Imagine it were your last day on Earth… What would you do?

It was the 19^th of March, 2020.

The handyman was a few metres away from me, fixing my blinds.

And that was when I said it: “I feel like I’m going to die soon.”

It was the weirdest thing.

I felt overwhelmed by a very uncanny premonition. I had never before experienced anything like it.

I had not long quit my job. It was the right decision.

Despite all the uncertainty around me, I was covered by an indescribable peace.

I also felt weirdly unbothered about the future. Not worried at all. Just knew that everything was going to work out right – even though it was a very strange time to be so certain about that.

And then came this weird sensation. I felt a presence around me, thick in the air.

And I said out loud: “I feel like I’m gonna die soon.”

I knew it was weird. I felt weird and the sentence I had strung together sounded very strange to me. I apologised to the handyman, whom I had been chatting with on and off as I went about my business and he did his work. And I walked out of the room.

And I had a chat with God. Not out loud, I don’t think it was. And I started to cry.

I felt from that moment that I was going to come very close to death, very soon.

I had no idea what was going to come next.

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After the handyman left, I went out to the corner shop to get some milk. I am a careful driver anyway, but I all of a sudden felt extremely cautious as I steered through the neighbouring roads. I thought, Perhaps someone is going to knock me over in their car?

There were actually a few moments on the journey there and back that car drivers nearly did not see me, but driving is a risky business, and I have actually been in much closer near-death experiences on the road and on the motorway. I figured I wasn’t going to die in a car accident around my house as I got my milk after all.

But as I walked to my car after purchasing my blue bottle, I started to feel very odd. Dozy. Dizzy. Bit out of it. I thought that was strange, but this was a day on which I had quit my job and had become overcome with the presentiment of dying soon, so that didn’t seem like the strangest thing to happen in the last few hours.

In the three minutes that followed, I realised I was probably quite ill. I began to feel extremely dizzy, and climbed into bed not long after. In the time I was between the covers, my temperature soared blindingly quickly. Before I knew it, even in my light clothing, I was dripping with sweat.

Ah, I thought. I probably have the coronavirus.

This wasn’t such an unlikely possibility, considering two colleagues at my workplace had been sent home the week prior, with suspected coronavirus, and I had sat next to one of them a few days before that, training her on something. I didn’t know at the time that she had contracted the virus. Neither did she.

I didn’t worry, despite the likelihood. I just went to the NHS website and checked to see what I should be doing to combat the virus, and to verify that the symptoms I was experiencing were indeed related to Covid-19.

It was then that I discovered that I was actually now in the high-risk category. As someone that already has an existing long-term condition, I was more likely to suffer seriously from Covid-19.

Ah well, I discovered that a bit late! I had been taking sensible precautions: washing my hands for 20 seconds and standing far enough apart from people, as we had all been advised to do, but before now, the guidelines had been different, and I hadn’t seen myself as at any especial risk.

Looking back now… I realise that I had not factored into the equation an infection that specialists have been trying to help me fight for months – which is still being treated.  A later discovery revealed that I had also probably been carrying and living with another serious infection for about a month before I even contracted Covid-19. So, these things in addition to the long-term condition I already have, meant my body was not ready to handle a virus of this magnitude.

It didn’t take long for me to realise that the presentiment I had sensed was probably to do with Covid-19.

Over the next few hours, I did everything I could to try and alleviate my pain, which was immense. Consider that I already live with chronic pain. This virus made everything about 100x worse. That is no exaggeration.

In those hours, I had a long chat with God. And I cried, a lot. 

I eventually came to a place where I had accepted that I was going to die soon. The sadness only came from thinking of my young brothers and my mum, whom I would leave behind. The peace came from knowing that I knew where I would go, and that I would be reunited with family and friends who had died, and see my Heavenly Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit – the Triune God - face to face, and LIVE WITH NO PAIN!!

The next few days are a bit of a blur. Everything happened so quickly.

Although my temperature did not remain at an all-time high all the time, other symptoms quickly appeared and started to get in the driving seat of my body. Within a few hours of me realising I had contracted the virus, my breathing started to get more and more laboured. My spine hurt. It felt as though the virus had taken over my air passageway, and was creeping further and further down my spinal cord.

I only told a few people at first. I didn’t want people to worry. I later changed my mind: the thought that people might not be taking the government guidelines seriously – and could potentially be spreading this deadly virus around – filled me with horror.

