for acknowledging that things are far from great in South Africa, but life there can be scary and for many people life is very scary living there. But in saying that many people say they are very happy there, many people say they feel very safe despite having burglar bars and security gates and electric fencing and that is fine. So even though I know that this girl became a statistic, it didn't change my shock and horror to learn that this was the way she had to die, that she'll never get to see her little boy reach any of his milestones and grow up and this little boy is now growing up without his mom and effectively won't really ever know her. That is so incredibly tragic and sad.

Then just yesterday I learned that another boy who was with me in high school committed suicide. I don't know when, but once again, it doesn't change how sad and tragic it is. That he had to feel so desperate that the only solution he could come up with was to take his own life. I don't know the circumstances, but wow, that is so incredibly sad.

I learned that Christopher's cancer came back. I have been following their journey for some time now and I feel so incredibly sad for them that they are yet again having to walk this path again. I can't even imagine the frustration, the sadness, the fear, the exhaustion that they must be feeling right now.

And then my blogging buddy Sharon, she's been trying for 8 long years to have a baby, she's had countless tests and procedures and they have just recently started her FET and at first it really seemed to go well, her counts were good, things were going according to plan until yesterday when she learned her counts started coming down a bit. She has another test on Saturday to see what is happening. I can't even imagine the rollercoaster ride that she is on. To ache for something that to many seem so basic, so "taken-for-granted" and each time it seems so close, just to be whisked away faster than she can blink. I have been praying so incredibly hard for her and I ask that you will keep her in your prayers and thoughts too.

This was a tough week, a sad week and I wish that things were so very different and so much happier and less stressful for these people and so many others who are going through a particularly tough time at the moment.