Tag Archives: family

Pride comes before a wall

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The year is 1941, and Karen has just finished her Blitz wall. When she told her Dad about it, he thought at first that it was some kind of protective measure in the garden to keep the family safe from the onslaught of bombs raining down from the sky. “No Dad”, Karen corrected him with a giggle. “It’s a wall for us to display all the arts and crafts we’ve been doing while we’re stuck inside!” Oh how they both laughed when he realised his mistake!

Once it had been explained, it made perfect sense. In fact, Karen wasn’t the only one getting creative with a global catastrophe these days. Eric from down the road had made a delightful salt-dough craft with all the kids’ hand-prints. Well, except their oldest, Tommy, who lost both his hands in combat and got sent home with a chest full of medals, but hey let’s not put a downer on it. Eric’s wife Carol wasn’t best pleased when she realised the salt dough had used 6 weeks’ worth of flour rations, but she cheered up when she saw how lovely it looked framed on the mantelpiece.

The main thing was to have some kind of memento from this moment in time, otherwise this easily forgettable global crisis would go entirely unmarked and unremembered. All we needed was someone, somewhere to do colourful footprints of everyone in the house, (don’t forget the cat) with some kind of motivational quote like “When the world was at war… we started a paint shortage.”

Karen was well chuffed with her wall. Everything was up there, including a hilarious poster she had made herself that said “Keep Calm and Make a Time Capsule”. She laughed every time she saw it. Unfortunately the moustache on the soldier was a little wonky cause she had to stop suddenly when she realised the neighbours were already outside clapping for the soldiers, navy, air-force, factory workers, doctors, miners, farmers, scientists, teachers, railway and dock workers and utility services. To be honest, the majority of people were essential workers, which didn’t leave many people left to do the essential clapping – but hey, she wouldn’t want the neighbours to think she wasn’t doing her part. Maybe she should send them some photos of the wall so they knew how serious this was to her… she set a reminder on her sector clock that she’d managed to swipe off eBay. Such a bargain.

Before Karen had come up with the idea for the Blitz wall, the war had been a bit of a mood-killer, to be honest. It sounded bad, but she was hardly having any fun at all. Husband away fighting for freedom and hadn’t even bothered to answer any of her WhatsApp messages, kids off school loads of the time, seen everything worth seeing on Netflix, including that reality TV show about men and women getting engaged without even going steady first or making sure they wouldn’t tread on your toes at a formal dance. That one was quite the pulse quickener, she had to admit. It was a good job that women weren’t given anything important to do in the workplace yet, or she might have had a full-time job to contend with, too.

Then, she had had the idea for a simple ad-hoc photo-shoot. The kids surrounded by a few whimsical pieces of memorabilia, their gas masks, ration books, canned non-perishables, that sort of thing, something to pass the time. Oh they could hardly keep a straight face when balancing all those props on various parts of their bodies. Karen ended up yelling at them to keep their faces solemn cause they were ruining her, oops I mean their, fun. The photos were good, but it was a real shame she couldn’t get a professional photographer to come out and do it properly. Just another example of how this war was making life difficult for her. Anyway, mustn’t complain.

Then suddenly, as she was putting the photos up, the idea came to her in a flash. Once all of this was over, once people stopped dying in their thousands, and all the wounded and sick returned home, and people had enough to eat again, and that annoying fascism was dealt with… she would want something to remember this by. She would want loads of things to remember this by. Golly, she would want a whole WALL of things to look fondly on day after day, and remember this piece of history. She wouldn’t want the kids to forget how she told them that if they asked for a snack one more time she would make them eat nothing but dried eggs for a week. It would be awful to lose the memories of powering up the live WW2 website each day and watching the death toll rising. And it would be a real shame if her kids didn’t have a daily reminder of how they were missing out on vital milestones, social skills, and other normal kid-like activities that didn’t involve enforced crisis-themed scrapbooks where their mum made them sign their names to the poems she wrote.

