On not reading the signs
There are always signs. I get home so late on a Friday night that most of the time both kids are already in bed, fast asleep. I kiss them goodbye in the morning and I put my faith in other people that they will be safe, and cared for and safe. I always pray they will be safe. When I get home of a Friday night I go into their rooms, and kiss their cheeks and wish that my life was so simple and carefree. I wish to dream their dreams and know their lives as they know them.
Seven nights ago Lucy had a nightmare. She scared me when she came into my room, she was so quiet and so gentle. I don’t know how long she was there for but when I woke up and realised she was there she was crying, silently. She told me she had a bad dream, and we sat on the couch and talked about funny things that happened at school and what we were going to do on the weekend and drank milk together and wiled away a half hour before she felt ready to get back into her bed. She slept late on Saturday morning and her life, and mine continued on with me blissfully unaware.
When I was seven my Mum caught me at the fence with the boy from the house behind us. He wanted me to show him mine, and he would show me his. He already had his pants down when Mum came up behind us. She scared him half to death, but it never stopped him from trying again. He came from a broken home, we came from a home where we were taught that you don’t show people your private parts, that those parts are special and only for us and not to show them off at the back fence. Still, there were times I was tempted because so what? It’s just a body part.
On Monday, Lucy came home from school starving. I had left work early because I hurt my back, and had picked her up, instead of her usual routine of going home with friend for an hour until I could get there to pick her up. She asked for something from her lunch box and without thinking about it, I handed her the whole box. We went to pick up Oliver and she ate a packet of biscuits, a muesli bar and a piece of fruit. She told me she hadn’t eaten her sandwich because she wasn’t hungry at first break, and ran out of time at second break because she was helping the teachers on duty. No wonder she was so hungry. Make sure you eat it at first break tomorrow, instead, I said.
There was a man, when I was a kid, that we were never allowed to be around. My mum used to tell me that there is something inside of all of us that warns us of danger. It was a special sense, and it told her to never leave us alone with this man. He went to our church, and was always friendly to our family, particularly we kids. It must be a Mum thing, because I can’t recall my Dad ever saying anything about being concerned or worried by this man.
On Tuesday, Lucy didn’t eat her lunch again. I got a bit annoyed, but the usual Tuesday afternoon rush took over – getting something sorted for dinner and getting Lucy to swimming lessons on time, and then I had to be at a CPR training session that night. I switched parenting duties with Matt at swimming, and got home long after both kids were in bed, again. Lucy didn’t eat her dinner which undoubtedly will have ended with Matt sending her for a shower, frustrated about yet another cooked but uneaten meal.
I always walked away from those conversations about personal space and private parts of the body wondering how it would feel if someone ever did cross that unmentionable line. I was told not to keep secrets, that if anybody told me to keep a secret big like that it was a sign that I should tell someone right away. But the only person to ever tell me not to tell anyone was my boyfriend. I kept that secret.
Wednesday was my day off, and with my back increasingly painful I dropped Lucy at her classroom. She asked me to walk her in both Tuesday and Wednesday this week and I had because she never asks and she never wants me to, and maybe this week she just wants me around. So I walked up that hill, with its up’s and downs, limping as though I’d been in a terrible car accident and kissed and cuddled her goodbye. She begged me every day to stay until the bell and so every day until the bell rang I did.
I hated OSH care when I was a kid. We went to this horrible place in a big shed with kids from all the local schools who all knew each other and never wanted to know us. I would sit on the play equipment, at the highest point while deathly afraid of heights and watch for the car that would deliver my parents to us. We didn’t go there a lot but when we did, I hated it. It was a big reason I was so scared about sending Lucy to OSH care, but the nature of the beast is that what is perfect for a family isn’t always perfect for a boss and there has to be compromise. And so, with a heavy heart and sweaty palms I enrolled Lucy for one afternoon a week and prayed to God that he would keep her safe there, too.
Her first adventure there was a big success. She talked about the kids, she talked about the games they played and how she wished she could have stayed longer than one hour, but that is when Grandpa picked her up and the arrangement suited us. The next time she could stay longer. The next time, she did stay longer. Cautiously optimistic, I broached the idea of a possible second day at OSH care, in the mornings to allow me greater flexibility with my roster with Lucy. She was interested, so we went ahead and enrolled her. The first day was a success and so I felt satisfied that maybe, I had been projecting my fear and my memories on her, and robbing her of this opportunity and maybe I was mistaken and this would be a good thing for her.
