Thursday, June 28, 2018

11

I am enraptured by this kid.


This is not news. I've been enraptured by her since the day she arrived and made me a mama.

But she really just keeps on astounding me, as she grows and develops and changes and yet stays so very grounded and herself.
Frieda just turned 11, but in other ways she's still 8, but also 15, but also 22.

She wanted a phone for her birthday, but also a flower crown with skeleton hands for her self-conceptualised Day of the Dead party. She got both (all hail the glue gun!).


She wanted to serve tacos to her friends and have a dance party and have a bunch of girls sleep over.
We made it happen.


She wanted the cake to still be a surprise, as it always has been since the very first birthday.


And the next day - our house in tatters, every surface sticky and every eyeball grainy - I looked at this photo and felt so grateful for this shiny, radiant being. 
I have moments of sheer terror at this next phase of parenting, but then I remember that I'll be doing it with her - all my parenting firsts have been with her, and I think we got this. I think we'll be okay.


Saturday, June 16, 2018

camera roll: May

Lol, these camera rolls get later and later each month ...

I started May with a day trip to Joburg. My first for the year - quite something after my bazillion trips up there last year.


It was nice to be back in the Big Smoke. A quick productive day of business and straight back home.
I was on a recce trip for a job which was due to happen there this week - but a few days after the trip it was postponed to August! Already my notes from this trip seem as hazy as this skyline ... eek.


It was my birthday - did I mention that? And what with going away and then losing my MIL and generally blah-ness it all become very disjointed and bitty - which was kinda crap but kinda great in that I kept being surprised by it - like this unexpected beauty gifted to me from the boot of a car at a kiddies party one week day afternoon ...


... I have always wanted this (can you tell by my face?) - telephone wire coat rack by Heath Nash. I have literally lusted after it for years. And dear friends remembered and said to each other 'Zahida was always really good at presents, we need to hit this one out the park' and bandied together, and DID.
The ribbon on a gift like this, is the knowledge that you are known, that your people get you.
And that was what I really needed this birthday.
That, and a telephone wire coat rack by Heath Nash!
That, and the reminder that regardless of everything - it is beautiful here.


But the hero story for May - the most wonderful (and oh thank god happy ending one) was this:


In the same week that my MIL died, this little old lady pulled a number on us too. Stopped eating, drinking - didn't leave my bed for 2 days. We were ... distracted, I'm ashamed to admit, so much else going on, and by the time we got her to the vet I was lambasting myself for being a bad mummy but when he got her out the carrier he was genuinely surprised that she looked so 'fantastic' for a kitty her age, and I felt hopeful. Khoki is 19 this year, but still soft as a kitten, strong and feisty.
She over-nighted at the vet, on a drip, the same night my MIL passed and I lay awake fretting - for Husband to lose his mum and his beloved cat in the same week seemed too cruel for words.
But she made it!
It's first stage kidney disease, it will take her eventually, but for now she's back - demanding and cranky as ever - and every night when she snuggles down between us (having yowled at us since dusk to come to bed) , I offer up the closest thing I have to a prayer - a message of gratitude to the universe - to her - thank you for staying with us a little longer. For all my concern for Husband, I don't think I could bear this loss too right now.


And then autumn, waning in all its beauty ... my mum bought this little broom and wheelbarrow for my little nephew to sweep the vine leaves on her stoep - but Stella clearly decided she's by no means too big for that herself yet ... segued into winter ...





... and the cubble got real :-)

Friday, June 15, 2018

una

That birthday post was very delayed.

We came home that Sunday evening in a (very clean) glow of love and family to the news that my dear mother-in-law had gone into hospital.
Four evenings later on the 24th of May she quietly slipped away.

It's the way we'd all like to go I think - fit as a fiddle until 85, then a quick decline and a relatively comfortable passing - it was the right way, although there is never a right time, especially not for those left behind.

The numb feeling of loss is horribly familiar.

For my dear Charl especially - losing his mum so soon after his brother last year. Becoming an orphan. Feeling the family become smaller, more disjointed. His closest brother, and now his mum.

The following weekend we had a farewell tea for her at the retirement village she's been living at for the last 18 years or so, for the family but also for her friends.
As a recently bereft friend my heart ached for this sweet group of little old ladies. Walking frames, sensible shoes, stout winter coats smelling faintly of mothballs - they embraced us all and told us what a wonderful woman she was, a 'proper lady', and how much they'd miss her.
We will too.

Cake, tea, all her family and a slideshow of photos spanning 80+ years - she would have enjoyed it all so much.



I love this picture of her and Charl's Dad, who I never met. The dress and the 5th Avenue Cold Dark imply it was Christmas, or a party of some sort. The dessert in his hand ubiquitous, the giggle and squeeze so very sweet. The safari suit!




She was always an older granny for our girls, but she loved them dearly and they were so fond of Ouma.
The last time we saw her, on Mother's Day a few weeks before she passed, we lined her and Frieda up back to back - and had a laugh that Frieda had overtaken her. We teased her as to how she'd created this family of giants. 
She was a little lady, but with a big heart, and she gave us our husband and dad - and for that we will always honour her.

Thursday, June 14, 2018

43

The week before my birthday someone said to me in the morning, 'Hey, it's your birthday soon - what you going to do?'
I spent the rest of the day in tears.

I couldn't conceive of a birthday celebrated without Zahida. She was good at birthdays that one - good at gifts and thoughtful gestures, always up for a party or some related fun - but mostly just genuinely, warmly, utterly happy. I don't feel like I've felt that for a while now.

The next day I spent a couple of hours hunting online, until I found an available, dog-friendly cottage to book for the weekend. My birthday would be spent away, with just the fam, and a glorious deep, hot outdoor bath!






It was the BEST.

Just that patch of super green lawn made our poor drought-stricken hearts sing.

Add to that majestic mountains, a superb steak fillet, one chilly day to stay indoors at the fire playing Settlers of Catan, one warmer day to explore the farm and collect wind-fallen pears and get lost on a hike, my 3 favourite people in all the world, my 2 favourite dogs and - the proverbial cherry - a magnificent birthday 'pulla' baked by my man in the teeny little cottage oven ... it was the very best way to spend this birthday.

And ...


... this bath. Filled with rainwater, heated with solar, set away from the house with a view of the mountain. Deep. Hot. Guilt-free. We all had a turn, wallowing in water therapy, high on hydration, muscles relaxing and softening as they remembered: a bath!

Good for the mind, body and soul.

It was only when we got home that I found this line on their website: The mountain cottages are tucked away at the foot of the mountain, far away from any rush or noise. The setting certainly helps most people to feel their sorrows dissolve…