As the illness quickened its takeover of my body, I made sure to reply to every open message I could see, and tell everyone I was in contact with that I loved them. Not that saying "Love you" is at all uncommon for me; the frequency and urgency just increased. It may not have made much sense to my friends and family at the time.

 As the day wore on, though my symptoms got worse and worse, I had resolved with myself not to call the ambulance. After all, I believed that my time was coming, so didn’t see how calling the ambulance would help or change anything. I also firmly believed that it was much more important for someone that didn’t know Jesus to go to the hospital to get help to stay alive, than it was for me.

I should explain some things about myself. I have seen a lot of death, come very close to me, since the age of ten. My own father passed away when I was thirteen, and I have continued to be very close to a lot of people dying. For a number of years, I have been ever-aware of my mortality, and thus, it is an entirely normal thing for me to think, as I prepare for bed,

“What would people say about me if I were to die tomorrow?” 

Some people die – and the people with whom they interacted have very little good to say about them. I don’t want to be one of those people. I want to be someone who people remember as having loved well, laughed hard and made the world a better place, just by being herself. And the person that enables me to do that is God. Well, God in three Persons.

It is because of my relationship with Jesus Christ that I felt this indescribable peace as my breathing progressively deteriorated. It is also because of Jesus, that in this time, I started frantically rushing around to tell people about Jesus.

You see, when you are so ill and have already had a premonition that you are going to die soon, a few things become blindingly clear. I became impressed with an impervious sense of urgency.

It may seem crazy to you, but as my temperature soared and my face turned red and sweat dripped down my face – my overwhelming concern was that the neighbours in my building that I had not yet spoken to, needed to know about Jesus. I knew Him, and knew that if I were to die, I would be with Him. But I could not be sure that I had given them the answer that would make a way for them to know the peace that surpasses all understanding.

So at a time when most “normal” people would ring the ambulance, I spent time composing this, and placed it on the entrance to my building. I was literally gasping for air as I wrote this, and my temperature was probably at around 42 degrees Celsius, at a guess. My handwriting kind of shows that I was feverish.

Although in my head I had decided I would not ring the emergency services, late that night it became clear that the situation had gotten a lot worse – and my supposed impending death was taking a lot longer than I had foreseen. Where I had imagined I would die peacefully in my sleep, I found I was in so much pain that I could not sleep, and that my struggle breathing made the lying awake even more unpleasant. If my death was going to come, I would rather have some help in feeling less agony when it did take place! So I asked my friend to ring the ambulance for me: remember, I no longer had a voice.

That night, the emergency services were exceedingly busy, as you can imagine. I waited for HOURS. Finally, I accepted that the paramedics were not going to come in time. My breathing was so bad that my friend later told me she thought I was going to die that night. So did I! At one point, it felt as though I had a centimetre left of my air passageway to breathe from. When I tell you, I thought I was minutes away from Heaven, I kid you not.

And then, suddenly, it was as though my lungs slowly started filling with air. I can only describe it as a miracle. I KNOW it was a miracle. There were a lot of people praying with me.

I had two paramedic visits after that incident, and the second paramedic told me that: the way that I had been breathing… it doesn’t get better from there on out. Well, it did! And without help from emergency services – because they hadn’t made it to me yet. So, take from that what you will.

Even though I survived that night, the journey had barely begun. Over the next few days and weeks, I would experience severe pain, feel my body fill up with salt to the extent that I actually had visible salt granules on my tongue… I won’t show you the pictures but my face and lips did turn a combination of blue and purple. NHS clinicians decided that it would be best not to take me into hospital, because my immune system was so weak at that point that I probably would easily have caught something else from other patients that would further worsen my state. I forget that even several weeks on, I am still in recovery: although no longer contagious – my body still hasn’t adjusted from going through that nightmare.

There were points when, though thankful to God for bringing me through, I wondered why He had kept me alive – only for me to live life as a vegetable. I was unable to do the simplest things for myself – and living alone, there was no one else to do them for me (although I did get lots of help from people dropping things off for me that I needed!). There were days that I was so weak that it took me a good two hours to get out of bed to even make myself breakfast! And of course, when your body is fighting infection, you need to eat!

