Eulogy for our mother

No matter how much you prepare yourself, losing a parent is one of the hardest things in life to go through. And doubly so when your parent is, was, as magnificent as our mother. But she would not want us to mourn her. She would want us to celebrate her, as she celebrated everyone in her life.

I don’t have a single good memory to share, or story to tell you. I knew her for approximately 18 271 days, or 600 months, or 50 years and nine days. I have too many memories and stories.

One of the things that was hard for me to accept for a long time was that our mother did not belong to me alone. She belonged to all of us, to the world.

Some people collect books, like me, others collect figurines. Our mother collected people. She loved so many people, and they all loved her back.

This disease that took her from us, from all of us, is so cruel in how it isolates the person affected from the world. And our mother, she belonged to the world, to all of you, all of us, and so many others, so the last year was very hard for her as she fell deeper and deeper into this isolation.

It robbed her of so much. And yet, here you all are, to celebrate her life, because it is not about one year, but about a life lived over a many decades and through many phases.

She taught all of us to live life in exuberance. She lived hers with gusto and abundant joy. She loved to eat good food, and to laugh. And her laugh was infectious. You could not help but laugh with her.

She brought passion to every thing she did, a passion that both of us, her biological children inherited, and a passion she inspired in many of the other children whose lives she touched in her years of teaching.

I have had so many reach out to me since she left us, and they all mentioned the deep impact she had on their lives, more so than any other teacher. And many of those completed high school more than thirty years ago.

Along with her passion, she taught us resilience. No matter how many times she was broken down, she built herself right back up, each time stronger than before, and made it look almost effortless.

But most of all, she taught us that love comes in different shapes and sizes, and it is not a finite resource. You can love many people without withholding from one.

In one of my favourite books, Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett, there is a line that reads “Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken? No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life is only the core of their actual existence.”

Let us let her ripples last as long as possible.

One song, more than any other, will always remind me of her, The Whole of the Moon by the Waterboys

I pictured a rainbow
You held it in your hands
I had flashes
But you saw the plan
I wandered out in the world for years
While you just stayed in your room
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon
The whole of the moon

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She loved this poem, and the amazing Michael Sheen delivers it with such power: Michael Sheen performs 'Do not go gentle into that good night' by Dylan Thomas (youtube.com)

On empty nesting and spring madness in autumn

My child, my one and only offspring, fruit of my body, is twenty one years old. Twenty one. I have produced and managed to aid a full human to grow to this ripe age and everything. And, strangely, one gets rather attached to a human living in your space like this. So it is with some dismay that I have recently realised that this human will not remain in our space forever.

It has been even more pronounced recently as they have been travelling to Norway fairly frequently to visit their partner. The last trip was the one that really drove home this realisation. And so I have started preparing myself for the empty nest syndrome.

The husband and I luckily enjoy each others company, and have spent a fair bit of time together so we won’t find ourselves suddenly living with a stranger as so many do, but our house always feels a little emptier when the young one is away and the emptiness will take some time to get used to. I am sure it, as all other feelings, will eventually fade.

I will just need to plan my travels carefully, to ensure we can continue the one real tradition we have, which is me waking them up at 5:45am on the morning of their birthday with pancakes (or crepes as the rest of the world apparently calls them).

Growing up in South Africa, September was always the month of spring. It may not always be warm, but the signs of spring would be everywhere – sun rising earlier, trees in full bloom, air full of promise. September also meant I had a lot more energy and a head full of ideas, which I later realised was a cyclical bout of hypomania.

When we moved to the northern hemisphere, I believed this would end, as September is the beginning of autumn, and I expected I would see a slight downturn in mood.

And last year, my first September here, I didn’t really notice a mood swing either way.

But, this year, the mood I associate with September is back. Less sleep, more excitement, more exuberance, more energy. And thanks to my lovely friend Mandy’s research skills, I have now learnt that this is expected behaviour. And with some additional research, it turns out this is expected two weeks on either side of both the Autumn and Spring equinox. I must be honest, I have not really tracked my mood that actively for the last few years, and I have become a little complacent. I can feel the hypo coming on, and try and manage as much as possible with diet, sleep, exercise and sheer stubborness, but this means I am probably overdue a full episode and should keep track of things slightly better again.

On aging up and memories

Twenty one years ago, my life changed forever. This wonderful little human came into my life and gave me a reason to live and be the best me I can ever be.

I dug out some of our photos of this person from the last twenty one years, and tried to distil this down to my favourites, which has proven to be really hard.

I like this picture of us so much, with my mom in the background. My mom then was the same age as I am now.

When our offspring was a baby, I tried to record some of their growth by making hand and foot prints. Look how much they have grown since then

And then, how do you capture twenty one years of moments into one blog post? How do you choose your favourite moments with your child? I am grateful that I try and record every moment with my camera, and even more grateful that I live in a age of digital photography.

I am honoured to be your mother. You have taught us so much about life and about being good humans. I am immensely proud of the human you have become and look forward to seeing where your journey takes you.

Of Dragons and Puddings

It is perhaps no secret that the husband and I really love castles, and one of my favourite documentary series to watch is Dan Jones’ Secrets of Great British Castles. I watched the second season in December, and decided that, since we now live on the island, we have the ability to visit these marvelous castles, and our first visit was to be Cardiff Castle.