Today I spoke with a very kind, and very stern deputy principal, who used terms like sexual assault, intimidation and bullying. Today my husband asked me if I knew that someone had tried to put something in Lucy’s bottom. Today, I shook and my eyes filled with hopeless tears of rage and fear as I realised that someone had done something to my baby. That fear only lessened slightly on realising that it was another child because she is six and she is innocent and pure and someone else has done something, or let their child see something that has led him think that this kind of behaviour is ok. Someone else’s’ child is also a victim, and someone else’s child tried to make my daughter one as well.
Lucy is strong. She is educated. We have talked about good touch and bad touch, about what people are allowed to do to you, what is ok and how to handle it. She was so let down by semantics. My six year old reported what happened, but she didn’t know enough. I didn’t teach her enough, I didn’t tell her that she has to be specific when she reports someone for trying to be inappropriate with her. I didn’t tell her that she needs to tell the teacher that someone tried to put something in her bottom. She told them that he was bugging her. They brushed it off, and a little piece of my beautiful six year old daughter gave up, and believed that nobody would help her.
My vibrant, funny and sweet Lucy stopped eating her lunch, stopped playing on the playground and started hanging out with the teachers. She had nightmares, she wanted me to stay at school. Every sign. All of them. They were all there. I missed them all.
A lesson in humanity
There are rules of school and if you break the rules you are guaranteed to get the stink eye from other parents and teachers at the school. Nobody likes to be a nag, but nobody likes to see someone taking advantage of others. Small rules include not sitting outside the classrooms before school starts. There are designated areas for that. Making appointments to speak with the teachers instead of standing inside the door for a half hour while everyone tries to work around you trying desperately not to listen to you telling the story of how “little johnny fell out of bed and is there something bigger at play, do you think?”
You don’t park in drop off zones, you don’t park inside the school grounds unless you have a permit and you don’t park other people in, regardless of how far away the school is, how late you are, and how heavy the rain is. (Which has been me, every day for the past three weeks – parked four blocks away with a cranky toddler on my hip holding my umbrella in it’s still folded down state because I don’t have enough hands to carry the umbrella, him, run and avoid puddles.)
I’ve spoken before about a friend of Lucy’s from school who uses a walker due to brain tumor and subsequent complications when he was only 18 months old. They are the most beautiful family and while Lucy isn’t in the twins’ class anymore she seems them out in the yard and we stop to talk to them each afternoon on the way out.
A couple of weeks ago I was picking Lucy up from school and we we bumped into Lucy’s twin friends and their Mum. The boys were rambunctiously throwing themselves against the windows of the car, yelling and waving at us as we walked by. Mum (I’ll call her May) was urging them to sit down and buckled in because they have a hospital appointment – par of the course when you have a son with additional needs such as his.
Next thing, a clearly marked disabled van pulled up behind her, and parked her in. Parking people in out on the street is bad enough but seriously Internets! You just don’t ever park in a vehicle that’s parked in a disabled park! May came to the back of her car, where the van’s driver had gotten out and was assembling ramps and asked her very politely to please move her van, because she’s parked her in, and she’s not parked in a car-space, she’s parked illegally.
The driver shot back with ‘I’m parked in the wheelchair bay. I have to pick up a disabled child”
May again politely responded. She told her that actually No, she’s not parked in the wheelchair bay because MAY is parked in the wheelchair bay and can she please move her van because she has to get her son to his appointment.
Lucy and I were standing by, observing this happening. May was clearly frustrated and upset but she was still being polite and kind. Then the driver of the van dropped her zinger.
“Well lady, this is a car park for disabled people so you have no right being here. When I’m finished loading my disabled child into this van I will move it and you’ll sit there and learn all about how you shouldn’t park in places you don’t belong.” {Verbatim}
I have never been so angry and upset for another person in my life. May, to her credit is always gracious and simply turned to the woman and said to her ‘My son____ has _______, ___________, ____________ and ____________” Then she opened the boot of her car, to show the walker frame, the special equipment her son uses every day to just attend school like his peers. NOW is he disabled enough for you?”
Then she calmly got into her car, waited for the woman with the van to reverse out and using a series of amazing maneuvers did a complete turn and left the school.
I. WAS. SEETHING.
Lucy could see I was angry, and was worried I was angry at her. I told her that Mummy just needed five minutes of peace, to calm down, and then I would tell her exactly why I was so angry at the lady in the van, but that she was not in trouble at all.
Then, in the car for the next thirty minutes we had a discussion about different abilities, about disabilities and about additional needs. We talked about silent illness, about people having things wrong with their bodies that you can’t see. We talked about judging others, about saying rude comments to people when you know nothing about them or their situation. I told her that I never want to hear her make a comment about where someone else has parked because at the end of the day, it’s just a car park and it’s not worth getting upset, or making someone else feel upset or hurt over.
