kick-starting grief

My dearest friend Zahida passed away just over 3 weeks ago. Super aggressive metastatic breast cancer, 14 months from diagnosis.
I'd written that last post some time before I published it. She read this blog and I was torn between not wanting to make the pain any more nuanced for her but needing to write this shit out. I had that in drafts and the Friday I published it she was in hospital, not answering any messages, my only updates were via her sister and part of me genuinely thought I'd not ever see her again.

I did. Twice over that weekend I was lucky enough to see her in hospital. Both times I was summonsed by that dear girl, just me and her family and her husband. We said our goodbyes, we said everything we wanted to say, we laughed together, we cried so many tears, we held hands and said thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

She passed away on the following Wednesday, first thing in the morning, and after the Janazah and the endless messages and calls, after we buoyed her family through the first 48 hours, even after her younger sister and I cleared out her closets and arranged a birthday party for her daughter - can you even conceive of turning 8 just a week after losing your mum? Even after all of that I couldn't really comprehend it.
I still couldn't have the ugly cry.

My body did all the things it likes to do in times of stress. A UTI, eczema and eventually sinusitis. I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't feeling and I wasn't grieving - not properly. I knew it was there, just out of sight, lurking, and I wanted to feel it. I felt so detached from her for not being able to weep.

So on Thursday I did what I'd been putting off, what I'd frankly wondered whether I would do at all.
I wrote the tear-jerker Facebook post, I put it out there. While I was writing it the tears came, and while I read all the subsequent messages and DM's and emails which it triggered I wept and wept.
I kick-started the grief and now it is here. And while it is awful, it also feels good to feel.

Molly 

22 March at 22:56 ·

It's been just over 3 weeks and I'm still in shock.

We were supposed to be crones together, Zahida and I. Stylish crones of course.

She made me try harder. She opened my eyes and filled my heart. She had the most magnificent laugh. She had the most enormous brain. 

We bore babies together, we cooked and danced and laughed and cried together. 

She filled my home with beautiful things, my life with joy and my head with questions and thoughts I'd never have had without her.

And in the last year she gave me the greatest gift - the honour of walking with her to the edge of the light.

About 6 months ago she said 'Are you sure you don't want to get off here Mols, it's going to be a roller coaster of a ride'.

I didn't once consider it, and I'll eternally be grateful that she allowed me to stay.

I only wish I was as sure how to navigate the world without her.

Miss you friend, miss you forever.

the grit

A friend told me my blog has been looking a little squeaky-clean of late. Enviable family holidays away, gorgeous sunny birthday parties in the middle of winter, daughters who read all day and stay out of my hair, birthday lunches with lovely ladies ... yeah, it's been a wonderful few months ... but we all know life ain't like that all the time right?

I just don't really like to moan, don't like to come into this space with the blaah. Not that I haven't in the past, but the thing is, what do I want a record of?
The warm 'n fuzzy moments of my life - the big events, the everyday love, the heart-stopping moments of ordinary awe and immense gratitude?

Or, do I want to remember how in the last few weeks I've also ...
... had two jobs canceled (turns out they couldn't afford the full ass) and all the related financial stresses
.... been back and forth to the vet 5 times with my beloved Lego. She's had a big skin sarcoma biopsied, then removed, then re-stiched, then re-bandaged and re-medicated. Her little brother was responsible for the second round of stitches and bandages. Resulting eventually in this:

... managed The Cone: rearranged furniture, placated a seriously unhappy pup, had my shins smashed into over and over, kept the food bowl filled just so so he could use it and any number of times been called on to extricate him from some cone/bush/chair jam, once involving dog shit
... tackled our first case of head-lice in the family (not bad for 8 years of parenting huh?), which involved copious research, laundry, tumble-drying EVERYTHING, quarantining 2 black bags of soft toys, spray, comb, shampoo, check and repeat. Over and over and over and over and over.
... managed my annual seasonal asthma issues, lots of wheezing and discomfort and fretting at 1am about dying of emphysema until I get myself to the doc and hand over a lot of money in exchange for the welcome news that it's really not that bad, and the right (expensive) meds to manage it. Boring.

So ja, I could've blogged about all that for some perspective right? Life is not all hoorahs and polished apples.
But we know that, you know that, and I know that despite there being some challenges and tedious days of soul-destroying adulthood, my life is pretty damn fine.

