traditions, rituals and doing life together

Here is the little letter I have been putting off writing for the longest of times. 

Huz asked me again the other day about it. He wants to keep our traditions after I've flown away, but it's kinda a big ask as I've been at the centre of organising much of it, which has been my joy. 

So I want you to know how truly I feel that these traditions and rituals and ways of celebrating can ebb and flow. Nothing in this list is set in stone, I would never want to make this yet another 'thing to do' or 'list to cross off'.

When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer I remember feeling that this cancer was aiming at my family. Aiming at my very home. Aiming at my loves, my people, the ones I hold most dear. Because if I am the target, then so are they. 

And that's just so not ok with me.

My boys you are loved loved loved. You know, loved in the way that I would climb mountains for you, sit through tedious documentaries for you, wrestle wild bears in order to save you. That way. That kinda love. You know the kind

Doing life together is my favourite thing, my ultimate fun, the time I giggle the most and the moments I remember back to with the fondest thoughts. So, that's why this little list is hard to write my boys. This writing out, this passing on, this laying out of our ways, our little family's way of doing life together. Traditions are like that. They make us secure. We know what to look forward to, we understand the terrain of life around us better when rituals and traditions provide a foundation.

And for us, the heart of all these rituals and traditions is Jesus. The one who has changed our world from grey to multicolour. The one who all of life is about. The one who makes my flying away well with my soul.

Traditions are at the centre of so much of what I am trying to establish in our home. The rituals and celebrations and traditions that stitch us together one thread, one meal, one celebration at a time.

Because what would life be without cake at our birthday party, without stockings hung at Christmas time, or without photos taken on the first day of school each year?

And I guess you are little now, and pretty 'on board' with all my madness, all my gingerbread house making, photo snapping, balloon hanging, present wrapping, song singing silliness. 

And as you grow and get all big and gangly and pimply and manly and wonderful you might not be so keen for my traditions, but deep down you would have been glad glad glad to be made to take part. And I was looking forward to that. Looking forward to dragging your sorry selves along for the ride with these rituals. 

After all, I love teenagers. I got to hang out with a nephew of mine today. He was super brave and talked with me for a bit, and it reminded me that I won't get to know you littles all big and big. I would have loved to. Would have loved to drink tea with you and hear about your girlfriends, and talk about what you're thinking, how you're tracking along with friends, music. Whatever you are into I would get into to. Even cricket. Well, that would be a massive stretch, but that's how much I love you boys. Even cricket.

Anyway.

I am so sidetracked. That's what thinking about our rituals does to me because they are about the long haul, about traditions that span years and years and span childhood into teenage-hood and into adulthood too. I hope with all my hope that you will carry some of our traditions into your own families. Oh my. I have to stop myself from going to that place where I think about you with families of your own. I can hear my heart trying not to collapse in on itself...seriously...I want so badly to be in your lives through the years. I feel all hot and sweaty, all green and queasy thinking that I won't be there. Won't be part of all the gritty, of all the nitty gritty.

This sucks.

I hate cancer more now than when I began writing today. 

Just when I think that I have found a place of peace about flying away soon, and then I remember how much I long to have a place in your lives for all of these moments, and I just...lose the peace. Gone.

And it's not even the big monumental moments. I do want to be at graduations and weddings and parties and all of it. I do. But almost more than these 'big moments' I want to sit with you in the dark after you've come home from a date and have you sit on the end of my bed and tell me all about it, tell me your worries over a cup of tea in the kitchen just you and me, I want to be at all of your sporting events, every.single.one. and I want to get to play board games with your brothers and Daddy as we hang out on a Friday night over pizza. 

I long to be in those moments with you.

I long to make new traditions with you boys. The tradition of late night movie nights. The tradition of playing basketball out the back when you get home from school. The tradition of me messing up your hair even though you're eons taller than me, and you winking at me when I drop you off to hang out with your friends.

New traditions as you grow.

The heart of traditions are family. The love that is poured into these moments binds us together in all the best ways. I treasure these traditions and rituals. They are ours to hold. They shape us as much as we shape them.

One of my joys as you littles have grown is that our family rituals have too. There are the daily ones like stories and prayers and songs and tucking in at bedtime. The weekly ones, like going to church on Sunday morning, and sleeping in and relaxing on Saturdays, and pizza and movie night on Fridays is a favourite too.