Most importantly though I told her that what the lady in the van did was so wrong because if anybody should have known better about judgement and rudeness it was this lady who will have seen more than most already and will continue to do so. And maybe she was just having a bad day and took it out on May and her boys but that the most important thing to remember is that behind the car park, behind the car in the space where you want to be is a person. And people have feelings and emotions and as a fellow person we should never intentionally upset or be rude to another person.
Lucy took a lot away from our conversation. I know she did because she still talks about it. Not about the lady in the van, but about May – about how she was still kind, how she still used her manners and she didn’t shout or get angry at the other lady. “That’s the sort of grown up I want to be, Mum” she said to me later.
Me too, lovely girl. Me too.
Ticking Time Lessons
“Mum, can you stay just a little bit longer today? I know that you have to go to work, but today I just want you to stay for a little longer…”
Of course I stayed. Being a few minutes late for work is the compromise I must make if it means that on the 5th day of school my girl needs some extra reassurance. But I watched the clock, and saw those precious minutes slipping by, and just knew the traffic would be unbearable.
“Mum, my teacher said that we need Mum’s and Dad’s to help in the tuck-shop… can you do that?”
“Oh sweetie, I’m terrible at math. I still count on my fingers and need a calculator to make change. Plus, I have to work. Tuck-shop isn’t’ something I can do but if there is something else that comes up I promise I’ll make it work….”
Phew. Got out of that one.
“Mum, there is a meeting on Monday night at the school. Can you come? It’s to learn about what we’re doing this year.”
“Sure, sweetie. Let me find someone to watch you and your brother, and I’ll go for sure.”
“Thanks Mum. “
God, I hope this isn’t a waste of a baby sitter….
“Mum, my teacher said that she needs a parent helper to come in every day of the week! That means a Mum or Dad has to come to school and stay in the classroom with us and do jobs so we can learn better and learn more! Can you do that?”
“Let me talk to your teacher. Wednesday is my day off, so I can do Wednesday each week for a little while.”
“Yay, Mum! Lets go and tell her!”
Yes, lets. I have to get to Aldi, and the sale is on this morning on those hand-wash / teeth brushing timers that I wanted for home and for work. If I stay until the second bell, then I should be able to get out of here and down there before they are all gone…….
“This is my Mum! She’s going to help you change your home reader! And she’ll help you pick a new one! And then she will help you put it in your folder, and help you put your folder away! This is my Mum! She’s our parent helper today!”
I don’t know any of these kids, or their names. I feel so out of place right now. Come on, kid. Time’s a ticking. I have somewhere to be! Pick a book, any book. That one? Great. Rinse and repeat.
“This is my Mum! She’s been helping us! Mum, I have to go and do some work now, will you say bye to me before you leave please?”
“Of course I’ll say goodbye, Luc. Go write in your journal now.”
Oh, now you want me to listen to kids read sight words. Well, sure. I mean, I don’t have anything *that* important on, I can stick around for a bit longer. Oh, the bell has just gone – oh you still need me? Alrighty then… maybe I can call and ask them to put one aside for me…
And then, as I sat there helping a little 5 year old boy sound out the sight words I heart the voice of my daughter, carry over the top of her classmates chatter….
” That’s my Mum over there. She’s pretty busy you know, but today she is just helping here because she’s a great mum and she knows I wanted her to so she just did it. She’s a great Mum.”
Oh The GUILT. Not only had I been half- hearted, wishing to avoid this entire morning, but I’d be convincing myself for well over a year now that all those missed events in prep that I just couldn’t get to, the avoided P&C BBQ’s, the dodged Tuck-shop duties, the missed Parent Helper opportunities hadn’t meant anything to her. She didn’t mind. She forgives me. She understands.
She’s FIVE. And all she wants is her Mum to be a part of her school life.
Today I learned a valuable lesson about time. About being present in a child’s life, even when you think they aren’t looking or won’t notice. About being one hundred percent committed to something, even if your heart wasn’t entirely in it when you agreed. Today I made my daughter proud of me and even now tears spring to my eyes when I remember the joy on her face, and the way she introduced me to every.single.child and parent who walked through that door.
Next week I’m going back again, and I’m not wearing my watch. I’m taking my water bottle and for however long they will take me, I will be there and fully present.
Time isn’t measured in days, in things achieved, in how clean your floors are or how many towels you fold up and put away. It’s measured in seconds, seconds doing the things that make you happiest, things that make your child happiest. Time is measured in the moments today that I wasted, thinking of myself and my own selfish agenda instead of the precious moments I could have had helping other people’s children, talking to them about their mornings, their families, getting to know my daughters new friends. Helping my daughter. Making my daughter proud.
Those are the moments that are valuable and I am going cling to those. Because those moments are worth more than anything.