It's more than fine, it's mine - and it's the best life I could be living right now.

best foot forward

Late on Wednesday afternoon, I stepped off the patio to catch a glimpse of a Fish Eagle I heard calling over the lake.
And turned my ankle.

I always thought Fish Eagles were one of my spirit guides (long story), but I'm still trying to work out how this one was serving my best interests.

Doc this morning gives me 2-4 weeks immobility (I'm on crutches) as a best case scenario. Could be closer to 6.
Right foot sprained, no driving, swollen toes, sore arms and palms from crutches, work-stressed husband/solo parent, delightfully helpful little girls (for now), school starting next week, anti-inflammatory meds, complete state of disbelief.

Really 2014? Really?

This is not how I'd thought we'd set off together.

gratuitous photo of small girls running, because they can

sad and sticky

I'm not ready to talk about Mandela.

Friday was a big day, and I've spoken about my sorrow here before. When I remember that he's gone my heart feels like a balloon, hollow and tight, a feeling I thought was reserved for losing someone closer to me.
Turns out he was that close, to us all.

It was a weekend of comforting things, I'm glad for that.

Husband has a fantastic relationship with food. He loves to eat it, but more especially (as Stella's nanny used to say), he loves to make it.
He cooks, or bakes, to relax. To experiment, to learn, to laugh. To eat.

He grew up in a house in which home-made was a matter of fiscal and domestic pride, his parents were great canners and preservers. They were into food too.
One of my favourite stories from his childhood is how my in-laws used to make their own stash of individual pies. A towering stack of silver foil pie dishes were procured, and a great pie-making project begun - everything from the crust to the filling made from scratch, the completed products stacked in the freezer with pride.
Mostly made from the foods they grew, reared, or ... caught.
Apparently tortoise pie is not to be recommended.

But home-steading's in the genes and over the years he's perfected his bread-making skills, researched and made exotic things, and 'put by' a fair amount of goodies - from pies (pork and fennel for us thank you), to jams and relishes and currently, ginger and buchu beer.

After brewing it all weekend, we bottled it up a couple of hours ago. A couple of hours later, and we've just finished mopping up our sticky kitchen and releasing the pressure on the remaining bottles.
It's fiery stuff this ginger beer.

Making stuff, using our hands, filling our bellies - this is how we find comfort.

27 June 2008

Frieda was just one. She and I had spent the afternoon at a friend's. I remember I'd had more than one gin and tonic. It was Friday and it felt that way.

We got home a little late for starting supper etc, and swooped straight through the house to the kitchen. I put Frieda in her high chair and started scrabbling for something to feed her.

The alarm had been on when we'd arrived, I'd disarmed it before we entered. The study door was closed but that didn't strike me as odd, we often closed it so Frieda wouldn't toddle in there unsupervised.

It was only when I tried to open the back door, and couldn't, that I realised the broom cupboard which stood just outside it was on its side. Then I saw all the broken glass and went cold.
Where they still here?

I grabbed Frieda and my phone and walked straight out of the house again. Stood in the bitter wind phoning my husband and the security company. I wrapped her close in my big jersey, my heart thudding through us both.

Turns out the burglar was long gone. He'd smashed the solid pane of the study window (having realised that the alarm worked with contact points on all the opening windows and doors), closed the door to the study and helped himself to everything in there - 2 laptops, a tablet, a bike jacket, a mobile phone, some cash etc.

A bloody fingerprint stained the strip plug he'd unplugged my laptop from.
I am so grateful I'd copied the photos of Frieda's 1st birthday to a flash drive to share with a friend.
He left a can of mace spray behind.
I'm so grateful we came home when we did.

He left some other fingerprints too. And the reason why I tell this story now is that tomorrow I go to court to bear witness against him. 5 years and another dozen charges later they've got him, and although I don't really see the worth of my testimony - I can't add anything to the original police report, I never saw him - I'll do what I can to help find him guilty.

We were 'lucky' to have only been burgled once in all the years we lived in Observatory. (Actually we were broken into twice but the other time the perp only got into our garden shed and took a dump - I was away working on a shoot so I guess that time just I was lucky!)