Before I was sick I loved our breakfast around the kitchen table with a devotional, and often if we drove to school I would pray for our day ahead as we wove around refrigerator gully and up the hill. Huz is so not a morning person so that doesn't really happen anymore which is totally fine. See? Traditions are flexible. They work for us not the other way around.

This year I made Anzac biscuits. Such a homely smell wafting through all day. But really, I just can't compete with Nana Mary and her amazing 'Diggers'. She cooks with magic. Actually just this week I'm wondering if she's holding back a secret ingredient or technique. I can never get them as good! Hers are the best say all of us! We love you Nana.

True and Brave went to a dawn service with Gran-dad this year. Over dinner that evening we talked about our very favourite things about Australia and the way the Anzacs fought for our freedom. 

I want you littles never to take that for granted.

The annual traditions like the ones surrounding birthdays have a little leg room. There is always always always pancakes for breakfast with 'happy birthday' sung to a candle wedged into a stack of pancakes for the birthday boy, presents upon waking up, balloons hung upside down in the doorway to walk through first thing, and treats taken to school (brownies anyone?) to share with friends. 

Birthday parties have been every second year, and in the year off a family celebrations with cousins and aunties and uncles plus a special outing (movies or bowling maybe?) have been the thing. 

our 'happy b'day' banner gets brought out every time...

Rituals for Easter are still forming really. We hunt for eggs! Hooray! This year we did four hunts. Four. That is a little too many surely. In the morning we wake early and hunt outside and then put all the eggs in a basket together which then gets portioned out to make it fair.

Huz and I always watch an Easter movie like Son of God or The Passion. We go to church on the morning of Black Friday and eat yummy scrummy easter buns after. On Sunday morning we go to church and continue the chocolate binge after.

Christmas traditions are my absolute favourite. 

On the 1st of December the Christmas tree (if we are using our fake one) MUST be put up. Must must must. That way you get a full four weeks to enjoy it, cos tell you what baby, when Christmas is over so is the tree. I whip that thing down immediately. Not sure why, but after Boxing Day it just seems like clutter. So get decorating with lights and ornaments (I buy a couple of new ones each year and keep the kiddy ones on the fridge or somewhere else. Yes, I am that mum!)

I make a Christmas Cake using the Dunkley family traditional recipe including dropping  the tin on concrete x3. Love it.  (pssst. It's super yum especially drizzled with brandy). 

The Jessie Tree starts on the 1st December and each day we read a short story/devotional and place an ornament on the small tree (or sticks in a vase) so that by the 25th it is full of ornaments. Just so beautiful.

We decorate a gingerbread house in the week leading up to Christmas, and this year I found mini houses so that each little had their own. Perfect. Make a ton of icing. You're gonna need it. And don't be skimping on the lollies. Father Christmas likes a shard of it, so go big or go home!

We like to watch the Christmas Pagent on TV cos then you don't have to fight the crowds OR have to arrive at the crack of dawn. We do however try to make an appearance at the Blackwood Christmas Pagent. Think local fun, people. Or getting to go in the fire truck with Granddad. That's pretty cool too.

On Christmas Eve Eve (the night before Christmas Eve if you're still confused Huz) we make the living room our place to be and fill it with mattresses, blankets, rugs, pillows, the lot because we are going to watch a sweet Christmas movie under the Christmas tree twinkling lights and then fall asleep together. This is my favourite tradition of all. I love it. Daddy not so much. Oh well, can't please them all...

On Christmas Eve you get one present my littles, which if you haven't worked out yet always contains PJ's (what cuties opening your pressies in the morning with new PJ's) and lollies. Then we set out a plate of Christmas Cake for Father Christmas and a carrot and milk and whatnot for the reindeers. From this year we will even have a real chimney. That'll make it easier to explain how he gets in. Phew!

On Christmas Day we start early by checking that Father Christmas did come and the reindeers did eat some carrot/Christmas cake etc.

Then we open pressies, get ourselves to church taking one pressie along each because Pastor David gets all the kids down to show what they were given. So sweet. We sing carols, we get festive. This is wonderful. I love it.