A Big Grade-One-er
7 weeks is a really, really long time when your kid is on school holidays.
Lucy is a great kid, she’s funny, she’s friendly and she is generally pretty easy going. I know how lucky I am to have her, she’s always wanting to help me out, she’s great with Oliver and she is the kind of kid that people point to and say ‘if you could guarantee me one of them, i’d have more..” She’s five-and-a-half (and you can never forget to add the ‘half’) and generally a lot of fun to be around. But I have a job, and Matt has a job, and her job, as I’ve always told her is to work hard at school, be a good friend and help her brother. Oliver’s job is to figure out how to be cute right at that exact moment where I think I’ve lost every last ounce of patience. He’s still working on it.)
So, what happens when everyone has a job, everyone has a routine, and then suddenly one…doesn’t?
Anarchy reigns supreme, that’s what.
My house, oh my house. It’s been clean one time in the past (almost) two months. And that was when Matt took the kids to his mothers’ place for a week. Lucy has come to work with me for five weeks out of seven. She has shone her cute and adorable on all the girls I work with, and talked their ears off. She looks cute from a distance, let me tell you, but the girl, she will talk all day if you let her. And telling her to please, play quietly for a half hour? Oh she can’t tell time. “Is half an hour up yet? No? How will I know? Can I just tell you this one other thing….?” Sorry about that! <insert inane conversation here>
I’m not sure why any child needs a seven week break from school. As far as I can tell, the only thing she’s gained from having such a long time away from her ‘job’ is a complete loss of appreciation for the people she lives with, and a new word in her vocabulary. It’s the “B” word – “I’m boooooooored.”
But looking at her on Tuesday morning, wearing last years uniform that finally fits her, with her shiny new shoes, her eye blindingly white socks (WHITE SOCKS ON A 5.5 YEAR OLD. WHY?!!) and her hair tied back ready for her first day of year one I was struck by how grown up she is. She’s changed a lot in these past seven weeks. She’s grown up, grown out. She’s forgotten some of her sight words, learnt others from reading entirely inappropriate materials such as the TV guide. Her skin is browner from a summer in the pool, her posture better from holding her shoulders back, her head higher.
This year, she has gone from a preppie, to a ‘grade oner’. This is big news, you just ask her.
And listening to her chatter away when I collect her each afternoon about her new friends and her new adventures as a big kid, I am struck by the knowledge that this time last year she was a shy, introverted little girl who I had so much worry about. I feared how she would adapt socially within the school setting after spending most of her young life in a Montessori education, shaping who she wanted to be on her terms. I worried about her reading, how would she learn to read? I worried about Math – I am notoriously awful at it, and I wanted her to excel, to be better than I so as she could work out the change for me when we go to get fuel, or out on a sneaky donut date.
I worried about this girl of mine, that this would be too much for her. And now I look at her and I just think… “what if I had never sent her to prep? What if that little girl from last year, that shy, timid, quiet little girl was starting in year one right now…”
Sending her to prep was the best thing I ever did. I can’t imagine sending her, of her development last year, right into a year one setting. She’d be eaten alive. Already she has reading homework. Some kids in her class, they don’t know how to read. They didn’t do prep. She’s doing basic math – some kids in her class, they don’t understand, they’ve never been in a classroom environment before.
Last year I was worried about there not being enough ‘play base’ in the prep curriculum. This year I am so eternally grateful to her teacher for laying down the law, for encouraging her, for pushing her and for making her do her job and participate and be a willing learner so as she would excel and succeed this year. This year, I am so grateful for prep.
But I’m still scared from the seven weeks of school holiday, and I think I need to write a strongly worded letter to the education department. Because SEVEN WEEKS OF HOLIDAYS - aint nobody got time for that. {Unless they would like to pay me to have seven weeks off as well. In that case, I’ll make the time.}
Real wealth
As a modern aged mum we’re educated to believe we can do it all. That we can juggle the housework, the job, the study, the family commitments, the friend commitments and our relationships. We’re supposed to get a solid seven hours sleep each night, and bounce out of bed ready to face a new day filled with peak hour traffic, sibling rivalry and employee and employer expectations with a smile on our face because after all – this is what women before us have fought for. The right to work. The right to vote. The right to have it all.
Confession. I don’t want it all. I am waving a giant white flag above my head and declaring to you all that not only do I not want it all, but I can’t do it all.
In my day there are twenty four hours. How you use those hours counts – nobody gets to do their day again, nobody gets to rewind time and save a few hours, or fix a few hours.
I don’t want a life of luxury. I don’t want to be rich, sitting in my glass house judging the people around me. I want to feel satisfied with my life, love my kids and have sex with my husband on a regular basis. Occasionally I’d like the house to be clean and I’d like to feel challenged in my job.