But I don't feel particularly lucky now as I have to leave home in the dark and rain tomorrow to spend the morning on a cold, hard bench in the unsavoury environment of the Cape High Court.
But Justice must be served right?

dreaming as therapy

I probably shouldn't share this story. I already feel somewhat responsible for some of the readers of this blog's decision not to have children.
As I said recently on the other blog, blogging about parenting is a constant balance between trying not to gush too much, and not wanting to be an awfully moaning bore. Parenting does however seem to occupy one or the other of these extremes most of the time.

So I won't go into too much detail about how COMPLETELY FUCKING NUTS my just-turned 3 year old is driving me.
I'll just relate the dream I had two nights ago and let that speak for itself ...

I dreamed I was at some lovely day time event, sans kids, facing a massively indulgent buffet table, perusing the options.
I selected a thick slice of farm baked bread, spread lusciously with butter and my Mum's delicious apricot jam.

As I walked away from the table savouring this treat a scrawny teenage Goth girl approached me and whined, 'Aw, please can I have a bite?'
I wasn't thrilled but begrudgingly offered my slice to her, whereupon she started moaning, 'Why did you put jam on it? I hate jam? Scrape the jam off!'

In my dream I saw red. With the flat of my hand I ground the whole slice of bread, butter and jam hard into her whiny face, eventually causing her to topple over and when she was lying on the ground, I stood over her, placed my foot on her chest and, pushing down hard, shouted at her to SHUT UP and never, ever speak to me like that. EVER!

If there was ever any doubt that one's dreams tackle one's subconscious, lay those to rest. My dream blew off some of the steam which mounts within me every day during this incredibly challenging parenting stage we're in.
Sorry little Goth girl, but thanks for the release.

a thimble

My heart felt like a thimble these last weeks. Filling so quickly with emotion that it brimmed over my eyelids and had me tearing up a couple of times a day, then leaving me so hollow that I felt as if I'd swallowed an echo.

It started with my reminiscences of Adam, and an email conversation I had with his brother which was so good, but so emotional.
Then a rape and murder which rocked the whole country, got so many stories circulating, so many emotions rising.
I heard of a child from my home town, 18 months old, drowned in his family pool.
A story of a childless woman weeping while watching her best friend breastfeed.
Bad news regarding my friend's continuing struggle with cancer.
1 Billion Rising, and the stories ... god, the stories of abuse.
And then Reeva Steenkamp ...

None of this pain really belonged directly to me but with my shallow heart of late I couldn't prevent taking it on, and spent days feeling exposed, hollow.

None of this pain has lessened in the slightest - so many are out there with their hearts completely drained, their wounds wide open to the salt raining down on them.

And here I am, after a good weekend of friends and family, food, sunshine, laughter, feeling much stronger.
Have I slapped another coat of tin on this heart of mine? Is life sometimes just too much, the only survival tactic we know to clad ourselves against the pain, make our hearts a little more impenetrable, albeit little heavier maybe, and then shoulder on?

We desensitise in order to carry on, but what future do we walk towards if our hearts are plugged against the  pain of others?
What point is there in feeling too much and what future is there in feeling too little?

I don't know, but I need to find a balance this week. I think, certainly in South Africa, we all need to.

school fees

He started off with a random act of neighbourliness, a small gesture which clearly put me at ease and established him as a decent enough fellow.
And then, despite later discovering that there was a warning notice up at our local mini-mart and a number of items recently published in the local rag (which I never read), I fell for his routine like the famed fishie, and let him into our house which he left, 5 minutes later, with a cell phone. Not his own.

It seems he even used one of his standard stories, about needing to clear branches from the phone line behind our house. A brilliant tactic in the light of how harden we are towards tales of hard-times and hungry children, I never fall for those anymore but someone offering to make my life easier? Yes please.

He was personable, nice, pleasant to the kids. He spoke very fast, which rang a distant warning bell, but my charitable brain thought he was just a considerate guy not wanting to inconvenience his neighbours more than necessary.

When I reported the incident to the police I was told my report was one of three in our area this weekend - all sounding like the same guy. At least I'm not the only dumb-ass on the block, I'm in illustrious company with the chairperson of the Neighbourhood Watch no less. Now that's embarrassing!

School fees my husband calls it. The price paid for lessons learned. Sadly the lesson in this case is to be more suspicious, even of nice people.
It goes against my grain and I hate that it's a reality in my life.

