My house is quiet tonight.
I'm not actually normally awake at this hour, but my heroic husband is in Sydney for a quick high five session with his oncology team (more on that another time)..and I can't seem to find sleep- it has slipped out unannounced. How inconsiderately rude that selfish slumber seems to be.
My sons are sun kissed from being in the pool today and sleep has kindly stayed with them.
I remember that feeling.. being 10 years old and spending the hot scorching summer days in the pool. I would be so water logged, so pruned and wrinkled skinned.
I've been thinking alot about memories today.
Today is one of those line in the sand type days.
Each day since we said goodbye to mum has been tough, but today was 6 months.
And I don't know why, but the marker of time is important.
It tells us to pause..
To recognise that time is actually passing.
That we didn't stop the clock that night.
I noticed that the
challenge with memories and moments like today is this: we have to partake in the moments we have lived- while we actively live in the moment we have now, making new memories. (That's ok. read that again...)
I face this challenge each day.
When I water my plants by my front door- plants that mum planted for me- I remember that she despaired of my absolute ability to kill all things green. I remember the joy that her garden gave her. And as I'm standing there, probably drowning my plants, possibly killing them with kindness, I look up and watch my sons speed up and down the sidewalk on their bikes.
I live in the beauty of all those past moments I spent with my mother while I actively file away a moment I am in right now...
Because one day, when my sons have grown up and are living their grown up lives, I will see a kid zooming around on an orange bike. I'll hear the no-holds-barred laughter of a happy 7 year old. And my mind will call to attention the moment that I watched my sons ride around our street, while I watered my plants and thought of my mum.
Here's what I have learnt in the tragedy of loss:
Don't live in the past with no regard for the moments you have right now.
What is in front of me each day that is worthy of being a moment I will remember for the days to come?
I didn't know it then, but the time I sat with mum in a cafe at a beach in Redcliffe would be a morning that I relive and hold onto for it's preciousness... the last time it was just me and her. Just two BFF's chatting about life and kids and.. well.. we actually just talked normal stuff. But that normal stuff is the stuff that precious is now made of.
Don't shrug off the opportunity to do the normal stuff with someone you love.
Don't rush through the mundane, waiting for the excitement. Memories are made up of those mundane minutes.
Don't wish that a baby would grow up, or a toddler would learn how to look after themselves.
They do.
And then you reach back into the recess of your memories to see that brand new, 6 pound bundle. You close your eyes to recall the giggle of a toddler who was being tickled.
If you know anything of our journey, you'll know that 7 weeks ago we were staring down the prognosis of mere months for my husband.
He was in a bad place.
We had lost mum only months before and I couldn't reconcile the titles that were swirling around my brain- how could I handle being a motherless child and a widow in the space of months if Sheldon was to succumb to the cancer?
Well, he didn't and I don't and this is where I am-
Where we are-
We are living.
One hand is firmly wrapped around the moments that we have known and experienced and lived through, the other is high fiving the moments we have right now.
Memories are made of this...