Watching my full of attitude five year old run down that lane this morning, with the wind in her hair and a grin on her face as she came in second last I had an epiphany. If having it all means I have to spread myself thin, across the things that really matter? I don’t want it all. I want to sit, and watch Lucy and her friends race. I want to watch them high jump over that bar and throw that shot put. When she finishes the relay with a grin on her face and no idea where the relay baton is because she dropped it at the start line I want to be the one there, laughing with her and cheering her on.
If that means other things have to wait, that I can’t take on more responsibility at work, that an assignment gets submitted late or that sometimes Matt comes home to an empty house full of mess from the mornings clutter while we’re at the park then so be it. I don’t want to be so many things to so many people that I’m not whole enough for my kids, or my husband.
The women who have come before us did incredible things in raising women’s profiles, in making it ok for women to dream, to work, to exceed expectations. And just as we learned things from then, the next generation will learn from us. I don’t want my daughter to see me as a mother who only had time off when she was sick, a mother who only came to events that fell on her rostered day off, or a mother who only stays for half an event because she has things to do. Of course I want her to understand that the world doesn’t stop, because she has a race to run but I want thing things that are important to her, to be important to me too. I want Lucy to learn from me that as long as you try your hardest, as long as you run the race the best you know how and as long as your priority is your family – everything will be just fine.
I don’t need to ‘have it all’. With this family, in this life, I am wealthy.
When it’s more than the blues
I was enraged.
“Why are you so needy!”I screamed. And then I just stood, silent with tears flowing down my face. She was maybe twenty-eight days old, there was no excuse. I hadn’t slept. No excuse. She was constipated, hysterical and desperate for me to help her, to please just stop it hurting. There was no excuse. I loved her, desperately, but in that moment I hated her. But more than I hated her, I hated myself. There was no excuse.
I can honestly say, that was the only time I ever screamed at my baby like that. I called my husband at work, I told him I was sick, and he needed to come home and look after the baby. I went to bed, and I cried my heart out until he got home, and then I lied. I couldn’t tell him the truth , that would make me a failure. It would make me the worst person in the world. I had just screamed at my newborn, . I told him I had a vomiting thing, that I was probably just run down from a newborn, still recovering from the most horrific birth – I just needed a few hours. He sent me to bed, and took Lucy. I feel asleep, tears on my face, hating myself, and pitying her – the innocent baby who had been landed with me as her mother.
In some ways I recognise that even then, I had post natal depression. But aside from that one crazy moment, it didn’t manifest in anger, in shouting, or wanting to hurt Lucy. Instead I had crippling anxiety and scary thoughts. I would lay her on a rug near the wall, and out of nowhere the thought would come into my head “I wonder what would happen if that clock fell on her.” It didn’t matter where I was, or what I was doing these thoughts would creep in. Walking down stairs “I wonder what would happen if I dropped her”, doing the laundry “I wonder what would happen if I put her in the machine….. “
But still, I didn’t seek help. I was afraid, I was scared of being called a bad mum, I was afraid that they might lock me up, that someone might take away my baby. I was terrified my husband would think I was broken – defective or faulty. I was a young mum, but I wasn’t a naive one, or an uninformed one. I had read every book about pregnancy, birth and beyond that I could get my hands on. None of them mentioned this. I didn’t display the more widely recognised symptoms – I didn’t have troubles eating, I didn’t gain or lose weight rapidly, I was sleeping fine when she would let me sleep, I was still socialising, I wasn’t crying all of the time. By all accounts I was fine. Being ‘fine’ was what left me undiagnosed, untreated and my family and friends completely unknowing.
I wish I could say this story had a happy ending, and I guess, in the non-traditional sense it did. I never did go and see my doctor. I never talked about it – with anybody. Nobody ever knew.
Instead, I spent the better part of six months being afraid of my daughter, and for my daughter. As she grew more independent I started to relax, and feel less anxious all of the time. I went back to work when she was only four months old, and that really helped me. I fixated on all of the ways things could hurt her, the ways that I could do something wrong, and hurt her less, and because I would work until late I started enjoying the time I had with her, instead of fearing it, fearing me and these crazy thoughts. As a direct consequence I don’t remember great chunks of Lucy’s first year. Her infancy was happy – I can see that in the photos, in the memories others have shared with me, but I can’t remember most of them for myself. Some days it’s as though I woke up with a baby, then woke up with a one year old.
By the time Lucy was one the PPD had completely subsided and I was feeling like myself again. I feel guilty all of the time that I was so distant and unresponsive for Lucy’s first year. In that crucial year of growth and development I really failed her. We talk about Mummy-Fail moments a lot but this was without a doubt my biggest fail. It remains one of my biggest regrets.