Other realities of the weekend:
'Cos misery apparently does love company we also had no hot water for 48 hours  - bust geyser - and Stella popped 2 molars - no sleep for me.
But, because the world, and Observatory, is a place of eternal dichotomy, I was again reminded of how comforting it is to live in a community. I walked round to a friend's for a blissfully long soak in her bathtub at midday and lay there listening to the hum of her sewing machine. Later I walked the girls down to my brother's house to bath them. Every (legit) neighbour and friend we encountered was sympathetic and displayed that curious bent for humour we South Africans have developed for times such as these.
It's a funny old world.

And. The weather has been wonderful, I'm in flip-flops at 9pm, we had Cesar Salad for dinner, husband realised a dream purchasing a 1976 Honda cafe racer, we finally got a new ironing board, there's a week of fun ahead. Silver linings hey, gotta keep your eye on them.

I hate summer

Also, Africa. I hate it. And Observatory. And being a Grown Up.

3 words: Total Bug Onslaught.

First there were flies.
Granted making fish pie on a hot summer's afternoon was possibly not the best idea, nor was creating a makeshift fly-shield from an upturned colander and a page torn from a magazine, but we wanted, nay needed, a run to the park before supper and what could be better than a late afternoon trip to the park in the knowledge that supper's ready and waiting at home?

Round about then we encountered the spider. You know what else I now hate? Kirstenbosch Gardens.
For if we'd not spent an idyllic 3 hours there the day before, picnicking with guinea fowl in shady spots, walking around collecting acorns and interesting leaves, paddling in a stream while Stella slept in the pram under low-lying branches - if we'd not done that we'd probably not have collected the ENORMOUS RAIN SPIDER I now noticed clinging Cape-Fear-style to the bottom of the pram as we left the house.
The pram which had travelled back from Kirstenbosch in the boot of my car. The pram which had spent the night parked in my hallway. The pram which was now packed to the hilt with hats and toys and had my chubby and delicious baby strapped into it.
(This is the part where I hate being The Grown Up. This is not the first time.)
Staying calm I thought I'd wheel the pram out the front door, then attempt to flick the spider off it (and hopefully far away), all the while being casual and informative about spiders in general for the benefit of my two small children.
Wheel pram out. Lock gate. Look down. Spider gone.
Freak the fuck out.
Stella out the pram, extract essentials (my phone, her yoghurt), wheel pram back inside and go to the park in the car.

Later, tired and hungry, I can't help but feel smug that supper is ready and waiting. It seems so seldom I get it right. Good mother.
I lift the colander and gag. You know the expression 'black with flies'? I get it now. Black. With. Flies.
I give the pie to the dog, and scramble eggs for the girls which we eat in my bedroom on the other side of the house.

But that's not all ...
Seems I also hate small independently owned spice shops. 'Cos if I only ever bought spices and dry goods from corporate giants I bet I wouldn't be facing the highly undesirable task of emptying and fumigating all my kitchen cupboards tomorrow to purge ourselves of the weevils which've suddenly started appearing in our dry goods. Or at least there'd be a Client Services type I could complain to.
'Dear Mr Fargo, the very cheap (but admittedly delicious) breyani rice your brother-in-law helps you import under the radar from Pakistan seems to have given us weevils in our muesli,' is just not going to fly ...

Urgh. Flies.

A quick recap of tomorrow's To Do list then:
1. Buy proper fly net food covering thingie
2. Gingerly unpack pram, shake everything out and investigate all nooks and crannies (remember to pee beforehand)
3. Develop response for very likely scenario in which I don't find spider (example: sell house)
4. Fumigate kitchen and possibly throw away a lot of otherwise fine foodstuffs

So much to look forward to.

child abuse

Forgive me for continuing the theme (the theme being: woe is me), but check out the latest in my collection of injuries.

Hmmm, doesn't look as impressive as I'd hoped it is. But observe in the background, the grinning perp.

She has 4 teeth and she knows how to use them. On me. Nobody else mind, just me.
'Cos she's practically weaned but still wants a piece of me?
Or just 'cos I'm delicioussssss?

PS Very difficult to photograph one's own upper arm.
PPS Yes, that is my arm. Not my thigh. I lost weight breast-feeding, but not that much weight.