We’re talking about someone that had literally packed up their bags in preparation for Heaven. I didn’t see for a number of days why God hadn’t just let me die. After all, I knew that where I was going there would be no pain! Instead, He had kept me alive (great) to keep me in indescribable pain (not so great). I was definitely not suicidal, but I really struggled to see the point of my life at this point.

That’s when I called on my friends for encouragement. I literally didn’t see what else I had to do here. (Yes, I would have liked to get married and have kids, but I think Heaven is better than all of that, so there.) They helped me get to a turning point where I decided that God still had more plans for me down here – and the crux of that was, I needed to tell more people about this Jesus. The Jesus that does miracles. The Jesus that gives you peace when it doesn’t make sense.

It isn’t a secret that I’m a Jesus follower. Jesus addict, as I like to say. But going through the mill has taken me to a whole new level of telling people about Him! I literally wouldn’t let the paramedics leave until I told them about Jesus, haha!

God gave me a revelation a few years back, which has forever changed the way I see this.

Imagine, you are a seismologist. You study the patterns of the Earth’s vibrations, and help foresee earthquakes so that you can get people to safety before their worlds cave in. Well, the seismologist has information that can save people’s lives! Can you imagine being a seismologist that KNOWS when an earthquake is coming, and knows exactly how far out residents of the affected areas need to be in order to escape its wrath… AND DOESN’T TELL ANYONE?!

I reckon you have a few words for a person like that. “Selfish” would probably be one, right?

Or, here’s a more topical analogy. You are a virologist and have the cure for the coronavirus, but decide you will guard it with your life – only administering the life-saving treatment on yourself and your family, but keeping it a secret from everyone else. Ummmm….

Jesus has changed my life. He has saved me from spiritual death, and now has also given me a new lease of natural life. I can’t think of anything more important to share with you.

Imagine you knew it were your last day on Earth. What would change about your today? Would you love people around you a little more? Would you reverse some decisions you took yesterday?

Would you feel peace because you knew exactly where you were going when your breath expires?

On Being 'Differently Abled'...

I started writing this blog post way back in July, whilst sitting on a bed in Spain at 6am. I’ve only recently managed to finish it. Why was I writing at 6am, you ask? Because I couldn’t sleep. Why couldn’t I sleep?

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What is a ‘disability’ though, really?

                It’s only lately that I’ve felt strong enough to come out and openly talk about something that changed my life nearly four years ago – though it has actually had an impact on my life for longer – more on that later.

                In February 2014 I was diagnosed with a chronic muscular pain condition called fibromyalgia. It took a long time for the specialists to finally ascertain what I had, but the reality is that I’d had symptoms of this condition for many years.

                I’m not writing this post for sympathy. I would rather people didn’t know I had fibro to be honest, but I’ve realised that there are too many of us suffering in silence whilst pretending to be like everyone else or pretending that being ‘differently abled’ isn’t really as hard as it actually is… So I’m writing this for the other people out there that are ‘differently abled’. And maybe for others too, to understand what this is like.

                Why am I saying “differently abled”? Because that’s what I am. Even before I was diagnosed with fibro I hated that word, ‘disabled’. Dis-abled. UNable to do things. It suggests that people with conditions that limit them physically or mentally are incapable and incompetent. I beg to differ, and I have always begged to differ. 

“DIFFERENTLY” ABLED… NOT DIS-ABLED!

                I feel the Paralympics and other para-sport events remind the world every now and again what people that suffer from physical or intellectual impairments are truly capable of if they are allowed to shine. I speak as someone that has loved, followed and trained in athletics for several years: I have more respect for so-called “disabled” athletes than I do for able-bodied stars, though I do love my Usain Bolts, Mo Farahs and Jess Ennis-Hills. The determination and steadfastness that is required to compete in a sport like athletics is crazy. It gets even crazier when you want to be the very best and stay at the top. And then it becomes crazier still if you want to do the two former in addition to having a seriously debilitating condition which makes things x times more difficult.

                It’s crazy hard, but it’s possible. It’s just possible in a different way to what it is if your body and your brain work as they’re supposed to. If you have some type of handicap, you are not DISabled from being eligible, you are simply DIFFERENTLY equipped for the task. Equipped with less, sure, but still equipped nevertheless. You just have to do things in a different way.