When I was pregnant with Ariana, I finally told Matt about my PPD with Lucy. We never really discussed it, beyond for him to acknowledge that he understood what I was telling him and then that was the end of the conversation. I was grateful for that – I was scared I would hit that level of emotional disconnect once Ariana was born, and he acknowledged what I was telling him, and then he let it drop. Truly then, I wasn’t ready to discuss it in detail, I just wanted him to know about it, to be aware. He was the first person I ever told.
Back then, the idea of writing this blog post would have given me nightmares. But since then I’ve learned something. I’ve learned that this internet community really isn’t as vast and scary as people tend to make it out to be. I’ve learned that despite the few crazies out there, the people who will take you in your worst hour and crush you, ignoring all the good there has been, there are mostly good, amazing people out there. I’ve learned that despite the ‘mommy-wars’ (which I am beginning to believe may not actually exist in the capacity generally accepted – but that’s another post) most people will look at something like this post, where someone details the times they weren’t that perfect and sigh with relief because guess what – they aren’t that perfect either.
PPD was my first experience with depression. I Had never suffered from depression, nobody I knew (of) had ever suffered from depression. I didn’t know how it could manifest, I didn’t know that anxiety makes up a part of it. There was so much I read, but it just didn’t tell me enough. It didn’t seem to fit.
So, if this post makes you feel like you too weren’t that perfect but that’s ok, then I feel as though it was worth writing. If the idea of missing out on a big chunk of your baby’s life scares you, and you recognise yourself in some of my words and you go to the doctor and seek help ,the that also makes me feel like it was worth it to put myself out there, and write it.
Nobody likes to feel like a bad parent. And nobody likes to fee like they are alone.
A statue story ~ Joined together, at last.
We were given the most thoughtful and beautiful gift after Ariana died. My parents bought us a selection of willow tree angels, specifically chosen convey our precious girl, the grief we were feeling and the hole left in our hearts by her loss. On opening the gift I promptly burst into tears, I loved it so much my heart hurt, but I couldn’t look at it. The pain was to fresh. I just couldn’t. Not then.
It took some time, but I put them on Ariana’s shelf in our lounge room. Sometimes I would find myself sitting alone, tears running down my face and then I would realize I was staring at those angels. The elicit a visceral response in me, even today.
When Oliver came along, the angels affected me in a new way – the grief that Oliver was shielded from our pain, that he would never know his sister, that even though he would grow up knowing of her, he would never feel as we did about her. Looking at my angels up on the shelf surrounded by Ariana’s very few belongings, her memory boxes and trinkets there has been something missing. Our family, the willow tree angel family has not been complete. Leaving it as it was, leaving those statues as they were gifted to us in that moment seemed logical. But grief is rarely logical and Oliver is a part of our family too, which part of this would belong to him? He was to be our gift from Ariana, surely there was something we could place there to complete the picture of our journey?
This Mothers day morning as I unwrapped my gifts from my two beautiful children I opened one that left me breathless.
An angel for Oliver, our Hope. He healed our hearts. Filling our arms with a rainbow returned a sense of wonder and joy to our lives. This piece… I am breathless at how perfect it is. As silly as it may seem, at least on that shelf, our family is complete at last.
Happy Mother’s day, beautiful friends. For those whose hearts have been broken and are yet to heal I pray you find peace in this day. For those who are fortunate enough to hold their children in their hearts and their arms enjoy each second with them. Time is a precious gift, treat it as such.
Cut your losses and let it go.
Even before I had kids I knew I would be as honest as I possibly could with them. I’m not talking about Santa, the Easter Bunny or the Ice Cream truck playing music to tell the boys and girls there is no ice cream left… I’m talking about actual lies. (I know I’m going to get nailed for that sentence, but ‘actual lies’ is the only phrase that is coming to mind while I’m writing this at stupid-o’clock. )
Things like “Needles don’t hurt”. I don’t get that! Why lie to kids that the needle isn’t going to hurt - of course it will hurt! But, it will be over quickly and being brave and staying still is your only option. My kids, well Lucy in particular, has been in the unenviable position of having layers of innocence stripped away from her over the past couple of years. She knows more about the loss and death of a baby than most adults I know. Never have I felt the need to hide the truth from her, kids aren’t silly and they pick up on tension, fear and sadness just like adults. We as parents have always felt the need to tell her the truth – as she grows we want her to trust us with her heart song, and as such we treat her with respect and actively try to answer her questions with more than a ‘just because’ whenever we possibly can. Sometimes, she stumps us. She asks things like “Where does all the salt in the ocean come from, and how come it doesn’t get saltier or less salty?” Like, really? I have no idea what to say to that! (Note to self – Google that, she’s still waiting on that answer…)
Consequently, this afternoon when Lucy asked me why I didn’t invite her Aunty to her cake-eating-festival to celebrate her birthday I told her the truth. I told her that the laziest way to try and hurt someone is to tell them that you don’t love them anymore, that you don’t like them and you are kicking them out of your life. Lazy. I told her that people who say things like that, and then don’t apologize are not nice people, and they are not people that we want to have around our family. I told her that regardless of the horrible things her Aunty said to me, I still love her, but I will not let myself be treated like that by anybody, and I won’t let my kids see myself being treated like that either. I told her she can and should still love her Aunt. But not to expect to see her often, if at all because we are a nice family and we treat each other better than that.