The rest of Christmas Day is spent with family in various combinations. It's always tricky to see everyone, and we mostly don't get to, but it's lovely lovely lovely, and there is always lots of love and pressies for you littles.

Boxing Day has become the Bown Christmas, so we often have brunch together and pressies on this day too. Oh my. Now we are exhausted.

aww...the sweet expression of Soul cramming it in. And that's how you celebrate.

It's busy. And by this time, mama wonders why she creates so many extra jobs for herself to do. But the love poured into each ritual, the moments spent together creating, living, loving and being are the stuff of life. So thankful we get to do this life together. You guys are my favourites!

I think I've missed some Huz. But not many. Cant wait to see what you add into the mix over the years, and what gets dropped by the wayside.

Totally up to you babe.

I love you boys, 


mum x x

time to hibernate again

Tomorrow I have treatment again (Hello Havalen!) and today was the first morning I could contemplate moving myself out of bed and into the day before 10am. Oh me oh my. This does sound like the life doesn't it. I can't imagine a mamma of little ones anywhere in all the world who would not cherish such a sleep in. Tho, I myself feel thoroughly sick of them.

Tomorrow Huz will drop you boys off to all your places. School, childcare, and then the two of us will go somewhere sweet for breakfast. How I love going out for breakfast. And the best part is that since as my chemo isn't until 2.40pm we have all morning together with me feeling the best I've felt all week - so watch out Adelaide, here we come.

Last week we landed upon a cute french patisserie and shared some crepes while the sweetest old lady and her daughter told us how handsome Huz was and how I should be wearing a wedding ring (if indeed the ludicrous story I told them of being married to this fine man could even possibly be true) and neither I nor Huz could bring ourselves to tell them the 'why' of no wedding ring on this 'larger than normal' ring finger of mine due to steroid taking/chemo induced torture.

My Huz is crazy handsome. It's not just the old ladies who dig it.

And so I'm looking forward to tomorrow morning. It's a lot of pressure on a day tho, this concept of doing a whole weeks worth of living in the space of 24 hours. And ok, although not strictly true (after all, I did have an alright day today) the chemo cloud is hanging low and foggy even as I type.

My dearest littles, I am so blessed to have extraordinary friends. I hurt over my friends hearts who will be broken when I fly away. The friends who have delved into understanding me, loving me by wanting to know the highs and lows of this season, giving no regard for themselves in the near future when I fly away.

This takes a strength in loving so big and wide and high and deep. Some of my closest few also know Jesus. We love to talk about Him and how on earth He makes all this crazy business well with my soul. Because how impossible does that sound? How hard this will be on you my littles. To hear your mama say it is well with her soul that she flies away when you are so very young, so very in need of me still for years and years piling upon years to come.

But it's not that I long to part with you. How could I ever. Those sweet cheeks, dirty boy fingers, rounded bellies and short legs with all the knees I love the most bruised, cuts all around, bandaids hanging off half the time. 

'choc&chat' with True

I have memorised your faces, my loves, tracing outlines as I tuck you into bed. Tonight True you declared loudly that 'I can't find the teddy that mummy gave me when she thought she was dying last year but then didn't.' 

oh. well, why didn't you just say. 

Way to bring me into my reality True. And yet you hunted on, tucking Ikky your teddy into bed with you and moving on in the bedtime conversation with your brothers.

Yes. When i thought I was dying last year and then I didn't. It's true True. 

And all those months from then until now have been bonus, and yet I'm so greedy, and it can't be time for me to hibernate again under this next chemo surely.

I'm greedy, starving, desperate for time time time with you boys. For you to be older so you and I can be the 'us' we will be in those days, added on top of these beautiful days with you so very young. I am greedy for days upon days for you to know and be loved by me in all the ways I imagine.

Will you boys imagine how it could have been if I didn't fly away too soon? Will it be well with your souls, your hearts that are still growing and navigating this tough world? I pray it will be. I pray a lot into your futures. That grace would meet you when I can't. That Jesus would be a very present help in times of trouble. He has been loving me super big even (maybe more even if this could be right) in this bossy cancer.

