And there's more!

Road trip today for me and the beebs, back to noosa in a freakin' barina - which is FINE cuz we've already driven all over everywhere in it this past few whenevers.

Now let me tell you why this trip, my god.

We're in Rockhampton now but started out almost three weeks ago in noosa, where we planned a short trip to clear out my mum's house and a quicker one to see my nan a week, ten days, tops.

After months of The Numb, grieving (thankfully) started around about day 2, because it was hard and going through her stuff was like meeting another person.

We'd just finished up and her entire life was in a few boxes in the garage when we got the phone call that stopped the grief and called for action again.

My uncle, mum's brother, had died. He fell off his boat and just. died. No known cause. No signs of cardiac arrest, stroke, heart disease, nothing. His wife, my aunt, was there as were a bunch of their closest friends, and it is the most awful story of trying to revive him at the scene then in hospital.

So we went to rocky.

My other uncle, mum's youngest brother who's only five years older than me, lives here, and because nanna lived here too and was in hospital and expected to pass away eventually soonish, he needed us like, NOW. Losing mum had broken her heart and I believe that, on some level, she knew Wayne had died too. Nanna died the day before we left for His service in Sydney.

We came back again for nan. She's being quietly cremated today and, in time, will be brought back home to scatter her ashes where pop's were.

We planned on being here for her, and ended up being here because Mike had lost his entire family within two months, and while i lost my mother, my uncle, and my nanna, he's lost everyone and - wait for it - he lost his partner two years ago too so now he's all alone.

(and yay for inadequate punctuation)

This kind of stuff wouldn't be written into a movie script because the audience would be all "no way, this is too unbelievable" because IT IS.

And how are you? Really, Tell me, ok, cuz I feel like I'm on a different planet. possibly a crazy death planet, gah. Love you all, even though I ignore you like I don't xxxx

Really and truly

Thanks for being here and for being present.

I must be in shock still. Yesterday was the funeral and I'm all Fine, Great, Superfantastic, Thanks For Asking!

And I mean it.

I think my brain is insisting mum's still living in Queensland and the last few weeks have been a really weird dream but still, nothing? wtf is up with that?

Little things try to get me but it's literally like a big, clangy door comes crashing down.

Take this morning, for instance.

I opened the bag of stuff the funeral director sent back, and the nightie I dressed mum in after she died to send her away in all clean and nice and whatever the hail was in there.

My eyes; I'm going to cry!
My heart; ow, that hurts.
My brain; Fuck that shit man *crash*

Then nothing.

and it's not a conscious "no, I can't think of that!" deal at all. Thought or image pops in then *crash* then I'm literally unable to follow the image or the thought to access the emotion.

am I broken, or what?

(this is not a rhetorical question)

6/6/1940-15/11/2011

Mum died today a little before 6.45am.

and now I'm no one's daughter.

zygomaticus minor

So in her assortment of unusual gifts, Swistle included The Anatomy Coloring Book.

Oh. MEMORIES.

I had The Anatomy Coloring Book around about a million years ago when I was studying anatomy toward my degree in irradiating people for diagnostic reasons at university. Our entire class had one and everyone LOVED it (good fun, effective learning tool, massive "wow it's like being a kid again" factor etc etc etc) except me because I hated coloring in when I was a kid (I know, okay. Weird.) and I hated it more when I was marginally older. I mean, my god, ALL THOSE LINES. Every time I went outside one my brain imploded with a sickening sense of failure and doom, which was pretty heavy shit for a five year old, so when I was older and given the opportunity to revisit the garment wrenchign angst of my childhood, I whored my copy out to the kid next door and she loved it for me and did all my stupidass coloring in homework for me and (surprise!) I never graduated from that course.

vigil

My mother is dying. She has, at most, days.

I had to tell someone.

Lucky you.

reading

this.

I don't know how it works, I'm not a dates person. I don't get sadder on the anniversary of anyone I know who's died. I don't approach their birthdays with trepidation, nor do I think of good times spent together and lose my shit

This is different, and while it DOES get better with time, this weirdass dates thing I've got going on, doesn't.

June 13, August 1st, pretty much all of February through to March, then there's November 11, December 1st, and August 4th.

They all creep up on me and punch me in the face, and without fail, I'm left wondering WHY those motherfuckers are trying to kill me.

Then I go "Ah [insert month here], I wonder if it's [insert specific date here]" and then it all makes sense.

Conception dates, dates of loss, due dates.

Time doesn't heal. What happens is the gaping hole in your heart becomes a part of who you are.

I still haven't worked out if that's a real downer or whether it's a simple statement of fact.

school sucks

Tomorrow Daniel starts school. I'm not sure I was clear about how much I'm dreading this, what with all the Yay, Montessori! bizzo from yesterday.

I know this is going to be another era of Wonderful. I mean, when he was a newborn and there were all these one year olds and two year olds and, god help me, school kids, I was SO glad mine as fresh and new because those older kids must be a real DRAG. Each age though, has been wonderful, and I've not missed the age he left behind because I don't know why. It's not like he's getting more interesting or anything, you know? The goal posts change each day, I suspect, and each day reveals a different wonder than the last. Different, not better, but still, better.

But knowing what comes next is going to be another one in the never ending series of Wow, This Kid Keeps On Improving! is intellectual only. In my heart, I'm dreading tomorrow. Right now, as I type, I'm overwhelmed by the no going backness of it all. Daniel starts school again and we'll never ever EVER have what we have now, our little team of two, where it's accepted without question that wherever I am, he is too.

I've never once wanted to stash him somewhere so I can have some time to myself. Maybe when I was going through all that fertility stuff and I'd be on a table, having done the business, with a pillow under my butt and he'd be on the floor with some toys or a colouring in book or right up in my face asking why he can't go down THAT end of the table, a little privacy would have been warranted, but still, I can't remember ever thinking I didn't want him there.

He asked me the other day what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I made up stories of ballerinas and astronauts and whatnot, when really, all I ever wanted was to be a mum. I thought that had been taken away, that chance, when I believed my life was only ever going to be shaped by my eating disorder, and by then, even I had forgotten all I ever wanted.

I'll still be Daniel's mum, I know that, so why do I feel so unsure of who I'll be once he's at school? Where by "unsure", I mean "terrified". Talk about an existential crisis, what with the turning a certain age, my kid starting school, and that certain age also heralding a time when getting knocked up is REALLY off the cards.

Because while I gave up treatment at the end of 2009, I never gav e up the hope that some kind of miracle would happen.

As an aside, my period was eightg days late last month. Eight frikkin' days, when I'm never late and when there was some serious action going on on the very day I ovulated.

Motherfucker, is all I have to say about that. The universe or fate or just dumb luck can be an asshole some times.

So anyway, I don't want all the time to myself everyone raves about. I don't want to pursue my career, because my life is here, at home, with my child.

Okay, FINE. Not home. We're at the beach. GOD.