Frankly, she felt like a bit of a genius for thinking of this incredible way to cement all these memories in their minds forever. Plus, she was still getting heart reacts on her Facebook post, and she had uploaded the pics more than two days ago. But, mainly the memories thing.

 

I Don’t Know What That Looks Like

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You would be 75, and I don’t know what that looks like.

Would you be a crotchety old man with a zimmer frame, an old 75 – telling my kids to quiet down because Zeida is trying to read the paper, letting them sit on your knee and regale you with exaggerated stories from school and nursery? Or a sprightly man who looks a good decade younger than his years, a young 75 – winning races against your 7-year old grandson who adores how you play and laugh? Are you losing your inhibitions and your filter, making jokes which embarrass my husband and make me pretend I didn’t hear you? Have I stopped explaining the work I do – because the technical stuff is too complicated, so I just narrow it down to “y’know, articles and blogs – that kind of thing.”

You would be my 75 year old father, and I don’t know what that looks like.

Would you call me every day, like you used to when I was a teen, the last time you called me, excited to hear the minutia of my day? Would you hang up, then call again ten minutes later – just to tell me something inconsequential that I could have coped not knowing? (Was that just pretext to hear my voice one more time again that day? I wish I knew.) Or would the passing of time have made that different for you, now the pace of change in my years has slowed down? Would you know what my identical days look and sound like, and speak to me every other evening or so, busying yourself with a Netflix subscription, the thought of which was science fiction when you were alive. Orange is the New Black? What nonsense, who watches this rubbish? Does that sound right? I don’t know. Would you be supportive of the choices I’ve made these last 12 years? Or would my adulthood be a surprising second act to you, if you hadn’t left my show during the interval – when I was just finding my feet?

I am your 30 year old daughter, and I don’t know what that looks like.

Do I call you every day instead? Check up on your health? Did I buy you one of those clever medical alert systems so that I can check you took your prescription meds today? It’s all done through a mobile app now – oh, how the world has changed. Do I send you photos on WhatsApp of the kids and me playing in the park, feeling guilty we haven’t visited in more than a week? Or are you there with us in the photo, ruining it by smiling at the wrong split second and making me delete the snap immediately, tutting at my phone and starting over, because I have what feels like endless chances to do that – to start over. Do I berate you for the way you give the kids treats right before their lunch? Forget to turn a blind eye while you sneak forbidden tooth-rotting, choking hazard lollipops from your oversized pockets in those shorts I wish you would let me replace. Come on now Dad, you’ve had them since I was a kid. Am I stupid enough to tell you off for acting like my kids are yours, am I ignorant enough not to realise what a gift we have?

I was your 19 year old daughter, and I knew just what that looked like.

It was crystal clear, a handprint on my memory, I thought we’d seen and done it all. You carried me into this world and then I carried you right out of it, with an eternity in between made of 19 years of getting it right and getting it wrong. And now those memories, the ones that filled the in-between are hazy and feel like they don’t belong to me anymore. They belong to a child. Next year, my son will be closer than I will be to the last age I heard your voice or held your hand.

Those hazy memories are worn, they are fragmented, most days they feel foreign, but worst of all, they are all I have. I am penniless to replace them, my pockets are turned out to the seams looking for a currency which doesn’t exist. I can’t buy more time, I’ll never uncover more stories. How ironic, as stories are my trade. Don’t worry, I’ll continue to imagine them for us both. Fiction is easier to create than the truth is to recall. 75 now, 80 in five years time, 90 or even 100, those milestones keep on coming. You’ll be glad to know that you always look great for your age in my mind’s eye. I don’t have a choice, I can’t imagine you any other way. I simply don’t know what that looks like.

