Maybe it’s a mother’s love, but there is nothing ugly about your own child.

Other peoples children are usually hideous beast monsters who don’t know how to behave in public, often ruining your “grown up” latte and sneezing into your lunchtime antipasto.

They talk too loudly, break your stuff and pick on your kids.

Other people’s kids are precocious (whilst mine have “spirit”) and are in need of a “bloody good smack!”

Other people’s kids come to your house and eat all your food.

They block up the toilet with entire rolls of toilet paper, and feel compelled to go through every box that was ever packed away in a cupboard and empty them all out.

Other peoples kids beat up smaller kids and then mutter and give you the finger when you intervene.

They put their shoes (usually the pair most recently walked through dog shit) on your stuff, and manage to (inexplicably) create immovable stains in your rented apartment’s carpets!

Your lounge suite becomes a gymnasium, the coffee table, a launching pad from which all your precious childhood collectables are launched (usually into the spinning ceiling fan, which has been dialed up to Mach 5)….then they go home.

You breathe a sigh of relief, as does the child’s mother who undoubtedly is thinking to herself “Thank God it’s not my house they trashed!”

My kids have done all of these things, in various locations, to various friends (and some un-friends). None of it was pretty, but as parents our hearts can paint a whole nother picture. When your child comes to you saying “Mum, I have ugly teeth”, seldom do you respond with “Well that’s because you threw Mrs. Brown’s cat in the pond!”

Instead you let your heart speak for you. You say something like, “You are perfect the way God made you.” And you hope that the Mums and Dads of all those “other” kids might be saying the same.

And if you suspect that they’re not, then at least you’ll think twice before greeting said kids at the front door with a big stick and a stern face!

 

I try to be all “holistic” and comfortable with death.  I have witnessed death first hand.  I have sat at bedsides, have waited in the next room, and have foretold to love ones of deaths imminent arrival.  I have waited beside the dead, brushed their hair, chatted and reassured.  I have “passed” on the sad news, spoken at funerals, hugged the grieving and been the “strong” one.  I have intellectualized death, seen the point, and understood God’s choices. Anne Rice said in The Witching Hour that death is the only real supernatural event most people ever experience.  And despite all the events I have bore witness to, I have never felt a “soul” leave a body, or felt the air around me change. The person is gone.  The force that ticked away inside has stopped.  Just like that. And yet, my heart knows they have returned home.  I feel a sense of completion, like the puzzle has been completed.  We pack it up, put it back in the box and return it to the cupboard.  It’s time to begin another puzzle now, for another life to begin. Another divine spark has moved on.

Someone asked me, after a loved one had passed away, if being in the room with them after, was creepy?  I said “not.”   People don’t always come to the “right” conclusion at the end of their lives (even if they know they are dying).  There’s not always a blinding insight, or deathbed confession.  Some people no matter how ill, can never break their lifelong habits no matter how close by death maybe.  And so in passing, the walls finally come down.  I have felt exceptionally privileged to have been chosen to experience anothers’ passing.  I’ve always said that anyone can be in a birthing suite these days, but most people will avoid a deathbed at any cost!  We think it will be painful and confronting (it is).  They imagine that what they will see will be far worse than they can imagine, so they stay away. Those last words really are that, and it’s not until someone has passed in your presence that you can really grasp this reality. Witnessing a loved one’s passing changes how you live your life.  You will truly understand regret, and live life accordingly.  This doesn’t mean you become a saint, but you see your loved one’s as they truly are, fragile beings with a life force as vulnerable as a newborn.   I’m a believer after all, a broad believer!  There’s nothing I haven’t consider as being possible after life.

It’s my own final breath that doesn’t bear thinking about.  Will I be afraid?  I don’t want to be, and the fear of the fear is the fear. I know I will go onto a better place, but on this plane I will be no more.  How can that be, that I will someday cease to exist?  That everyone I’ve known before me will cease to exist?  I once knew a lady who lived to be one hundred and seven years old.  Her reward for such long life? She watched all her loved ones and friends die!  She didn’t seem to be too thrilled with this and (after introducing me to her eighty three year old baby) told me she prayed daily for her own death.

So, we struggle daily to live, and then we pray for death?  We “rage against the dying of the light!”  And then pray for the Lord to take us swiftly and peacefully.  I find this hard to reconcile.  I don’t believe in euthanasia, and I have seen much suffering.  I think that life is an investment that we strive to nurture everyday, and not to be thrown away.  I try not to judge, but for future reference, no matter how senile I become (or already am!)  I’m not interested in a lethal injection.

I don’t know if God wants whiners in heaven, but I don’t want to go!

“Never knock on Death’s door: ring the bell and run away! Death really hates that!” - Matt Frewer

I’ve  never really gotten the appeal of  New Years Eve.  Most years have been spent lying in bed, in the dark, listening to other peoples celebrations, avoiding drunken midnight phone calls from deranged relatives and friends.  Sometimes I have made the effort to see in the New Year, even if that simply means sitting up till the clock strikes midnight.  Other times I’ve been asleep for three hours, and the ringing phone wakes me.  Often (and sadly) it’s my Mum on the other end partying like it’s 1999.  As she passes the phone from one merry reveller to the next I’m sure she experiences a sense of disappointment that her eldest offspring is a bit of a “Nanna.”  It’s not like I don’t know how to to have a good time, it’s just that I’m not sure what I’m meant to be celebrating?  Usually the passing of another year leaves me ambivalent.  I give no thought to the last or the new.  Today, however I think would be a good opportunity for a bit of self reflection.  I can’t change the events of  the last year, but maybe I can (as a typical Virgo) gain some insight.  Here we go.