                Personally I prefer the word that people used to use to describe people with ‘disabilities’: ‘handicapped’. It denoted that such individuals were limited in their abilities to do certain things, but did not rule out the possibility of them doing these activities.

                I’ve long been an advocate of people with ‘disabilities’. Side note: I do hate using that word, but until another word becomes available in the English dictionary I guess I’ll just have to use it! Based on that conclusion, I’ll stop putting it inverted commas from here on out – but that doesn’t mean I agree with the term! Siding with people that fall into that bracket just seems like the perfectly obvious thing to do as a human being! I believe people only become discriminatory towards people with disabilities when they begin to see them as less than people – and there’s no doubt in my mind that the language used to describe them plays a part in giving shape to this reprehensible mindset that some people seem to have.

                As a linguist it’s no surprise that I see the language we use as very significant in shaping our thought process, but really if you think about it, it does make sense. Think back to the days of outright and very nasty racism (I’d like to think things have improved, but we all know racism is alive and well – even if it is generally not as in-your-face as it used to be…) when people would regularly refer to black people as “monkeys” and “baboons”. Of course it helped justify racists’ treatment of them: if these human beings were represented in people’s minds as mere animals with no intellectual capacity, it became easier to rationalise treating them with no dignity – though, let’s be honest, in a lot of countries black people were treated A LOT worse than dogs. The same goes for this: ableist people (that’s the word we use to describe people who are discriminatory towards “disabled” people) often use: ‘You can’t do anything, you’d be better off dead’ as their rationale for scorning people with disabilities and denying them time and time again their basic human rights.

                You don’t need to look very far to see how badly disabled people are generally treated in daily life. Watch a documentary on someone with a life-threatening or life-changing condition which makes them visibly different to others and you don’t have to wait long before the sufferer talks about how they are often stared at, pointed at and maybe even spat at in public. You can read stories of how people have been denied access to toilets and so many other services simply on the basis that they look different. You see how people will assume they can’t do a lot of things without even asking them first.

 My Case

                That isn’t me.

                Fibromyalgia, the condition I have, isn’t a visible condition. You wouldn’t know I had it unless I told you. In fact, until not so long ago only a handful of my friends knew I had it. There are benefits and downsides to having a condition which is invisible. The benefit is I can generally pass as “being like everyone else”, and the downside is “I appear to be like everyone else”. Do you see, it’s a double-edged sword. People not knowing about my condition means I don’t have to face frequent and outright discrimination in public, which I no doubt would if I were in a wheelchair. It also means that when I go to an interview, no-one will assume that I’ll be unable to carry out my work and decline to give me a job as a result – because they simply won’t guess that there’s anything wrong with me.

                But it does mean that when the metro is full I have to stand, like everyone else, until a seat becomes available, because no-one will know that my feet hurt from standing. It also means that no-one will give up their seat for me in the way they would move to make space for someone in a wheelchair (as most decent people would).  I remember once when we were on the bus in Marseille and some old people came in. My family and I all had seats, but a couple of these men said that my brothers should get up because they were young and could stand. From looking at me, you might quite reasonably assume that I am young, fit and healthy and so should quite rightly stand and give my seat to someone older if the occasion arose. On this occasion my brothers got up and we found some seats elsewhere, at the back of the bus, but I do remember thinking on that day, what if that had been me? What if one day an OAP asks me to get up, or expects me to get up so they can sit down? I always move when I can, to sit elsewhere, because I respect the older generation and I like to make things easier for people whenever possible. But if there are no seats free and I know I will have to stand on my feet for another 20 minutes if I give my seat to this hypothetical individual (because this is all hypothetically speaking), would I be able to do that?

                OK, let me explain a little about fibromyalgia is and what it does to you.

                I’ve been having symptoms of fibro since I was nine in fact, but I only got diagnosed with it when I was eighteen. The symptoms I experienced for nine years were sharp, “shock” pains. They would run through my body at entirely unexpected times and they were – and ARE – excruciating. They were mostly intermittent, meaning I would get maybe one here and then another there over the course of a day – but sometimes I might have a series of them for up to half an hour, running through either one block of my body or just all over. They were – and ARE – horrible, and though I went to the GP on a few occasions as a child to get them checked out, the doctors simply didn’t understand what was going on. Eventually I just came to accept that I was going to have to live with this strange and bizarre pain that would shoot through my body and make me twitch and sometimes scream and wince in pain. They were the worst at school: you can’t just scream aloud in class, can you? And nobody could see what I could feel, so I would try and hide it. Sometimes people noticed, like when my leg suddenly moved as if from a spasm when I was sitting down. But most of the time I could cover it. I would just close my eyes extremely tightly together and pray for the pain to go away because I knew I couldn’t scream. People would think I was crazy.