 

Having It All

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Standing in my fortress and I’m holding up the walls
With kids and work and life, Hey, look at me! I’ve got it all.
I’ve created something masterful, come watch me if you will,
Running running running, all the time to just stay still.
One hand is in the kitchen making healthy food for four,
One hand holds back the crushing guilt from knocking down my door
The walls aren’t soundproof, not a bit, I’m wincing as I hear
“No concern you’ve sacrificed your kids for your career?”
That one’s a direct hit, and it gets me in the chest,
A neighbour smiles and waves as she sips tea and takes a rest.
She’s getting on just fine, there must be something wrong with me
If I can’t keep the house intact and raise this family.
The bricks are built of emotional load, they’re glued with mental labour,
The floor is paved with “Could you just…?” and “Can I ask you one small favour?”
I close my eyes for seconds, and the shrill bell sounds again,
A deadline looms, black and fierce, so I pick up my pen.
The voices haven’t stopped. They shout, “Have you made that call?”
No one else will make it, and what’s one more juggling ball?
“Catch it with your shoulder, oh wow you’re super-mum!
Managing this (unfair) load, you inspire everyone!”
Drowning out those voices, which pepper us with guilt,
Assessing all our choices, in these castles that we’ve built.
“If you’re not happy that’s just shameful, look at what you’ve got,
Imagine all the others who’d be grateful for your lot.”
A stone cold cup of coffee, goes in the microwave,
Sifting through the leftovers to see what I can save.
“How’s your hair looking? Your man will be home soon”
Wife guilt in place of mum guilt, we all love a change of tune!
Ding dong, oh that’s the doorbell. Come in- excuse the mess.
Sit down and let me tell you eighteen reasons why I’m stressed.
I’ll laugh them off once I’m done, with a humorous remark,
“You’re allowed to find things tough, just please don’t lose your spark.”
The voices won’t let up, both exhausting and infernal,
Nope, it doesn’t help to recognise they’re almost all internal.
I paste the smile firmly on, you’d never spot the trick
I take a couple Nurofen, no time’s allowed for ‘sick’.
The roof’s twined with relationships, it’s looking quite dejected,
Patched up with late apologies, both surprising and expected
One loose leaf falls next to me, I swiftly read the page
“Where have you been? We’ve missed you! Dude-its been an age!”
I look up at the patchwork papers, many yellowed with neglect,
I watch another fade from sight, well- what did I expect?
“You can’t do everything” they chide, “something’s got to give”
“Work harder” says the other side “craft the life you want to live.”
This week’s different I tell myself, because of X Y Z
Next month is much quieter,
I’m almost sure,
Maybe.

The Usual Suspects of… The Recipe Groups

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This time of year is one holiday after another for us Jews, and as such, it’s also one meal after another. When a festival runs into Shabbat, we get a three day whammy, which gives us at least 6 meals to prepare for, and for some over-eager beavers, 9+.

The holidays are a time for family, so it isn’t unusual to have crowds of 20 or more around your festive table, and unlike the stories I’ve heard told of Xmas dinner, there is no set menu of Turkey and Cranberry sauce to keep to, so the opportunities are endless.

If there is one place to people-watch this time of year, it has to be the Kosher recipe groups on Facebook, where if you’re lucky, and very very quiet, you might catch sight of these rare breeds in their natural habitat.

1. The Substitutor

This poster pops up on most dessert threads, mainly to make you feel really bad about yourself. Questions include: ‘Have you ever made those brownies with apple sauce instead of sugar?’ (No, I’m not insane) and ‘What do you substitute the margarine for in that kugel?’ (More margarine. it’s a margarine kugel. Go away. )

Sometimes they just pop in to lie to you, with such classics as ‘I made that omelette without eggs and it tasted completely identical’ as well as ‘My kids said they loved the beetroot and courgette muffins more than the chocolate chip ones.’ Fool me once, shame on you.

2. Mrs What’s Missing?

Just when you’ve made the executive decision that everyone is going to have cereal and milk for Friday night (and like it) here comes Chaya from Brooklyn with her “menu”. It’s not a restaurant, Chaya.

Guys I really need help!! So far, I have Challa and home-made dips, chicken soup with all the trimmings, BBQ schnitzel, honey roasted chicken, salt beef, broccoli and potato kugels, sweet and sour rice, popcorn cauliflower, 3 salads, and then for dessert it’s ice cream, salted caramel brownies and a pavlova. I feel like I’m missing something, what am I missing? Oh ps: it’s just me and my hubby thanks.