And Miss E reminds me often of Jesus' big love, and how cancer doesn't get to be as bossy as Him. There will be a day when every single knee bows at the name of Jesus. Even the name of cancer will bow on one knee and throw his gritty grubby hands in the air in surrender. It will be over. No more disease or sickness. And our sweet Jesus will make it all all right for good.

I mull it over. In and out of nauseated delirium, I mull it over. 

And again I'm so glad to have a hope which is an anchor for my soul.

some down time at Nana's with the iPad

day-two-after-chemo

Dear Day-Two-After-Chemo,

You are my least favourite day. Well one of. I have had a day or two from the last round to lift my head from the fog, and then yesterday the poison pumped into my port, as I sat and chit chatted with the gorgeous nurses and had a coffee and scrolled through Instagram. All ordinary. 

And one of my favourite nurses (really do love you Miss E) somehow saw we were late to our appointment with Dr K, and I was told that all year I have been casual about these said appointment times,  and been therefore been found lolling about in the waiting rooms and in chairs out the back keeping my doctors waiting. Whaaaat? Feel so bad now. Right. Time to step it up and be a fabulous patient to make up for it. Seriously, why did no one give me a slap on the hand or a little tiny tell off...sorry Dr K and Dr O.

And the fabulous Miss J is such a crack up. You have influenced me to get a puppy Miss J. Absolutely true. I just could not look at your face one more time when you asked me if we had decided yet. And I love how you love your Freddy. Lucky little doggy he is.

So you know I think you are hilarious, and sarcastic in all the best ways, and also a bit of a great nurse too. Shout out to you cos I never did ask if I could put your photo here. But now my littles will love you to. K?

But now it's day two, and this is less fun. It's me and you heading it off, but you have nausea and bone pain and exhaustion on your side.

And nausea you have come with vengeance, and yes you have managed to take me down, cowering in my bed, curled up and breathing deep, hoping with all my hope that your visit will be a short one. You might be my least favourite of all. No offence.

Dog bone weary. Is that a thing? I'm tired, 'like opening my eyes is hard' tired. Like 'turning over in bed to reach my phone takes some gumption' tired.  Tired like 'breathing takes thought' tired. 

I want to give up today. 

I'm sorry my littles. But I want you to get this, hear me say this. Today I want to give up cos this is hard. I want to say 'no more of this Havalen please. Seriously. No more, but thanks.'

I'm scared to voice that. 

The thing about being a cancer patient is that doctors listen to you. I mean, really listen to you. Like at my appointment with Dr K yesterday I kicked off our discussion with how full on it was last week with nausea. Now if you visit your GP as just a 'regular non-cancery-person' this snippet of info may just fall on deaf ears. Not here. If you are a cancer patient with not so much time left to live it up, all of a sudden being taken down by nausea on a regular basis just won't do. And so maybe we should not persevere with this drug Dr K suggests. What a thought. Kicking to the curb a major treatment option cos I'm weak.

He's a great doctor.

My words as a patient carry weight, and tend to guide the discussion and way forward with treatment and medications. Can't ask for more than that. But that's scary too, because I'm far more accustomed to my very legitimate complaints falling on deaf ears.

I must be too used to being healthy.

This is the major leagues. I better keep up.

Darling Soul wiggled in beside me this morning - I was watching a clip one of my besties sent me last night - such a beautiful song- to lift me, and Soul came to watch. He liked it. Then to matters at hand, he had to go and have breakfast. Huz was calling him, but he had lost his red hat that he wanted to wear (I wanted him to wear it too, after my enthusiastic attempt to cut his hair was not my best effort) and he lay there and sobbed, 'I want my red hat, and it's gone, it's gone, it's gone'. 

I had been doing my own sobbing into the pillow this morning, (thanks 'day-two-after-chemo') and somehow these baby tears over such nothings had me well up and cry into his little shoulder. Not at all over the red hat, no of course not. Over his little troubles, his very little little troubles, and over my very big ones. And so his chubby hand lifted my chin off his shoulder and he stopped his sobbing for a second to say, 'Or-right, I will marry you'. And it was so earnest and true. So I said, 'Thankyou darling. That would be nice'.

And there it was. A marriage proposal, given and received. I think it made me cry some more. And Soul puttered off to breakfast.

I wonder when the 'big day' will be.

class picnic

I can hear the voice of True begging his Daddy to take him to the class picnic on time.

