“Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me“

byMark175

194 followers

Updated 5 years ago

This is a short posting but, I hope you'll appreciate, it is very much from the heart.

My beloved mother, Grace, passed away at home at 07:30 on Wednesday morning with just me holding her hand and talking to her through a veil of tears as she faded. Now pain-free from the terminal cancer that engulfed her, as ever thinking of others without ever complaining about her condition - she is now at rest.

The one constant of unequivocal love and support in my life is gone. I am bereft.

Not an easy few months

Without dwelling on the sheer awfulness of watching, powerlessly, as someone cherished deteriorates, I can only marvel at my mother's stoicism.

Whilst attending the oncologist's clinic in January, when he gave her the inoperable diagnosis that neither chemo- nor radiotherapy would alleviate and the prognosis that she would have six months' maximum to live, her brave, unfazed, reply was, "These things happen."

It was at the beginning of her suffering, when something was clearly wrong and serious, that I stopped what I was doing professionally (as a corporate strategic development consultant) and decided to devote myself to initially getting my mother back to health. Then, when that was not possible, I continued with the determination that both her dignity and wish to remain at home would be respected.

Wealthy Affiliate - a useful distraction

In the increasing periods of her fatigue and continuous bed rest, I had some time to myself. It was during these intervals that I discovered Wealthy Affiliate and managed to work on it to the small hours of many nights, such that I learnt a lot about the affiliate marketing process.

This distraction provided something of a welcome release to concentrate on. Naturally though, my first priority lay elsewhere. Nonetheless, the bite-sized breakdown of the training programs provided retainable information plus useful actions to reinforce the learning and commence building a website. The helpful community that is the Wealthy Affiliate membership and support team was also of great benefit in this learning process.

So maybe the kernel of something useful has been discovered during a desolate time.

I hope that I have inherited some of my dear mother's virtues, of which there were many. Indeed, any future success that I may enjoy I must put down to the life skills she endeavoured to pass on to me, including resolve and a polite, measured, mannerliness, that are all too absent in these troubled times. A true example of Grace by name and grace by nature.

Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found
T'was blind but now I see

T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear
And Grace, my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed

Through many dangers, toils and snares
We have already come.
T'was grace that brought us safe thus far
And grace will lead us home,
And grace will lead us home

Amazing Grace, Howe Sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now am found
T'was blind but now I see

Was blind, but now I see.

Hymn by English poet and clergyman John Newton, first published in 1779