Chaya? Chaya! Pick me! I know what you’re missing! It’s about seventeen more humans, and a nap.

3. The Amnesiac Shopper

Now I know I went to the grocery store this morning, and I know that I picked up a whole lot of food, but for the life of me, I’m not sure what any of it actually is. Does anyone recognise this odd looking vegetable? Or know what I can do with it that will feed 7 adults and 4 kids including a 13yo who doesn’t eat vegetables?

What about this cut of meat? I think it’s called number 5. Or maybe it was 9. I’m pretty sure the Butcher said it was pickled. or maybe he said it should be pickled. Did I remember to buy pickles? Does anyone know where I left my car?

4. The Amateur Masterchef

Some of the photos I see on the recipe groups are pretty impressive, from Challot that look bakery-bought but probably taste better, to chocolate babkas that are practically food porn, as well as incredibly fiddly pastry and meat concoctions that I would never be able to achieve.

But sometimes, no matter how much you call it herb encrusted salmon with an assiette of wilted tender stem garden produce, it’s still gonna be fish and green veg. And whatever joy describing your lightly browned beef on a bed of puréed chickpeas gives you, it’s still the mincemeat and hummus that takes five minutes to make and you discovered at your mother in laws house. #sorrynotsorry

5. Harbinger of Doom

With love to all the over achievers out there, I still have to give a shout out to my people. You know who you are. (Hint: you put jacket potatoes in the slow cooker for one of your Rosh Hashana meals, but forgot to heat the baked beans. Yeah, there you are.) You probably head to the recipe groups out of sheer voyeuristic pleasure, or maybe to ask whether that turkey roll you forgot about at the back of the fridge is still good to eat. If you’ve done the latter, you’ve probably met the Harbinger of Doom before.

“I made chicken soup 3 days ago, can I still eat it?”
“Absolutely not, bin it.”

“Oh. What about this potato kugel, it was defrosted about a week ago?”
“Are you kidding? Definitely not. Throw it away.”

“How about this yoghurt? The best before was just yesterday..”
“Do you want to make your kid sick? Why risk it?”

“I opened this cheese earlier on, but I left it on the counter for half an hour and-“
“Throw it away. Use gloves. Can’t be too careful with bacteria.”

Jesus lady, how about this sealed packed of biscuits? Is it okay if I eat these while I try to recover from my new food phobia?

But don’t worry dear reader, you aren’t alone. Check the comments for dozens of hardy women who are on your side, and are guaranteed to have shared their war stories to make you feel better.

I regularly drink milk that’s spoiled and I’m still here to tell the tale!

I once ate a schnitzel that I found behind the couch, and I’m FINE.

I don’t even bother cooking the meat and my kids haven’t complained yet! Granted, they are kind of quiet.. Chavi, you ok honey?

5. The Shameless Brag

A relative of the humble bragger from the online mums forums post, when this person moves over to the recipe groups, she has no need to be coy. Posting photos of the oddest brags, from a fully set Seder table a fortnight before Pesach, to six dozen chocolate cakes “all ready for the freezer!” She must live in the Ice Bar, she has so much space to cook ahead of time, and she will absolutely post the recipes for all of these “delish treats” as soon as she has a spare minute. Which is good, because the F’s on her post are getting a bit out of hand, and the natives are getting restless.

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Have I missed any of your favourite recipe group regulars?

Seeing into the Future.

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I’m sorry. 

That first visit to the hospital, when you couldn’t see anything at all, I promised I would do everything it took to get you the help you needed. To give you options which were the same as anyone else’s. 

I insisted on being referred not once but twice until we found you the best doctor, the doctor people got on a plane for, the doctor who knew everything there was to know about our condition, who could suggest treatments and surgeries that even the nystagmus mums groups on Facebook didn’t know about yet, despite their collective knowledge of everything Google has to offer. 