He doesn't know that there really was no plan for him to attend at all. 

I had written it off as too hard for me in all the headachy yuck as I am in the midst of post 'very fun weekend away'. Huz worked today on his day off and came home with more phone calls to make and a heavy load on his shoulders thanks to me being in bed and pretty useless child wise.

You see when I am unable to do, well, whatever it is, then there is always one, two or three littles who need to be taken care of.

And Huz just came into my room and said, 'I'm going to go. True really wants to'. And I love this spontaneous lets-just-do-it thing he does, and his daddy heart feels what my mummy heart feels too.

True misses out on enough as it is. Give the kid a class picnic if that's what he wants.

And so True, you are going my little. You are also begging for different clothes to wear instead of the school uniform, and you don't really get that Dad is working up until the last minute he can before he races with you there, races his boy (the one we would cross oceans for, the one we love more than chocolate) to a class picnic so that you wouldn't miss out on anything else.

I feel the weight of all that you miss out on.

It's the playdates, the ones we don't offer because how can we when it's all I can do to look after the three of you littles in my own way without adding in any extras.

It's the weekend adventures as a family to farm barns, outdoor trips, car rides into the unknown, meeting new friends, eating lunch all around the place, opening our doors wide in hospitality that you little men miss. And I wonder, do you notice this? This missing?

It's the missing out on what I expected we would gift to you that has made me sad these last few days. The gift of class picnics was on my list of what you would miss. In the fog of my head aching I hear your little voice say to Nana, 'Dad's just gonna chill out'. 
(Hmm...really? I've never heard a parent rave about how relaxing it was taking three littles to a class picnic just before bed time. Anyway. Just sayin'.) 

You are excited to go, and even though it's not me making this happen for you in any way...I'm just in bed...I feel a little part of the sad flake away, fall away, as I'm counting all the missing out. 

You are happy this afternoon to be like the other seven year olds in your class. 

And that's just how it should be.

Oh happy day!

Oh happy day!

Here am i listening to the tinkering of rain on our tin roof (did I ever tell you that I almost refused the option of having extra insulation in our ceiling because I so love this sound) and I have my Brave next to me doing his own tinkering, choosing from the kids apps I have on my phone. He's so sweet all bundled amongst my white doona and pillows piled high and his oh so lovely little self just come to be by my side on this taste of winter afternoon.

And these really are my favourite days where boys are happily entertained (and my heart might burst as I think of my sweet sis-in-law Miss N and my two nieces who have made that possible today Miss N and Miss B - I'm so grateful to you girlies).

This morning was the birthday of that man I most admire, most love of them all. Huz. The one without whom I could never live. I mean it. I couldn't. He could live without me I just know it to be true, but not the other way around. I need him like I need air to breathe or chocolate by my bedside.

Huz you are an un-negotiable luxury  You are way more than I deserve on my very best day. I knew I married out of my league and you have proved me right every day since. And now you are busy loving me in all the 'cancer-y-ness' of this 2015, the way we never dreamed it would be. 

And when i think on the sacrifices you have made in loving me through the thin and the thick (mostly thick) of cancer it is piling sky high and it just keeps growing that stack of love, and I suspect will do until my dying day. I'm so very glad to be the object of your affection, baffled by it though I am. 

This day is your day, although on the surface it has not felt one skerrick of how I wanted to celebrate you. And you know (you didn't say it this morning, but you know) that it's the biggest birthday fail from my hands yet, but please don't let it trick you into thinking you are anything but my favourite person in all of this beautiful world, the one I race to for advice, the opinion I hold above every other, the heart who I hold as most dear, the one without who I could never be myself because we are so wrapped up together in all the best ways and none of the worst.

You're my favourite.

Happy birthday you. Well done for getting born, (well, actually that shout-out goes to my very dear mum-in-law. Thank you for such an amazing husband mum), for growing up and being you as only you can be.

I wouldn't trade you for anything.

True's sydney trip

 

Last weekend was to be True and my secret trip away. A beautiful friend of mine had mentioned how she had taken each of her littles away for some time just for them to be together and enjoy some fun, and I have been busy planning fun adventures for myself and each of the littles ever since.