As I travel a fair bit for work, I have managed to accumulate some loyalty points with a hotel chain, and decided to haul us off to Cardiff for a quick getaway with a night in a hotel paid for by said loyalty points, as a way of celebrating my birthday at the beginning of the week. We were fortunate enough to be upgraded to an executive room with a fantastic view of Cardiff Castle and it was simply breathtaking.

We spent some time on Monday walking around Cathays Park and surrounding areas, and had lunch at the wonderful The Owain Glyndwr.

We woke up on Tuesday morning to a very rainy Cardiff, so we postponed our castle exploration until later the day, and went to the movies instead to watch The Last Jedi again.

Luckily the weather cleared up while we were in the movies, and we got to explore the magnificent Cardiff Castle.

It is well worth a visit, even if you just visit the house for its spectacular interiors, especially in the Arab room.

I visited the lovely town of Knutsford this week for work purposes, where I unfortunately did not take any pictures, but, as I will be visiting again several times over the next few months, I will surely have some more opportunities for photos.

We ended the week off with an outing to St Albans yesterday with our friends, where we had some pudding for breakfast at The Pudding Stop and then stopped for drinks at Ye Olde Fighting Cocks (which claims to be one of the oldest pubs in England) while walking around Verulamium Park to look at the ruins of the city walls and gate which can be found in this park.

I end this week feeling incredibly grateful and wonderfully loved. I’ve had the best birthday I’ve had in years, and feel truly blessed to have so many friends who are willing to spend a day with us. It is these moments that make it easy to get through the darkness.

Year in Review: 2017

I am still a little flabbergasted by the fact that I am alive in a year that sounds like a SciFi date. And, of course, if one reads the news, we are actually living in a dystopian novel at the moment.

I tried to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, and got to write quite a bit of a story that, when I started sounded like an alternate future, but 10 days in started to resemble the current reality too much that I simply could not continue. I am still not ready for a world where Trump is president, the 1% is blatant about their distaste for the 99% and Putin is fast on his way to becoming world emperor.

But, some good things happened this year too, and I think I am going to focus on those things instead.

The Big Move

While we started our very own Great Trek in October 2016, we only really settled this year. We had some touch and go moments this year, as we were not sure if our offspring would be able to join us (as they were not covered by my visa), but it worked out in the end. They received an unconditional offer from Reading University to study Art and were granted a Tier 4 student visa for the duration of the course. This means our youngling can stay with us for the next 4 years, at least.

My husband’s father has had to return to South Africa though due to some family complications, but we found him a lovely place to stay and he seems much happier there – he did not do to well with the UK winter.

We have now been in the UK for more than a year, and finally feel like we live here. Some things were super easy to get used to, while other things took a while longer.

The move would have been a lot harder if we did not have friends who lived here and we are incredibly grateful for them. They are now all family.

Sights

In between settling and sorting out family things, we have managed to see a few sights this year.

We have had a few visits to London, but have also visited Bodiam Castle, Stonehenge and Brighton.

Music

This is one of the main reasons we chose Europe, and the UK, as our new home – it makes it so much easier to attend concerts. And, in my first year here, I have managed to see two of my all time favourites live: Einsturzende Neubauten and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

We also travelled to Germany for Wacken, and we got to see so many amazing bands, including Apocalyptica, Amon Amarth, Powerwolf and Saltatio Mortis.

And were in the fortunate position to take our youngling to see one of their favourites, the Gorillaz.

I’ve discovered the joys of Spotify this year, and we now have a family subscription which allows me to listen to music more frequently than I have in the last few years. Spotify also allows me to scrobble to Last.fm, which means I have some stats of my last year’s listening habits. No real surprises with my top tracks or top artists, really

Favourite new find for the year:

Because, apparently, I really love history and music involving history

Books, Movies and TV

Thank goodness for Goodreads and giving me the ability to track what I read.

So I have only completed 13 books so far this year, I am pretty happy with having read a little wider. I started re-reading the Terry Pratchetts last year already, and that theme has continued this year, including Good Omens in preparation for the upcoming television series. I started reading the Skulduggery Pleasant series last year, and managed to squeeze in a few more this year. I also read the Handmaid’s Tale finally, and then started watching the series on Channel 4. So many articles have been written about how appropriately timed this show is, much better articulated than I can even attempt.

But the biggest new find for me this year has been the Expanse series. I watched Season 1 of the series on Netflix towards the end of last year, and was hooked instantly. I rewatched the season twice in a very short span of time and then got sidetracked into other things, until Season 2 was released on Netflix towards the middle of this year. I binged season 2, and then decided to give the books a try. Despite some limited reading time, I practically inhaled the first book of the series, Leviathan Wakes, and have since purchased the second and third books in the series. I am just about finished reading the second book, and hope to have both book 2 & 3 completed before the end of the year (I have 10 days to go, so no pressure). To say that I am a little obsessed with this series at the moment is a slight understatement.

There have been a few other interesting TV series this year, most notably Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. I was looking forward to the new Star Trek series, but I just could not connect to it, no matter how much I tried. I will probably give it another try at some point in the future, but for now, it is shelved.

The husband and I rewatched Suits, That 70s Show and The Good Wife. We also really enjoyed the Marvel offerings, especially the Defenders.

I haven’t really been to movies as much as I would have liked this year, and unfortunately missed seeing Thor: Ragnarok at the cinema, but did thoroughly enjoy The Last Jedi and Guardians of the Galaxy 2. I am really so happy to live in a time when we are getting new Star Wars stories.

Phew, what a year. I am sure I have forgotten many things, and will try and be a little better at keeping track next year.