Two years ago, this doctor, this doctor I have the utmost faith in, did what he called ‘a bit of cut and paste’ on you. 

So blase, as he took a scalpel to your eyes. But even as we shuddered, that’s what we wanted-it meant he did this every day. 

But the results didn’t work out exactly as we’d hoped. 

Your head still turned, your eyes wobbled even more as you learned to read books and study things up close. You were growing up, and the surgery hadn’t worked as planned. 

“A repeat surgery is risky”, they said.

“It could cause side effects”, they said. 

“Double vision”, perhaps. 

“Let’s do a test” we agreed, nervously. 
We held your hand as you slipped under anesthesia again, this time so they could put needles into your eyes, temporarily freezing your muscles.

It sounds futuristic! It sounds amazing! What a time we live in!

(It sounds awful. I won’t think about it. Motherhood doesn’t change just because medicine does.) 

When you woke up, it didn’t take long to see that it hadn’t worked as we had hoped it would.

Double vision. Frustration. Exhaustion. I can only share two of those with you. 
“It will wear off”, they say.

“Just two months”, they say. 

But two months to you, is an eternity. Waiting five minutes for the iPad is an eternity. Two seconds while I get you your snack is forever. 

Two months is an age where you learn that life can be hard. And takes energy you shouldn’t have to find. Not at six years old. 
So they’ve patched your eye, and they say we will wait and see. But it’s me who waits, and you who can’t see. And they? They can’t do anything at all.

But I know. I know that this was a test which went badly. No positive effects to speak of. Just a ‘phew, it’s only temporary’. A pat on the back that we didn’t make it worse long term. That it will wear off.

And when it does wear off? 

Your head will still turn. 

Your eyes will continue to wobble. 

Life will still be harder than it could have been. 

And there’s nothing more that these doctors that people get on a plane for can suggest to help you. No more chances to give you the same options as everyone else. 

And so I say, in a bright voice, Rapha, wobbly eyes are our superpower. You and me? We are superheroes. And you? You are my superman. 

And we wobble our eyes and our faces together in the hospital waiting room like maniacs, and you laugh and laugh and I force my face into a smile and am pleased for a moment that your eyes are patched and you can’t see the tears in my own. 

Because I don’t feel like a superhero. I feel like I’ve let you down. 

Today I Do…

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Facebook reminded me this evening of the post I wrote last year, on International Women’s day 2016. It was called One Day I Will… and it was about how I look to my daughter when I can’t find the strength in the usual role models many women have.

Michael J Fox has said that Family is not an important thing, it is everything. This year, it often feels like the whole structure of my family as I once knew it has been ripped apart at the seams. And so if family is everything, it’s easy to slip into feeling like I have nothing.

I have seen so many brave and interesting posts today from friends and strangers alike about International Women’s Day. The worst of them were questioning the need for the day in the first place, as if they were somehow put out by it’s very existence, and couldn’t just get on with their Wednesdays. The best of them were supportive, proud, strong, and full of support. And it got me thinking. Aren’t those the very best descriptions of family you could imagine?

Unfortunately and painfully, this year, one woman in my life has turned against me for standing by another. The former is blood, and the latter is one of the strongest, most supportive women I could wish to have in my world, and is every part the family I would choose, and have chosen.

I agree with Michael J Fox. Family is everything. But just as so many incredible women have shown me, it isn’t just the family you’re born with. I have a family with whom I share no kin whatsoever, made up of playdates and favours, of shouting each other coffees and coming round with surprise gifts just because. It’s packed to the brim with jumping on a plane, or listening to each other cry, it’s laughing so hard you can’t breathe, it’s sending memes at all hours of the day and night. It’s made up of love.

A working mother’s Facebook group that I’m on has a tradition called ‘bragging Wednesdays.’ The entire point is that women can share their achievements, and be encouraged and applauded by other women. They range from starting your own business or making multi-million dollar deals, to getting the kids to school on time, or carving out some space for yourself in the busy never ending to do list of life. It’s supportive, it’s lovely, and it’s powerful.