I had booked tickets to Sydney, and a gorgeous hotel with a pool as I knew how much True was desperate to swim swim swim. On The Rocks, we would be based super close to everything so that my tired self could handle getting around. Perfect plans.

All set.

And then I realised how rubbish I was feeling, this bossy cancer pain shooting through my back and legs, and how if I had a pain crisis while we were away there would be no way I could hide it from my little guy, no way to get myself sorted out and it would end up being completely traumatic instead of wonderful for True. Hmm. Time to think again, and get Huz onboard.

So of course, Huz who is amazing at making all my dreams come true (you know you are Huz - I don't need 'MakeAWish' puz I have you!) agreed to come along, and True also invited Brave to join us. That part makes my heart want to burst. That my boy would want his little bro' to come too. Oh my goodness. That's rad.

So.

Off we set for 24 hours of just hanging with ma' hommies. And although I felt super, horribly, terribly awful about leaving little Soul at home, it kind of had to be that way due to the short nature of the trip. So, I really am sorry my darling Soul. Am planning some kind of fun adventure just for you and me to do really really soon.

Just arrived at the hotel - these two ran like crazies

My littles first buffet breakfast. Pure delight over the decadence. 

Brave and I at the pool. Huz and True are in the spa behind us

The littles loved the Sydney Aquarium. Brave's fav fishy.

And we did swim swim swim, and we ate and walked and discovered, and took a heap of train rides, ferry rides and plane rides. 'Twas so lovely. And tho it wasn't just True and I after all, having Brave and Huz along made it super fun especially at the Italian restaurant we ate at the first night, and the boys snuggling in bed in the hotel room over my iPad for the early morning. 

Tho it is magic to be home, I'm so glad for mini trips with my loves, for the fun of seeing True and Brave live out all the fun of a plane ride, and see through their eyes how it is to touch a sea-star at the aquarium or even just watch as they try with all their might to wait to be served at a restaurant. 

I store it all up in my heart. It's good medicine. 

the long goodbye goes on...

I'm still in the midst of my long goodbye.

Wanted to write that sentence differently. More like I'm in the middle of my long goodbye, but that feels a little too optimistic at the moment.

This week has held lots of bad news. Well, it's felt like bad news. Huz and I have both felt crushed in different ways, and are walking around bruised and battered to some extent. I would have guessed that one becomes more resilient to difficult news as time goes on after being diagnosed with a Stage IV cancer, but somehow it has worked in the opposite way, with my heart feeling less resilient, and less able to be upbeat. 

My combo of 'VanillaBean' and Xeloda has stopped working. It's been very good to me and provided absolute bonus time after a bleak 2014. I do have to remember that. Remember to be grateful and so glad for drugs that gave me life for 6 months. And when I think of all we have packed into that time. Oh my God. Thank you.

The part of this news that is devastating is that I have now chewed through my second line chemo. The more I read about the implications of this, the harder it is to digest this news. 

I just really can't work out if I'm a 'glass half full' or a 'glass half empty' gal. Maybe I swing between the two. Whatever the case, my mind is almost always on the idea that this is one of the last chemo options that will actually work. Third line chemo is a bit hit or miss, although this relatively new drug, Halaven has had some good results, so this is a good thing.

You littles are shielded from much of this news. Huz and I have processed this mostly after you three have been tucked in for the night, and we sit half watching TV and talking on the couch with sparkling cider or a coffee, and we talk. I cry. Lots. More than you may think is possible. Huz doesn't cry. His eyes don't leak water like mine do. Whatever. 

Yesterday as we were driving home from church you asked me Brave about why I am tired at the moment. I couldn't not say. I just couldn't. We wonder if you boys have forgotten how sick I am because I really have been doing well for months now. But to go in and burst that sweet childhood bubble again. Goes absolutely against the grain. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it.

So I explained again about how the medicine I'm on works until the cancer gets smarter, and now the cancer is getting smarter so I have to change chemo. There was a short silence, and then you said that really the right thing to do would be to keep using the same chemo because then we would never run out of chemo if we needed it. 

Oh Brave. What could I say. I wish you were my doctor.