Lucy told me she thinks I made the right choice (Good choice-making, Mum!), and told me that when we got home she was going to give me a big cuddle because she thought I could use the loving. (God bless that gorgeous girl of mine!)
Yesterday my Mum told me that my sister feels that I treated her unfairly, and that she was waiting for me to apologise to her. I may not have been very nice to her at the time, but I still finished the conversation telling her I love her, and I like her, and I’m not disowning her, despite her apparently disowning me (Oh yes, it was all very dramatic.) I still do love her. But I won’t have people who treat me like that in my life, or in that of my family. And we are a family. You don’t get to kick me out, and keep my husband, or my kids. I’m not sure why, but neither of my parents seem to think that I’ve taken this as to heart as I have, that I’ve thought about this as much as I have. The implication that it will just ‘blow over‘ is really starting to annoy me. This isn’t something that will just ‘blow over‘.
It makes me sad that Oliver will grow up not knowing her, that Lucy will stop knowing her and that the cousins will grow up without each other. But I have sat by and watched for years as my mother and her brother fought, watched my mother and her mothers’ relationship deteriorate. I’ve listed to my mother cry about the way she has been treated and I vowed a long time ago, over my dead body, that I would sit by and let that happen to me.
I needed that loving from Lucy like she will never know. Because we wont’ talk about this again – I don’t lie to my kids, but I don’t use them as counselling session sounding boards, either. But, this has been another life lesson for my little one – family may insist they will always be there, but sometimes there comes a point where it’s just better to cut your losses and let it go.
I blame Barbie.
1466 days ago, my daughter was born.
She was born screaming, with dark brown hair, and gorgeous dark brown hair that people have spent the past 1466 days commenting on. She was beautiful then, and she is beautiful now. Her smile is infectious, her laugh makes every one around her laugh. She is intelligent, she is friendly, she is polite and kind and has a deep social conscience. She wakes at night crying, cold, but crying not for herself but because other kids out there are cold too, but they don’t have blankets for their Mums to pull up over them, or they don’t have Mums.
She amazes me, daily. I tell her that, daily.
She doesn’t believe me.
I blame Barbie. Up until a year ago we didn’t have any. (Barbie is a slut, the end). Lucy turned four, and people started buying them for her as gifts. She loves Barbie, I hate how they make her feel. At five years old she worries, because Barbie has blue eyes and blonde hair and that’s how she thinks the pretty girls should look.
FIVE. YEARS. OLD.
Lucy has been raised to be friendly, to be kind. She has been taught that how you treat people makes you beautiful, not how you look. She has the sweetest soul, her genuine kind nature makes her gorgeous. But my girl, my talented, wonderful, intelligent five year old get’s sad, because her dolls are prettier than her. She worries that her brother is prettier than her, because he has light hair, blue eyes.
Almost every little girl dreams of being a fair maiden and being swept away by her prince charming. Little girls want to be beautiful fairies and princess’s. Fairy-tale and fantasy is fun, but this, this worry, this anxiety over her appearance….I debated taking them away, eliminating the problem. But taking away Barbie won’t fix her self-image. Instead, we started buying Barbies. Now she has a collection, brown haired, black haired, dark skinned, pasty white… They are each unique (as mass-produced plastic boobs on legs can be).
I want her to know that she doesn’t have to ‘fit the standard’ to be amazing. I want her to know that no matter what she, or anyone else looks like, it is the inner beauty that matters. How you treat the homeless, what you do with the lost dog you see on the corner, if you go back to check on the bird that flew into the windscreen. If you empathise when someone is crying, if you worry when someone is sick. If you want to make people happy. If you are truthful, kind, considerate and compassionate.
Those are the things that I want her to know about. I want her to see beauty in all of nature. I want her to understand that Barbie is not pretty. Barbie is an inanimate object, she lacks the life-force of a person that generates true beauty. Barbie is a thing. A cold, plastic doll with no soul, and no way to contribute anything meaningful to society.