There will always be negativity, and trolls, and people who think that you’re doing the wrong thing, failing to see just how much anxiety we all have about our decisions already, without their input.

Me? I surround myself with the family I choose, the ones who have proven themselves deserving of that word. You brilliant amazing women you, you all know who you are. Happy International Women’s Day, and I love you.

 

 

A Delicate Little Flower

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You’re right.

She’s not a “delicate little flower”

And I don’t want her to be.
I don’t want her swaying in the breeze,
Moving this way and that on the flight of fancy of the wind.
I want her growing strong roots
Deep beneath the surface
Twisting their way into the earth,
Creating foundations, holding her own ground.
I don’t want her petals easily picked off one by one
By a boy playing “she loves me, loves me not”.
I want her to love herself, fiercely
Hold those petals fast in her grip
So that no-one can take hold
And make her less of herself
Unless giving freely is what she chooses.
I don’t wish for her to be simply beautiful,
(Which so often means beautifully simple)
I wan’t people to stop still in their tracks
Look at her unique colours, stop to take in her scent
Wonder what exotic place she comes from
That she was able to grow so wild and free.
I don’t imagine her little at all.
I want her to fill a room, until it overflows with her,
Not ladylike, but powerful
Not delicate, but extraordinary.
I can’t picture her on a manicured lawn
Under a cloche
Protected from the elements, not her.
I see her at all ages, in my mind’s eye.
Raging against the heat of the sun
Dancing in the rain
Moving with the wind
Laughing at the storm she creates around her
And I smile, and smile and smile.
Not a delicate little flower at all.
A powerful, strong-willed woman in the making.

5 Ingredients to Tempt the Pickiest Toddlers

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Somewhere between the ages of 1 and 2, you may begin to notice a startling and unexpected developmental stage appearing in your baby. An opinion. While they used to allow you to shovel in any old food all whizzed up in a blender or mashed up with a fork, suddenly they are pressing their lips tightly shut, shaking their heads firmly and throwing entire bowls of spag bol face down on your beige carpet faster than you can say ‘Here comes the aeroplane!”
Never fear, after extensive research into babies entering toddlerdom everywhere, here is the definitive list of the 5 ingredients a toddler will never turn his nose up at.

  1. Dirt.
    We’ve all been there. You’ve lovingly prepared a plate of chicken and rice but your baby won’t even take the first bite. Don’t take it personally. They probably don’t realise you spent 2 hours roasting vegetables to make your own stock for this recipe which you found by googling ‘simple baby food recipes’. We have the answer. Have you considered dropping it on the floor? No, not there by the high chair where you just vaccumed. Try on the pavement outside your house where that dog from next door usually does his business. If that doesn’t work, wedge it down the side of the car seat and give it a couple of weeks, there’s nothing babies like more than the taste of slow aged fowl.
  2. Danger.
    Babies don’t like boring food. You know the rules, you musn’t season with salt, but apart from that feel free to go wild. If tumeric, paprika and cumin don’t work, have you considered letting your baby choose their own ‘toppings’ from the bathroom cabinet? Drain cleaner, Cillit Bang, washing powder, these are just a few of my own kids favourites. If yours prefers a slightly different texture, try wrapping the food in live wires, or poking it into a plug socket as finger food. Be creative! We’ve had some great success placing meals onto turned on hair straighteners- BBQ style, as well as mixing in those tiny pieces of lego all babies love for some extra crunch. Nom nom nom.
  3. Competition.
    Y’know what tastes awful? Scrambled eggs. Y’know what tastes delicious? A sibling’s scrambled eggs. Bonus here is that the older the sibling is the more bribeable they will be, and the better their acting skills can be honed too. Get them on board with the plan by offering a small bribe like an episode of Peppa Pig or yknow, a five pound note, if they can ‘unwillingly share’ the meal they also wouldn’t usually touch with a barge pole with said younger sibling.
  4. Timing.
    This one works just as well for older kids, and it relies on a simple rule. What tastes like arsenic during the day time, is progressively more delicious the further past seven the hands of the clock go. While the cheese sandwich you offered at 4.30pm was the most offensive thing you could ever dare to do as a parent, the 9.45pm meal of quinoa salad and stuffed aubergine with lentils may as well be a bag of chocolate buttons in its inevitable appeal. In short, when your little darlings are shouting “I’m huuuuungry” mournfully from their beds like they’re prisoners of war, this is the ideal time to offer broccoli.
  5. Privacy.
    If all else fails, wait until they are distracted by something else, such as wiping snot on your freshly folded washing or climbing a bookshelf, and quietly prepare the food out of their line of sight. Tiptoe to your own bedroom and hide in a corner with the bowl hidden completely from view. If you’re not sure what I mean, imagine it’s the last chocolate digestive biscuit and nap time is too far away to fairly expect you to wait for. Toddlers find that kind of silent behaviour just as suspicious as we do in return. They’ll show up, indignant and open mouthed in no time. Finish off the theatre with a stern “No, this is Mummy’s food” before giving in. Fair Warning: This will probably only fool them for one bite, so make it a big one.  