And it's the pragmatic way you talk about my cancer Brave that undoes me. Makes me wonder if we have been 'real' enough with you littles. Makes me wonder what you wonder. Makes me wonder if you ever lie in your bed with fears tucked in next to you without me knowing.

And the other two listened. I think True said something along the lines of, 'yeah, that's what I was going to say too'...But then you say that about lots of things right now True, it's just your thing. 

And then there's little Soul, sitting between the two of you with snuffles and snot and holding some little booklet you had coloured in your Sunday School class. And I know you don't get it, can't get it. And will that be easier in the end? Easier not to have any lead up, easier to be the youngest with a different filter on the whole 'mummy's sick' reality.

And today our pastor at church spoke about a lens, about the filter through which we see life. It's critical what lens we have, and this analogy is so rich, I'm mulling it over today still, hoping with all my hope that we have gifted our littles with a lens with which to see how present and kind and here-in-the-now is our God. It's what got me through the car ride conversation. The conversation that feels so surreal and so much like 'this just has to be somebody else's life and not my own' kind of conversation.

And Huz took our new pup and Brave outside for some man time. Some kind of de-brief on that car ride conversation. And he came back pretty broken, (Huz that is) I'm not sure over the content or how real it all becomes when we talk to you littles about it all.

Yuck. Not the stuff of a relaxed Sunday afternoon. Not at all what I want for my littles to think over, to be unsettled by, to keep deepening their understanding of. My childhood was so very innocent and sheltered and rich in playing and fun and being loved and living simply.

It's so different for my boys, and it's only just begun. I mean, I'm still here.

And so the long goodbye goes on.

And the long goodbye has afforded me many many luxuries (if I can call them that). The luxury of crying over coffee with my sisters, reminiscing over our beautiful shared childhood, the luxury of watching one last time those Super8 films that my Dad poured all of his love for me into. The luxury of having my parents care for me with all the love and protection and joy that can be mustered in the light of it all. The luxury of letter writing, legacy leaving, gift giving, snuggled talks with my littles. The luxury of a marital bond articulated and celebrated and mulled over and reminisced over and cried over together. The luxury of a million scillion hours laying in my feathered bed praying for my loves and wondering how Grace will meet them when I am gone, hurling loud and fierce prayers into the ear of God on their behalf and wanting badly for these prayers to mean something beyond the now.

The luxury that many many people would have wanted and chosen for themselves if only they could have instead of being suddenly ripped from their lives as happens for many in death.

In some ways there is a desperation for the hard to be over. For my suffering to be done. For the pill swallowing and pain to be finished. For the endless heating of heat packs to have had its day. This is cushioned by the joy there is in the long goodbye. It's joy disguised.  It's grace disguised.

Home grown apples from my lovely friend M! SO delicious. Thank you!

morning moments

I used to be a morning person.

Dead set. I loved, I lived, I longed for early mornings.

But I have been dreading them these last few weeks, because they contain the most potent dose of pain and discomfort that I've regularly experienced. And I'm waking up to it in groans. And it's a dream sequence of wheat bags and oxynorm softened with spotify- music for my soul to drag me through it all. Until I sleep again in fits and starts. You boys coming in (coming in coming in) asking me where socks are, wanting shoe laces done up and crying that offences have been made against you and only you by your brothers. Then deeper sleep, or perhaps it is just sleep gifted by drugs-will dampen the pain, and I dream (I don't know what) and when I wake the house is quieter as you littles have gone and my Huz has gone too. 

Sometimes I can hear one of my mums cleaning and tidying and sorting and washing and I remember its my two mums keeping this house ticking over, stopping it from teetering on the edge of madness. It's the two of them and their hard work that keep clothes clean and floors clean and all the rest too.

Also they keep me from spinning off the edge of my axis. Tell me that having a tidy house doesn't matter and I will heartily disagree! It's grounding. It's peace giving. It's calming, and it's not giving this rubbish disease the upper hand by making our lives a big old mess.

You see my littles, this morning I didn't want to get out of bed with my bucket next to me and freshly changed sheets (thanks Ma). Too hard. Too hard.

But today I'm learning that I get to show up even though I'm sick. 

I don't want to check out early. I want to be present in the moments I'm given to be here. And those moments may be given 'post horrid morning hours', but they are given nonetheless. And how foolish of me to even consider not grabbing those moments by the horns and riding them till I'm thrown violently off my proverbial bull.

