Our Country is burning to death

Not a photo of Mallacoota last night but another beach in NSW.  Mallacoota was like Hell described in some two thousand year old book that we are supposed to live our lives by in this age.

The people in Mallacoota were told to go to the beach and when the siren went off, go in the water with their bodies against the breakwater to stop the radiant heat from the flames burning them.  The small boat with two boys and their mother on the water went around the world on the front of newspapers and television screens. 

I could only imagine what it was like.  What would I do? I don't drive, it was so dark from the smoke no-one could see.  All I would do was grab a woollen blanket, thick shoes, put the cat in his basket and load water for us both on my walker and try for the beach. I'd would have hoped not to hear that siren, not to have to try and stand in water holding a terrified cat.  But watching people help each other and a ring of firefighters holding back flames, I cried, sitting in my chair away from that hell.

Most of you know I had a boy who died.  All he ever wanted to be was a forest ranger, work in the bush, join the CFA, he was one with nature.  But last night I was almost glad he wasn't here because he would have been there, holding a hose but also saving every animal that came his way. I would have been looking for him in the smoke hoping for just a glimpse that he was still okay. I might even have seen him helping a lady with an old walker and carrying a fat white cat.
In all the years I don't think I cried as much for him as I did last night.  The cat and I just sitting together.

IT'S THAT DAY AGAIN

Euan James 1971-1995

Mention the theme song from Titanic and people wince at the thought of Celine Dion's mangling of the English language and the words get lost. The first time I heard the song and really listened to it, I realised that it wasn't just for a lost lover.

Every night in my dreams

I see you, I feel you

That is how I know you go on

Far across the distance

and spaces between us

You have come to show you go on

Near, far, wherever you are

I believe that the heart does go on

Once more you open the door

And you're here in my heart

And my heart will go on

Love can touch us one time

And last for a lifetime

And never let go till we're one

Love was when I loved you

One true time I hold to

In my life we'll always go on

Near, far, wherever you are

I believe that the heart does go on

Once more you open the door

And you're here in my heart

And my heart will go on and on

There is some love that will not go away

You're here, there's nothing I fear,

And I know that my hear will go on

We'll stay forever this way

You are safe in my heart

And my heart will go on and on

MY SECOND RUG

This was given back to me after my Mother-in-Law died. It didn't come back looking like this. I almost put it in the box to send to the dog's home but when I looked at the squares some of them had worn quite well for 25 years. The brown main colour was pretty ratty and some squares had felted very badly after being washed in hot water and others had cigarette burns where she'd fallen asleep and dropped ash on them. So I rescued the goodish ones and crocheted them into a new main colour and I'll use it as a picnic rug. I still have the pattern but it's one you have to think about as you work so I don't think I'll repeat it but this was only the second rug I ever completed so you could say it's part of the family history.

The first one was very simple and it went on the boy's bed. In first grade, the teacher used to take the kids around to each house so they all got to know their classmates and parents.

We didn't have fancy furniture, just old stuff that I could paint to match whatever colour he wanted. He suffered from Bronchitis a lot so I made a wool rug for extra warmth. In one of those moments that mothers wrap up in silver paper and pink bows and put away in their hearts, he announced to the class that the best thing in his room was this rug because, "My mum made this by herself, for me."

TIME

I've had a week of past years coming back to haunt me. A neighbour passing me in the supermarket with another grandchild in tow and telling me about the next one about to be born.
"And how are yours?"
"I don't know. No word, no photographs in twelve months."

Home to another email from another neighbour to let me know that a girl my son grew up with had given birth to a baby boy. She already has two girls, the eldest a year younger than my granddaughter. I haven't seen her for 10 or 12 years but it sounds as though she's happy and going well. And I swear and tear up because she's here and he's not.

I give myself a mental shake and remind myself that thinking like that is not fair to her. She's 35 and made it through anorexia, drug addiction, being pimped out by a boyfriend and getting Hep C but not HIV through good fortune. She's here because I helped her throughout her life.

I helped her on the day of the funeral when she wept in my arms. When she cried, "I'm nothing. I'm no use to anyone so it should be me that's dead. It should be me." But it wasn't and I want for her to be a wonderful mother with her life full of laughter.

So I dragged out the box of mementos and read the notice she'd put in for Euan.

Euan (tragically) died aged 24. I've know you since I can remember, and to think of all the things we got up to when we were kids and young teenagers. There's a never ending list; Pavlovas in the face, swimming lessons with you and all our birthday parties when we were young. I could go on forever. I'm just thankful I was the one who had the privilege to have grown up all my life with such a fine young man who was taken far too soon, and will live on forever in my heart and mind and memories over the past 24 years that can never be taken away. Rest in peace my little matey. All my love forever.

Iwant her to live in happiness forever, the bubbly blonde with the blue eyes who laughed and fought with him and loved him.

THE SUNFLOWER GALAXY

IN ONE OF THE STARS

I SHALL BE LIVING

IN ONE OF THEM

I SHALL BE LAUGHING

AND SO IT WILL BE

AS IF ALL THE STARS WERE LAUGHING

WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE SKY AT NIGHT

And the boy/man loved sunflowers so these

are the stars where he's living and laughing.

The Astronomy Picture of the Day for his birthday.

ANOTHER BRAIN MANGLING MEME

1. Describe your earliest memory where the memory is clear and where clear means you can pick at least three details.

2. Give an estimate of your age at the time.


3. Tag at least three other bloggers. No names, just grab your chance to relive your own horror.


I say that because I think every memory I could dredge up was a childhood nightmare.
I really had to think hard to find the earliest one which was when we lived in Ferntree Gully so I must have been three and a half. The national park up there had huge cages for birds, really great for a national park to stick the poor buggers behind wire. I remember black cockatoos and sulphur crested cockatoos. There was a kiosk where they sold icecreams, of course I'd remember that. The children's playground was near the cages and that's where my cousin put me in a swing and swung me before I was ready. I went flying off the back of the swing at the highest point and don't remember much about anything after that.


I don't know why I went to a shrink for two years, all I had to do was discover memes. Amazing how many memories are sparked by an object, a photo or smell. I was an extremely anxious child, the shrink said it usually starts in the womb when a child has it as badly as I did. I think I tried to live in an alternate universe for years where I was a fairy queen and nothing could harm me. My mother said I was a very quiet child, of course I was. I was too frightened to breathe let alone talk to anyone.


I'm still writing down whatever comes into my mind from my childhood and it wasn't, by any means, a traumatic time. I had food, I was warmly clothed and wasn't knocked about by abusive parents, I just seem to remember all the frightening events and not many happy ones.

I might have been a fairy queen exchanged for a human child. I had an infection which caused an obstruction in the throat (I was only a baby) so the doctor sent me to Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital for two weeks. Two weeks in which my mother was not allowed to visit until she received a call to pick me up. Not one doctor explained to her what it was that I had or gave her any documentation as to what treatment I'd been given. No wonder I loved the X-Files, I was one. When I asked her why she didn't query this, she said that during the war you got used to being told what to do and to ask no questions. This was years after the war had finished.

THE MEMORY

THERE WAS THE DOOR TO WHICH I FOUND NO KEY
THERE WAS THE VEIL THROUGH WHICH I COULD NOT SEE

SOME LITTLE TALK AWHILE OF ME AND THEE
THERE WAS - AND THEN NO MORE OF THEE AND ME