There you have it. No more excuses for kids who won’t eat their veggies. Just make sure the meal is a week old and sprinkled with shards of glass, in a secret location where their sibling is chowing down after 10pm. Simples.

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There are other truths, too.

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I’ve had a hard few weeks. Unsurprisingly, for those who know me, marking 10 years since my father died wasn’t an easy milestone, and while the day itself was filled with silly fun with my 5 year old, the days which followed were like trudging through thick mud in boots two times bigger than your actual size. Difficult, slow, cumbersome, and with a constant fear of falling and exacerbating an already precarious situation into something much worse.

While I’ve written in the past about grief, I usually write from the middle of it, from the trenches of it, while the bombs are going off around me and I’m struggling to keep myself hidden from target. Ironically, I’ve come to realise that if I’m writing about it from within the walls, if you’re hearing my war reports, the danger isn’t too great.
In this case, no news is not good news. When I can’t hear myself think to write beyond the sounds of gunfire, when there’s nothing to write because the fog is too heavy? That’s when I’m going to need the artillery sent in behind me.

So here I am, out the other side, tilting my head with interest at the woman who looks so much like me, but couldn’t feel more different. And there must be something I can take out of this, by examining her. Or do I just have to sit and wait helplessly for it to take over again, and then wait for it to pass another time, in a cycle of highs and lows that I’ve come to accept is the very nature of grief itself?

Academically I can say I have been miserable. It sounds like a word for a small child, and I suppose in the loss of a parent it fits. Worse still, this year it’s triggered a realization for me that while I have built for myself an incredible family of people who love me, the ones who are supposed to be there unconditionally just… aren’t. I haven’t spoken to my mother in several months, my father is dead, my siblings are… absent. I don’t have extended family around who have taken me under their wing, I don’t have living grandparents or kindly uncles and aunts. It may seem like a strange concern for someone who is an adult and has their own kids and home. But if you’re game, take a moment to think about the people in your life who have to love you. The ones who may dislike you from time to time, who you could make it your life’s work to ruin your relationship with, but would still be family after all is said and done.

I don’t have that.

Last week, and the week before, it was the only thing I could think about, on the forefront of my mind. It pushed aside all other thoughts and plans. Tears came easy, and cold shivery hopelessness too. The truth of it was overwhelming. If this is true, that I have no family, no people who will be there no matter what… how will I ever feel better again?  I reasoned with myself, and I knew it to be true, that I would never feel free of this burden.

And then…. it lifted. Like our good old English summer, the sun re-appeared through a storm cloud like the rain had never existed in the first place, and I felt warm again. Does this mean that I was wrong? That what I thought to be true wasn’t true?
Absolutely not. I have no real family. Not the kind other people have anyway. But while last week that truth was dehibillitating, this week… *shrugs*.