                       1.  What am I most grateful for in 2008?

       New friendships in 2008 have bought me more joy than I ever thought a relationship outside of my family could ever give.  I’m most grateful to myself for allowing things to flow and take their natural course.  I like to think that I’m in control of this little universe, so this year letting go has been my biggest challenge. 

                        2.  Have I hurt others?

     No doubt.  I’m a “right” fighter.  I let my fears control how I react and respond.  This is not always the case, however if I’m feeling vulnerable or cornered I can be vicious.  My husband will tell you the worst thing I did to him this year was put his mobile phone through the wash.  I know how upsetting that was for him, and I definitely struggled to be apologetic. 

                      3.  Am I holding a grudge from 2008?

     Absolutely!  Despite my age (35) I still sometimes manage to get caught up in hysterical “womens” business.  I don’t always see it coming, and when it does I am far from forgiving.  During last year I “graciously” extended the hand of friendship to a woman whom I thought needed a friendly face in her life.  Over the course of several months our children played together and had sleep-overs.  Cutting to the chase, it was revealed that she was not the person we all thought she was , and now she can kiss my ass!  This too shall pass, however having to see her frequently makes forgiveness hard.  I can forgive her, but I don’t want her to know that!

                         4.  Did I have fun?           

     Fun is a strange concept for me, because life is a serious business.  Better get it right this time round cause you may end up coming back and doing it all over again.  But then, what if the meaning of life is to have fun and I’m getting it all wrong?  Spending time with my kids on holiday last year was fun, however the eight hour plane trip there and back defies definition.

                          5.  Did I smile or frown more in 2008?

     Can I call it a draw?  No real winner here.  I have smiled a lot, and I think those smiling times were a gift from God, because he knew he was sending me a few frowning times as well.  I frowned at naughty children.  But laughed side splittingly when one of my boys described a friends leaving to live in another town as them “passing away!”  I have smiled when my five year old asked if he could borrow my wallet so he could buy himself a motorbike..and would I mind giving him a lift to the shop?  I have frowned at many doctors.  Frowned at a few teachers too.

                        6.  Biggest lesson for 2008?

     My biggest lesson is that my fears have kept me stuck doing the same things, hoping for a different result.  You can’t pray for change and then sit back and wait for it.   I have learnt that most of the chances we take pay off.  And if they don’t , well we learn, and there’s nothing wrong with learning, especially from ourselves.  I guess that’s my greatest lesson.  I am my own greatest teacher!

Don’t ask me about 2009.  I don’t know what I want or hope for.  I guess I’ll know it when I see it!

“But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it’s better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you’re fighting for.”

So, I found this blog space and I started typing.  I thought I was finally following God’s plan for myself.  Writing fit for human consumption.  My Gran once told me that to squander a God given gift was a sin.  For years I doubted that writing was the gift God meant for me.  I’m not a beautiful, poetic writer.  At times when I’m trying to be serious, I end up writing something wry and funny.  It’s a bit like catching your reflection in the mirror and realising that “that” is how you really look..not the picture in your head.  So, I continue to write the words as they come out, and so far it’s been a real joy.  However God has a new plan, parallel to this writing one, that has thrown a new challenge my way.

Slowly my health has been deteriorating, and with it my inspiration.  At the same time, a real sense of dis-loyalty has started to grow in my gut.  Why, after conquering my own emotional hurdles to get to this place, would God continue to make the path so difficult to traverse.  Why offer up such a wonderful prize and them make it so I can’t use it anymore?

Perhaps it is the prize for pride.  Lack of ego has kept me in the same place for all my life, unable to recognise my own importance.  I have strived, eventually listening when people said I could achieve greatness.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think like the Beatles did.  I’m not bigger than Jesus.  But I certainly started to feel like a loved member of his family.

So, a big lesson is in the learning for me here.  I see that very clearly, and I will continue to be patient.  But..there’s a sadness, and sense of missed opportunity.  That everyday I sit without writing is a day lost, words lost and unexpressed.

 

Paulo Coelho

 

As much as I need my sleep these days, it seems that no matter how early my children rise, I am always awake before them.  Usually this annoys, but this morning I woke with the rising sun still glowing beneath the horizon in the east, set with a purpose in mind.  As I shuffled  passed slumbering loved ones, I relished the silence and the cool sense of peace that followed me.  In the kitchen window I placed a candle.  As I lit the wick I closed my eyes.  I breathed deeply and felt my spirit lift and rise.  In my mind I pictured loved ones lost and my heart smiled.   An unspoken prayer ran through my conscience.  I wished for happiness, even for a moment, for all people.  In an instant I felt an indescribable connection with the universe.  Even if my words were unspoken, my intention was clear.  After a time, I extinguished the candle, paused to listen to my children sleep some more, and shuffled back to bed.

Being separated from loved ones as I am, this is a ritual I regularly perform.  I guess I hope that somewhere someone is thinking of me at the same time I am thinking of them.  Even if they’re not, it’s my message to the universe that I believe.  Even though we are separated through distance or death, absence does not dilute  love..it makes it more poignant and bittersweet.

My wish this Christmas, is that there is a candle burning somewhere for you.  God Bless.