Dear Alex, my anecdote....


A very little Esmie-Rose...


25th June 2012

Dear Alex,

A long day, not finishing till 8.30 with the kids when we get in from Monty’s cricket and hose down outside, the mud!


Esmie sliced her finger with a knife cutting oranges I had brought down and not seen she had been hacking away at when I was preoccupied. Another mummy there was telling me it was Dad day on Thursday, when dad’s are coming in to school to play, with Monty's year, a cricket match with the kids at school, all dad’s were invited- we hadn’t received the letter…

It would never have come at the right time. But then everything, every event, every meal, every outing, dog walk, getting ready for school, there’s always stark reminders that you’re not there. A letter inviting you to school or not, even cooking eggs has me in floods!

But it, just again, was one of those moments I feel sad. For me, for you, for Monty. Because you cannot be there.


Music, all the dads at cricket practice, bringing their sons, lovers strolling hands in each others back pockets down the street, or sitting out enjoying togetherness in the fresh air, or going along just in the supermarket. I cannot hide from it all. I want to, but I cannot hide from life…and it does carry on. It sweeps us all along. The broom of life. Too fast, a pace we find ourselves reflecting each year on a birthday, Christmas, thinking ‘where did that go? I must make plans to enjoy the moment more!' But can we, when we feel ever swept, and brushing with life in a very  general and unfulfilled way?


We find ourselves watching at times and realising weeks, months, years have just fled from our grasp.

Funny, we all tell ourselves to ‘get a grip’’ at times. Is this where the expression comes from? As we feel constantly swept along by life’s huge brush strokes, inevitable and too swift.

What is the ‘getting a grip’ all about?


I can’t tell you, I do not know, all I know is how I practice life since this happened to you. And things have slowed. I am an observer at times, not just spinning along out of control. Giving thanks. My book I write in, my internal thanks, at every dark and difficult moment, I turn, I breathe, holding onto my lifeline, giving thanks to The Most High. It makes me appreciate the moment. Take in what I do have, drink it in, not letting it always pass so fast I miss it.

I write, and I write the things I have been given in the day. A phone call, a coffee, time to see you, a house to sleep in, the four kids. And what it does for me is makes me realise what I do have. It makes me dig my heels in, thanking the Most High for those things I frequently miss when I feel so caught up in the speed of life.

A song, bird song, a new bird species that flies high. A spider taking off on it’s thread of web and flying higher than I can perceive it with my eyes. A lady bird.


How silly it sounds, but when I look, I find, and when at the times I feel my eyes are covered, my eyes are so blackened by the night that I feel so oppressively at times, it lights, illuminates the beauty of the things we have.


Now, our four biggest blessings are all finally tucked up in bed, relatively clean. It’s 9pm, and I have switched on the computer to write to you.


This morning I lost it, I got caught in the flurry of a hasty school morning run. Things lost, shoes not found, and when, already 5 minutes late, I was still looking for shoes for Mitzi (school shoes lie drenched from puddle splashing yesterday, in the boot of the car) I broke, I barked. I felt anger, frustration that there was just me to do all this. Just me. I go to school, tear stained eyes, head down, and cuddle the kids mummy love and sorry good-bye till 3pm.


Later on, I refocus, as I have promised myself to do this week. It is only me, but at least there is still me! And this is, at the moment, all these four gifts or ours have got.


Reigning time in, giving thanks, my life line. It’s a strain to remember to give thanks at all times, but I truly believe this refocusing is my most powerful tool. Cracking through the concrete of disruption, grief, darkness…


Although at times it feels like grabbing at thin air-there’s always something…





Me xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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