That shrug isn’t self pitying or sarcastic. The tunnel vision which comes with misery and hopelessness has passed, and I can see other truths as well as that one. My amazing husband, my beautiful kids, the fact that the summer holidays are almost finished and I can soon work during daylight hours again. The truth that I work in the field I love and can be entirely flexible with it, my two best friends who I would choose over blood sisters any day of the week. I couldn’t see those truths last week, and yet the weight of them now crushes any depression over a lack of family down to a mere concern at the back of my mind, a shrug in the same way I might say ‘sure, it would be nice to have some more disposable income’ or ‘imagine how great life would be if school took over teeth brushing responsibilities.’

I feel lighter. And yet simultaneously for next time, I feel slightly better armed to go into battle too. This mantra is a weapon, of sorts. Whatever may or may not be true in my life, there are other truths too.

The Last Time

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There’s a lot of emotional stuff going around the internet about how you never know [insert event here] is going to be the last time until it’s the last time. You never know it’s going to be your last kiss with someone, or the last time your baby falls asleep on you, or the last time you tell someone you love them, until you realise you can’t do it anymore.

I recently had a last fight with a friend. I didn’t know it was the last fight. I didn’t even know it was a fight at all until we were right in the middle of it. I hadn’t planned it, and I’m not sure they had either. It wasn’t one of those fights where it brews for ages and then finally someone has to say something and it’s taken badly and it escalates. No no. It was more like, here we are having a conversation via WhatsApp, and oh you seem to be getting upset and I’m not sure why, and now suddenly you’re telling me you’re in floods of tears and oh okay,  now I haven’t heard from you in 3 months and we aren’t friends anymore. Haven’t we all had those? No? Not normal? Oh.

Regardless of whether you’re worth working it out for or if the death knell is ringing on your relationship, isn’t there a kind of friend etiquette that means you have to have a post-fight conversation?
I understand the Fadeaway. I’ve watched Garfunkel and Oates. I’m not talking about that. We’re not having a discussion about a brief friendship or a new relationship where it’s kind of awkward to say it out loud but they’re just not that into you. We’re talking about the better part of a decade here. Plenty of meals at each others homes. Cuddling each others kids. Long breaks and then picking up where we left off. Y’know. Friendship. And now… nothing. No final message which says why they want to take some space. No euphemistic let down about why their life is so crazy right now and how it’s not me, it’s them. Not even an angry outburst that I deserve to lose their friendship due to all my terrible character flaws. I can’t get in touch when I hear good news, I can’t thank them for all the times they’ve been a most excellent friend and neighbour, and I can’t turn to them if either of us are in need.

It’s kind of… insufficient.

I know what you’re thinking. Maybe I should make the first move! They’re probably embarassed. It’s been a while now, no contact, they aren’t sure what to do. Let me stop you right there. The first move has been made. I’ve sent multiple messages, via WhatsApp, Facebook, even tried calling on that old fashioned medium called the telephone. Christ I even got in touch with their spouse in the hopes that they just hasn’t checked their own phone in a few days or perhaps seven weeks. Short of turn up unwanted on the doorstep, I’m not sure what else I can do.

The one or two people (everyone who will listen) I’ve casually (obsessively) mentioned it to all say the same thing. Not worth it. Get over it. Move on, they obviously aren’t going to get in touch. And they’re right. I’m clearly not going to get any understanding of why this seemingly quite trivial argument signalled the end of our relationship. And I can’t work out whether expecting some kind of closure is my admittedly often sky-high expectations, or completely understandable. I don’t want to fight, I just don’t want to pretend we’ve never heard each other’s names, or that 8 years of friendship can dissipate without gratitude or feelings on the matter.

Maybe it’s a symptom of this over-sharing thing I’ve got going on, but I would say there’s enough ‘last times’ we aren’t going to get to enjoy as it is. If you know the door is closing on our relationship, give me a quick wave through the window as you disappear and give me a chance to say goodbye, and thank you, too.

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