                It was only at home that “my secret was known”, if you like. If I screamed I could explain it away the moment after by saying “I just had a shock”.

                We tried everything, trying to change my diet so that I would have more Vitamin D, taking supplements, drinking more water, nothing helped. The shocks have been part of my life for over a decade. I remember one thing that frustrated me was how everyone seemed to think they had the answer without having a clue. I recall one girl at school telling me with certainty that the pains I was experiencing were period pains, no matter how much I told her the contrary.

                That’s another thing: people that suffer from fibromyalgia frequently have horrible period pains. I know I do. It makes sense that sufferers of fibro tend to have really bad period pains, really. Fibro is a muscular condition that affects every muscle in the body, and sufferers often fall victim to other related medical conditions. It was a couple of months into starting my degree at Oxford that I started to experience its full-blown effects. (As a side note: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the intensifying of my symptoms occurred a matter of weeks into me starting at Oxford. You can read my series “Reflections on Oxford” series here.)

Living with Fibromyalgia

                It seems fibromyalgia is most common with women between ages 20-30, but it does affect men and those in other age groups too. Singer Lady Gaga and actor Morgan Freeman have both publicly come out and talked about living with the condition. I have, since I was diagnosed, met quite a few people who suffer from it.

                Fibromyalgia is a muscular disorder that leaves you in constant pain. Yes, I do mean that. I’ve spoken to quite a few friends who can’t understand how I can be in constant pain and still function. The pain is everywhere, but especially in my forearms, lower legs, and hands. On bad days (days when I have a flare-up and the symptoms become inflamed), the pain gets probably about five times worse than usual. This means my head is in awful pain, my back (gosh, everywhere!)… On those days I can barely walk or even stand. And if I manage to do either you can tell there’s something up with me.

                The intense, throbbing pain is especially worse when I’m in contact with anything. Which is, all the time, of course, as I can’t just hold myself in the air! So sitting down, standing up, lying down, kneeling… They’re all painful.

                Fatigue is also a major symptom of fibromyalgia. That means I’m tired all the time. If I don’t get enough sleep, I’m likely to have a flare-up the next day, which will affect my ability to achieve what I want to in a given day. Funny thing though, is, although I’m always tired, sleep disturbance is another major thing you have to deal with when you have fibromyalgia! So often I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t sleep, even though I’m SUPER tired!! It’s very annoying.

                Some people use medication to cope with fibromyalgia. I don’t, because nothing has ever worked for me.  The strong medication I’ve been prescribed has either had no effect, or has made me feel super sleepy! (Not helpful!)

                Not much is known about fibromyalgia. Even though I was treated (given a personal physiotherapist and more) at one of the best orthopaedic clinics in the country, the best explanation I could get for why my body behaves this way is that I process pain in a different way, and in some people the pain receptors in the brain are more sensitive than in others. Thanks. (If any of my medic friends wants to do a thesis looking into possible causes of and remedies for fibromyalgia, be my guest!)

                I’ve become a lot better about telling people about my pain and being real about my limitations. When I first got diagnosed, I hated the lack of control I had and found it really hard to accept the limitations that this label and condition confined me too. Now I’ve realised that actually, not accepting this only makes things worse. It pushes my body into overdrive, and it’s not fair to not inform people that I work with that there are certain things that I just can’t do.

                Here are some examples of things that I find annoying and frankly, embarrassing – that fibromyalgia has done to change me and what I can do. Something as simple as opening a jar or a bottle is actually extremely painful. The pain is really bad in my hands, so whenever I have to clench my hands, I’m putting myself into extreme pain. (Or as the case may be, sometimes other people unintentionally put me into a lot of pain. A very firm handshake, for example, leaves my hand burning for the next two minutes.) That doesn’t mean I never open a bottle or clench my fist around a doorknob, but it does make those things harder. Sometimes I do ask someone else to do something like a new jar for me, because it’s just too painful. Especially on a day I’m having a flare-up. I love how people don’t berate me for asking their help with those things, but simply help with no qualms.

