i’ve not noticed this photo properly until tonight.
I know who took it, and they have known me since i was a foetus. they have parented me, loved me as one of their own and are one of the kindest souls i am blessed to know.
i’ve often found that it is an unexpected source that will show you something you needed to learn. that a single shot can bring a level of acceptance and a little smile in your heart.
this photo sums me up more than i expected. i think it’s strange i only really noticed it this evening. it was taken at cameron’s birthday party.
i’ve been to a million birthday parties in that yard, and growing up, i never thought i would be at my own daughter’s.
i’ve run this yard and slept in it numerous times. i’ve danced and read and lived, had bonfires, laughed, cried, had a brick dropped on my head *yeah i know, explains alot hey* and in this yard i also stubbed my toe so badly that my toenail has never been the same. i have loved and hated here. i have lived and i have died. i have planned and thought and written and read.
that yard is next door to my old house.
sometimes, i miss the old house. the familiarity of it. the smells and the noise and the carpet underfoot that for years made me think of animal fur (i don’t know why, i’ve thought that most of my life). the funny linen cupboard, the sunshine in my window, the soggy grass, always soggy, in the backyard. the graffiti-ed cupboards, the promise of where my folks would hide the christmas presents up high. the idea that every day promised something, either good or bad.
the day my father died, my very-close-to-my-heart sister in law picked me up and took me to the house. i walked in with cameron in my arms as a three-week-old infant, hugged my mother and she went to make funeral arrangements.
and left me alone in the house i grew up in with my infant daughter.
i was okay with being left alone with her. i grabbed that opportunity. i swaddled her up, i walked her up and down it. i showed her every photo and funny idiosyncracy the house held. i told her about why there was a butter mark on the pelmet in the kitchen, i explained why i laughed in the kitchen and remembered about the fridge whose door used to fall off at inopportune moments circa 2am. i smiled in the diningroom and showed her where we used to have all the photos and where for my 21st, my words were plastered all over it. i showed her the bathroom where i peed on a stick and we found out she was going to make her appearance in our lives. i gave her a grand tour of my room and told her of the funny room parties me and my friends would throw (how funny, I saw you today Sarah and we are all mothers now. and i said to you today that i wish for Cameron what I have – long-standing friends who offer unbounded acceptance, love and shared memories), my brother’s room now become daddy’s office, my sister’s room now become the sun room of chaos. i showed her downstairs and how when we were little we three siblings each had our own set of cupboards and that, if we opened this one, there was a sticker from a restaurant my sister once worked at. i told her that on the day will returned from Ireland, i was sat down there with green candles and a drink at the ready. i showed her the front door where a million friends had shown their faces in. i showed her the patio where mom would sit. and the stairs where she would muse.
i took her into the garden and i danced on the lawn, one more time. i showed the cabana and pointed out that when i was three, my dad would sit with me on his lap and talk to me. there’s a photo of that. my proud face and his arms holding me. i told cameron i hoped that i would be able to love her like that. and that im sure her daddy did.
i walked into the backyard and laughed at my blue paint on the windowsill. how it said something so far removed from my life now and yet, was such a developmental thing for me to do. i wished for her great love.
i showed her my window where i would sit and write and think and smoke and wave.
and then. then i went inside, picked up her bag and went next door.
i went next door and let her granny take care of her for a while whilst i cried. her granny knew i would wait until i was ready to cry. i gave cameron to her and i walked back to the house i grew up in and i cried.
i sat at the diningroom table and knew i would never sit there again and muse over tea like i had.
in that short cry, i knew i had to grow up. i knew that the time for me to unbecome a child and become a mom was upon me. and the thing that made me brave enough to be able to cope with losing my father was the fact that i was becoming a mother.
and the phone rang, friends phoned, people cried. i remember one person phoned to order one of my dad’s publications and i took the order, his details and sat down to write my dad a note to tell him to call this man.
and then i realised.
i realised i’d have to call this man back and tell him that i had no idea how to do it because my father had just that morning passed away but that once the chaos had passed i promised i would get whatever he needed to him.
i’ll never forget that man. he cried when i told him and was so apologetic whilst i was apologising for being so confused that i didn’t even think to tell him that my father was gone to heaven.
the ladies from the chemist called and sent over a package of the stuff i needed to help me be a mom. they were wonderful to me.
then i stopped again. and went to get my daughter. she was asleep on her granny’s chest. so small and so safe.
and i remembered why, so much, i always knew that i was lucky. i was lucky, i am lucky. i’ve always had a much bigger family than the one i lived with. i’m not here to discount my biological, not for half a penny. but i am here to tell you that the people who have known me since i was a foetus are family to me too. and that they know so well that cath can’t speak when she is in pain. and that to distract me from it, they can make tea and talk of anything but the gaping holes they see in my eyes.
when cameron’s granny’s father died, on a day after christmas, i remember when she told us. we were watching ice age. it was boxing day. all sat on the couch and the phone rang. i’ll never forget her face and how for the first time, her embrace was limp.
that day, that day my father died, my embrace of her as she held my tiny daughter, was limp. for the first time in my life, i could not hug with the life that i knew lived within me. and for the first time, i understood why she told us on her father’s death day, to carry on with the movie.
i carried on with the movie. i was stilted and jilted and that evening, came home to the place where i would begin to raise my child, and where i had started to become a vaguely independent person. i sat on the balcony and stared at the stars. and i knew i had to carry on. even though i did not want to.
the thing about this story, is not that my father died. we all know our parents die, eventually. we never learn about it until they do. the point of this epistle is not about a house i grew up in or a wall i would climb over to see another part of my family. the point of this piece is that i do have a family, far larger than those who bare the same name as me. and that these people also know me so well, that they know exactly who i am and love me just as i am.
and who am i? just as i am?
i’m the girl sat on the grass blowing bubbles and not caring about a thing in the world except the bubbles.
because the bubbles are today.
and whether the bubbles are huge and float high and far, or small and pop on my nose, i am going to keep blowing them.