Listening to the news I am tired of hearing about the obesity epidemic in one news story, closely followed by children as young as five who are being treated for Anorexia. What a confusing message for our kids – You’re too fat, now you’re too skinny.” Magazines show skimpy outfits for children designed to make them look like street prostitutes. Parents are enrolling their children in beauty competitions and then erasing every natural and beautiful feature of the child by covering them in makeup, fake hair, fake eyelashes, fake tan, hell, even fake teeth! Is it any wonder our children are growing up with body image issues? Lucy has never so much as watched an episode of that travesty they call Toddlers and Tiara’s, and she’s already having the ‘not good enough’ conversations with me. I truly feel for those poor children who are put out on that stage week after week, and made to perform. I can’t imagine what their sense of self worth must be like.
Barbie looks nice, but she’s not pretty, or beautiful, or stunning. Barbie might be ‘just’ a doll, but the expectation of hollow beauty that she portrays to hundreds of thousands of little girls every day is just not acceptable and our girls deserve better.
MY GIRL DESERVES BETTER.
“That would have been so cool…..”
Nobody warns you that the fear stays with you. Sure, you hear about the sadness and the nightmares. You know that some have dreams of reaching out to grab their children, to bring them back only to have them disappear in the very last second, over and over. Depression, suicide, self harming, self loathing. Blame, guilt, anger, hysteria. Relationships that break down. You hear the stories of parents so consumed by the pain that they turn to drugs, alcohol, violence. But the niggle of fear, in the back of your mind every time your remaining children cough, or fall, or even just sleep a little later than normal is horrific.
I had to take Oliver to emergency today for a much unexpected food intolerance reaction. I won’t lie, it really scared me. To see him looking as though he had been dipped in hot oil made my heart race and my hands shake. Intellectually I knew it wasn’t that bad, that he was going to be fine. I know first aid, I knew the signs to look for that something might be dangerously wrong – none of those signs were evident. But still my mind jumped to the worst case scenario once again – will today be the day that another one of my children might die..
I used to wake up and every morning I would pray that this would not be the day that my child would die. I would pray that we could continue on, being the family we were trying to be, that everything could and would be ok. I used to wake up every morning terrified for what the day would bring. And then one day, my nightmare became my reality.
For a short while after Ariana died I used to wake up and think that at least the fear would be gone now, that finally after all those minutes of terror that this awful chapter in my book of life was closed, that the fear and the anxiety would stop because we had seen the worst – what more could there be? I learned some time ago that I was gravely mistaken in my assumption as to what life ‘after’ would be like. The grief I expected to linger – this constant uprising of fear was a surprise.
Death creeps in regardless of preparation, planning or attempted prevention. It comes at any hour, under the cover of darkness, ignorance, in broad daylight and at the most unexpected moments. The grief left behind is unique, dictated by timing, circumstance and personal philosophy and fortitude. It is not an emotion, it is as though an entire being is thrust upon you and you have no choice but to accept it, and work with it. You can’t run from a facet of yourself no matter how hard you try. The grief is exhausting. The cycle of missing and wanting and questioning seems never ending – even two years later I wonder if it will ever end, and if by wishing it might end I am reaching a point in my life where I might prefer to forget, than to remember. The fear moves in a similar fashion – never expected yet always bubbling just below the surface and threatening to overwhelm and terrorise.
But in the moments of clarity I am grateful for the learning opportunities such a grief and fear has afforded us. To be more conscious of our mortality can be only a positive step – if we love better and care more because of the heavy cloud that falls on us at will, surely we will become the better people that we know exist somewhere inside of us?
Looking through a broken heart makes the world a more beautiful place – Lucy’s innocent perspective proves this to me almost daily. One of her classmates has global developmental delays and has specifically adapted equipment to allow him to be a more active member of the class. From the first day of School Lucy has talked non-stop about this little boy, about how happy he is, about how his body doesn’t work like hers but it doesn’t matter because he is so funny and she really likes that he is her friend. I told her yesterday that if the doctors had been able to make Ariana a bit better she still would have been very different to Lucy, because when she was growing and developing things went wrong. Her body was broken, even if from the outside it didn’t look that way. I told her that Ariana would have had all those special frames and chairs just like her little friend. Her only response… “That would have been so cool….”
There was no judgement from her, she was not afraid for what her life might have been like, would the quality of life have been enough, would she be teased, tormented or feel left out and different and hurt. All she could think of was having her sister alive, and in a class with a special chair and special walking frame. Through the cracks in her innocence she sees only the beauty and the promise and the potential.
Indeed, Lucy – that would have been so cool.
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