I have never been a stranger to death, watching as many people I loved and cared for have passed away. Even at times striving for my own death. One death, just over a week ago, made me analyse and think seriously about the most precious thing we all have, and will only once - life.

Life is a war, a battle in which we are pitted against destiny, against a fate which is impossible to beat, a future which is imminent. It's a constant struggle full of battles and defeats, which in the end we will all lose. At least that's the way I'm sure many people see life, and also the way I used to perceive it.

In some battles, most, I was defeated; knocked from my feet, thrown to the ground, trampled, pushed off course and left feeling hopeless and reluctant to go on. No matter how battered and broken, I always managed to find a strength inside myself which nobody could ever completely destroy. I somehow was able to pick myself up, to drag my weary body away from the battle only to be confronted by yet another. I re-armed myself, covered the already broken parts and forged ahead into the war. After all, through it all I was battling to win the war which was my life.

I cannot allow myself to be negative about life when I am no longer surrounded by the same negative elements, which often led me into battle and caused me to perceive life in such a way. I made a choice and removed myself from bad situations and am now alive in a new life. I am grateful and proud of myself for having the strength to fight through every one of the battles I have, including one I was victorious over only recently.

And now that I was victorious in the last battle I've found myself in a new war. A better and easier war. This war is set out on new ground, stable ground. I'm no longer fighting to live my life, I'm fighting to live it to the fullest. I no longer need the weapons and strategies I've built up over the past, so now I must put them down, I must learn new strategies for living. What I had and everything I knew is not needed in this new life, so I must put them away forever.

I'll lock them away in a box, store it in my mind, perhaps even forget it as time goes by. Still, for now I'm alert, ready to pull out the weapons I'm skilled in using, fearful that out of nowhere will come another attack. Eventually maybe I will forget the battles I fought, forget the weapons I built and re-built after each defeat and remember only the old war.

This strength I had inside me to continue on through every battle was actually my will to live, my desire to truly live my life and be happy. I never understood what was driving me to go on, when I believed that in the end I would lose the war. All I had to do was gain a new perspective on the war I've been fighting. Perhaps my renewed strength comes from realizing that when the war is over I can still be victorious. I could be defeated, but I could also win. And it's up to me.

My mother was fighting in her own war. She had her own battles not unlike myself, and on she fought. I saw the weapons she built up to fight with and the armor she created to protect herself. Perhaps like me it was all she knew how to do, or maybe I learnt from her a way to be and to survive. Many times I saw her feeling battered and broken, dazed and lost - just as I have in the past. Just as often as I saw her down I watched as she so bravely and defiantly (sometimes stupidly ...) marched on away from the battle ... but still into the war zone.

I wonder if she knew there was a way out ... did she know another world existed? Did she dream of a different life, did she lie at night beside my father and hope for something new? If she did know a more stable war was attainable why then didn't she reach out for it, why hadn't she escaped that war zone? In my heart I know she must have known, just as I had. I'll never know what was holding her back.

Would things have been different for her (and perhaps for me) if she had someone who loved her and could have shown her a better way? I know that it wasn't for another person to change her life but maybe as it was with me, she needed somebody to remind her of that strength she had inside and that it was okay to want to leave. Maybe after so long she felt so trapped she couldn't see the way out, but I wish she could have.

I can't say if my father loved her, I know only the things I saw and heard. Maybe his apologies were sincere and maybe my mother truly believed him. Maybe she really did love him. Maybe she just wanted somebody to love her. I hope she knew that I did.

Now I find myself struggling through a new battle, the same one which my brothers are fighting right now - to face a future and live the rest of our lives without our mother. My father faces a battle of living without a wife, without a woman he may well have loved. My grandmother struggles in her battle of being without her only child, her daughter. Everyone else who knew her fights their own battle of being without a woman who was giving and caring and so strong.

This battle I have no weapons for, I don't know how to fight in this. In the end it's not a battle which has a clear victory or defeat. It's not about winning, it's about surviving without her, which will be a life-long battle for each of us.

Everybody is struggling through their own war. Nobody goes through their life without battles, nobody is victorious in everything they do and they must learn to deal with the defeats. And every single person, in the end no matter how strong and courageous, no matter how much we run or how many new starts we create for ourselves there are no weapons we can build and no armor protective enough to shield us from the final battle. Although we will all lose the final battle, the battle against death, it's our own choice whether we are victorious in the war of life.

Winning the war doesn't come from a way of avoiding death (which none of us can do anyway), but it comes from living through the war accepting our final destiny and using this knowledge to ensure we get through each battle (not necessarily winning or losing it) being able to say "I did the very best I could" and of being proud of that achievement. It makes you happy to be able to do that. It is all too easy to accept the battles and to let the defeats get us down. Knowing you did all you could and that you did the very best is a confidence booster. It's about fighting to make life the best and most fulfilling it can be. The victory comes in being able to look back over the war we fought our battles in and being strong and happy in the belief that it was worth it, that each victory and defeat was not in vain. If you can't say this when the war draws to a close, then you surely have been defeated.

I wonder whether my mother was victorious ... I hope more than anything in the world right now that as my mother lay there, knowing death was close and the war was soon to be over, that she was able to to ask herself that question and answer 'yes'.

I can now fight through my own battles with this renewed confidence and strength, knowing that everything I do is to make myself and the people I care about happy. It's no longer about struggling to live, it's all about living the war the best I can, making myself proud, and at the end of it all asking myself "was it worth it?" I know how easy it is to ensure the answer is yes.

I wish everybody else did too. Because we all have the ability to be victorious in the war. We all have that strength inside to push ourselves to do our best in all we do and to strive for our own happiness and that of those around us. All you have to do is look inside.