There are so very many moments, hours even that I'm busy just trying to push through pain, and yet there are little moments and great moments on difficult days. And that has to be enough. It's more than enough. And it didn't take cancer for me to notice this, to long to take hold of the little moments that matter even if they are given in the context of large, ongoing difficulty. Because who doesn't have difficulty in their life. I don't know even one. And the other day I walked through Marion and looked at all the beautiful people and thought it again: everyone you meet is walking a difficult path.  It may not be stage four cancer, but this is not a competition for 'hardest story'. There are many, many types of 'hard' after all.

can you believe these are 'supermarket roses'? It's my new discovery - beautiful cheap flowers!

And yet grabbing those moments in the midst of it all has been a wildly exciting discovery. 

Much like finding beautiful roses in Blackwood Foodland. But I digress. 

That these weeks and months can be full of joy and meaning and connection and love. And that's only as I'm setting my hope on looking forward to Heaven and being with my Jesus soon. Fixing my eyes on Him and on all the beauty He has placed in my life instead of the cancer stuff. It was one of the only bible verses I ever memorised that made this click in my heart a while back. I am so sadly poor at memorising, well, anything actually. Even before the convenient 'chemo brain' excuse was at my fingertips! I tend to have a 'feel' for a text I've read, or a street direction or google map I've studied. Remembering it word for word not so much. I guess you know who to thank when you're in year 12 my darling boys and can't commit to memory all of that info for your exams. You're welcome/I'm sorry.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, Who for the joy set before Him, scorned it's shame and went to sit down at the right hand of God. 
Hebrews 12.2

Boom yeah!
Typed that out by memory. 

Let my littles be suitably impressed. And a big thanks goes out to my best buddy through all high school Miss N who inspired me to remember that by heart. Thanks N!

So, that's what I'm doing I guess. Fixing my eyes not on the difficulties but on Jesus. Sure doesn't come like first nature. But that's like everything about following Jesus. Hard but good. Not easy but totally life-changing.

I'm hoping you'll let Him change your lives too my dear hearts.

Mum xx

brave's 6th birthday

Brave's 6th birthday week was fun. Based on all the times he sought me out to wrap his arms around my neck and tell me 'I love you Mummy', I think he felt pretty loved on. 

Balloons hung in the doorway so the birthday boy has to walk through them first thing in the morning

Mission accomplished.

This year wasn't a 'party year' as we call them, which has become more devastating since the littles have realised that other friends at school have a party every year. oh well. I'm the worst mama in the world, I know I know, it's just how it is.

So. This year's celebrations included all of our birthday traditions like hanging up our birthday banner and balloons for the morning of, so the birthday boy stumbles into the balloons as he comes out of his bedroom, and then pancakes for breakfast after madly opening presents and leaving bright beautiful wrapping paper strewn all over.

And this year (because I'm breaking all the rules this year) I took him out of school for the morning and we hit the shops with his new wallet and birthday money, and after long deliberations found the perfect toy to buy, topped off with a "happy" meal before heading into school carting along brownies (also his absolute favourite) to share with his class. 

Brave's favourite food is lasagne, so I made a morning of it with my thermie and together we cranked out a tasty lasagne -a personal accomplishment as I haven't cooked in over a year. I poured all the mama love into this lasagne possible. And I like to think he tasted it in every bite. Ha!

And so we gathered around our new dining table with Nana and Granddad and also a favourite cousin and aunty (hooray!) and luckily for me Nana remembered that one often eats cake at a birthday (I had completely forgotten about birthday cake) and she had made a very yum banana cake with sprinkles and candles for dessert. So yum.

So with full bellies for all and a day of being spoilt and loved on in the bag, Brave happily went through his day using and re-using his own joke he had made up, 

'I'm feeling really six today' (get it, get it? not sick but six).

It was a good day.

And I wrote him the birthday letter I do each year, and realised that as I wrote I kept smiling. Every time I think about Brave I get this little smile on my face. He's that loveable. That sweet.

And I'm so glad the dimple has stayed around. It thrilled me the day he was born, and I am just as in love with it now.

Happy birthday, and love you more than chocolate Brave!