                Even until very recently, I didn’t tell members of my own family about the gravity of the condition I have, because I didn’t want to admit to how weak that could sometimes make me. I’m starting to be more honest about the fibromyalgia, and I think the transparency is only helping me.

                That said, I don’t tell everyone I meet that I have fibro. I like to be “like everyone else” sometimes, you know? I don’t feel everyone I spend a little time with needs to know what I have. The lifestyle that I currently lead is making that a bit difficult though: I’m touring Europe with a Christian drama company and we’re constantly on the move. As much as I’m enjoying it, packing up so often and spending extended periods of time with people can be quite tiring, and though I just usually say “I’m feeling tired” by way of an excuse to get some rest, that doesn’t quite sum up what it feels like for your whole head to be pounding and your legs to be screaming out and your body saying “Sleep! I need sleep!”

ABLE

                I wanted to write this post to make others that suffer in silence or feel inadequate because they have some sort of physical limitation, feel that they are not alone, and be reminded of their worth.  Also, I guess I wanted people to become more aware of fibromyalgia and to start to question our discourse on disability.

                Some people would call fibromyalgia a disability. I guess technically it could be defined as such, but I don’t like to put myself in that box, because as I’ve already said, I don’t like the word “disabled”. I also don’t think I can use language that sees me as having as many limitations as someone that is paralysed and in a wheelchair etc… I definitely have limitations and I guess the condition I have does influence my quality of life, but there are still lots of things that I am able to do that someone in a wheelchair cannot.

                That said, someone in a wheelchair can still have great quality of life – ask them! Life is what you make it, and I have decided that I’m not going to let fibromyalgia define me. I do like to show it who’s boss as often as I possibly can.

                I finished a degree, am now touring across Europe with a Christian drama company, have lived in four different countries, still pursue all my interests… Including athletics! Experts actually do recommend that those living with fibromyalgia do regular exercise to relieve muscle tension. It’s a double-edged sword though, because sometimes my body is too tired and I’m in too much pain to do exercise! Of course everything hurts, but if I simply thought to myself, “I’m in pain, I can’t do anything”, I WOULD LITERALLY NEVER DO ANYTHING. Welcome to being in pain all the time.

                However, over-exertion and stress do make fibromyalgia worse, so I have learnt to “pace” myself. That means when I know I need to stop, I have to be honest with myself and everyone around me and STOP.

                As a Christian I do believe in healing, but there’s no doubt that fibromyalgia has been a tough pill for me to swallow, and there are times when I’ve lost my ability to have faith that this condition will ever be a thing of the past. God is well capable of healing me, but He may choose not to. In the meantime, I am using every ounce of my being to serve Him and encourage others in a similar position to me that they can do it, too!

                I don’t really have anything more to say, apart from that I need people to know that no-one is DIS-abled. No-one is UNable to do anything. We are humans, we are all able to think and feel… Even someone that is paralysed has that ability. Nobody has the right to undermine anyone else’s quality of life or their worth. I feel an especial connection to the discourse on the “disabled” because I know that some people could look at me, as someone that lives in constant pain, and view my life as a not very fun one – yet I think I show them to be wrong! I’m pretty much always laughing, singing, and living life to the full! Despite the limitations that my body has placed on me.

                Actually wait, I do have something else to say – any “Christians” that go around telling people that have some sort of physical ailment because of some sin they have committed, PLEASE STOP. That is one of the worst things you can tell someone. We live in a broken world, and yes, sickness is a product of that, but to go around telling sick people that it is their fault they suffer in this way is not loving (and most likely not true!).

                To all of my readers who may be battling a debilitating physical condition, whatever it may be – visible or invisible – and/or the depression that is prone to come with it, know that YOU ARE LOVED, and you have so much to offer to society. You are strong, you are valued, and you are capable.

If you don’t suffer from a physical condition, good for you (I'm happy for you). Don’t forget how privileged you are in this regard. You have no idea how much I would give after four years of permanent pain (and lots before that) to just have two minutes of no pain. But even if I don’t get that, I will happily use my todays to give others hope for tomorrow. Don’t underestimate the power that you have to love people that society undervalues and remind them of their value and worth.

" You Are Loved".

All my love,

Ruth xxx