On Death and Children

It's 5am Saturday, don't know where the week went and it's been over a week since I wrote here.  Just normal life happening pretty much and me very grateful for it.

We got the news yesterday that Phill's older sister probably has just three weeks to live.  They have withdrawn treatment and it seems can't do much more for her now than make her as comfortable as possible.  Of course I'm getting all this second hand from a husband who is a shocking communicator but I have to assume that it's right.  He spoke to Emily yesterday on the phone as we were out and I was driving.  I do think it was probably news that could have been delivered somewhat differently but that's his way (their way, his family).  Emily stayed with his sister after her arrest in July and got a little closer to her and the rest of the family during that time.  Em was upset and we talked about it in the car.  It wasn't until we got home and I could talk to Phill myself that I found how dire the situation really is and I went out and spoke to the children.  Josh's response was "When can we order the pizza?" and Em just went quiet.  Up until the Em drama, neither child knew Phill's family well, nor wanted to just because we didn't see them much or spend a lot of time with them.  Which is sad because on the whole they're a nice bunch of people, their ways are just very different to mine and how I was raised.  And this will be the first time anyone they know will die.  I am not quite sure how to handle it, except with honesty and gentle fact giving and that is how I will proceed.
So, so sad.  While I have not got along with my inlaws for most of my marriage, they are good people.  His oldest sister lost her oldest child before I met Phill in a freak accident when she was a young adult.  Phill's mother has lost two grandchildren (our Sarah being one of them) and now she will lose her firstborn.  It's just not fair, but as we know, life isn't always fair and this is the lesson my children will now learn first hand.  They are puzzled at their father's reaction, or should I say, non reaction, to his sister's impending demise.  If it was one of my sisters I would be there.  Just be there, no matter what I had to juggle here.  He could go down there today, I am waiting here for the call to go pick him up from Junee from work and while he will be tired, I offered to drive them down there and back so he can be with his family even just for a little while and I really think he, and the kids, Emily in particular should see her sooner rather than later.  Phill's brother is coming down from Queensland next weekend and they can go down there again and stay a night or two and spend the time that is necessary with the family.  But he will cite work commitments and make a thousand other excuses I daresay.  That is his way, it's not mine, but I have to accept it and somehow explain it to our children.  I had a loved aunt who died from cancer and didn't want anyone seeing her at the end and I still feel hurt that I didn't get to see her and say goodbye to her, I wish I had insisted and she probably would have given in and let me.  We're a long time dead.
My first experience of death was my grandfather, who died when I was about twelve.  I don't remember anyone explaining anything to me, in the 70s we were probably still stuck a bit in that era when it wasn't talked about openly.  I did go to his funeral and I'm glad I was allowed, I think it's important for children to be exposed to that, inevitable, part of life.  We have always lived with the reality of a death in the family of course, as the kids' older sister Sarah died before they were born and they've always known this because we talk about her.  The time hasn't really come that they've asked a lot of in depth questions about what happened but when they do ask I answer honestly, keeping in mind the age they are/were at and what I thought they could absorb and make sense of.

For the rest of us, life goes on.  There will be lessons to be learned through this experience, for all of us I daresay, especially in grief, and I am certainly well schooled in that journey.

The kids and I drove up to Cowra yesterday.  The weather right now is just beautiful, everything is blooming and all around us were fields of canola and cherry trees.  We really are so lucky to live where we live and to have this country life.  I got some 1000 thread count sheets for our bed and they're lovely, I put one set on already even though it's not quite warm enough at night yet for Summer sheets.

They have a sateen finish, this colour is "coffee" and I also got "pebble".

I love our bedroom now, am slowly making into a peaceful retreat (for me mainly)

We finally got our other matching bedside so I put the other one here near my side of the bed with a little cd player and half of my essential oils and some relaxation cds and other stuff in the drawers.

We got his cute little popcorn maker for the "movie room", formerly known as the "family room" then the "media room"........(geez keep up will you?)

But we forgot to buy popping corn!

Last night the kids and I sat and watched the movie "Big" together on tv, we haven't done anything like that for a while so that was nice.  I had an early night knowing I had to be up early to go get Phill but still haven't had the call and it's after 6 but I'm ready to go.  Remember the whiz bang oil diffuser I bought?  I had to take the first one back and she happily replaced it but implied that I might not be using it right hence not being able to make it work as the book claimed.  The new one didn't work properly either and when I sat down and analysed it, none of it made any sense, there was no way it could ever go for four hours, the tank wasn't big enough for starters, and to refill it you have to turn it off, hence restarting the timer. We were lucky to get an hour out of it no matter how closely we followed the instructions.  Eventually I gave up and decided I wouldn't take it back and just accept that we'd bought a lemon but I emailed the company in WA to explain what had happened, just for their information and quality control purposes (still kind of thinking it was us not using it properly).  They immediately offered me a full refund without me having to return it.  Hmmm.  I got the refund and still have the diffuser which is little more than useless anyway, as it doesn't even really disperse the oil properly either, all it does is just give off a light and steam show for an hour if we're lucky, ten minutes or so usually.  I noticed on their website that they are now "out of stock".  I think I'm not the only one who complained.  For $90 it wasn't a throw away cheapie.  Anyway I've learned my lesson with oil burners, have never had any luck with electric ones and will stick to the old fashioned candle fuelled burners.  They look pretty too.  I have my stock of candles and my candle lighter in here with me now and have oil burners all through the house too. 

I went out to hang the washing on Thursday morning and this is what I found under my clothesline with the cat standing guard.

I called out to Phill, who wasn't speaking to me at the time, and went inside for a broom, not sure what to do with the little fellow or even what type of snake it was.  Phill still ignored me, to his loss ha ha, he was getting ready to leave for work and never did get to see the snake.

I surprised myself at how calm I was.  He was little, and a bit stunned by the cat playing with him.  I got a clean plastic container with lid and wrangled him into it with the mop handle, put the lid on and put holes in it and put him down by the fish pond for some quiet time to settle down a bit while I tried to figure out what to do.  Later it struck me that snakes love sun so I brought him inside and put him on the window sill.  I had to go get Emily for her counselling appointment and when we came back after that the bloody thing had escaped it's box! She found it quickly, curled inside the window frame, and picked it up expertly (she is a mad Steve Irwin disciple) and got it back in its box.

  She googled snakes and we decided it was probably brown snake (they're deadly and are born with venom!).  We decided to let it go and drove around town looking for somewhere that wasn't too close to the road, or a house or near livestock.  Big ask in the town limits and time was running out and we had to collect Josh from school.  I had to go in to find him so we took the snake with us and it generated quite a bit of interest, both our principal and the front office girl were petrified of it but one of the teachers was summoned who was supposed to know and  he confirmed that it was indeed a juvenile brown snake.

We got in the car and at his advice took it out on the road to Stockinbingal and as time once again was against us, we had group at 3 (yes I went back, another story) I just pulled over and told Emily to release it by the side of the road.  As I looked up I saw a house through the brush and said to Em "Get in the car!"  Time to hit the road.   That by the way is a reference to a favourite comedy series of ours that was a send up of those outback adventurers.  Every time he would "kill" some innocent wildlife or make some other horrible environmental blunder he'd say in his deep authoritative voice "all too soon it was time to......hit the road".

I was surprised at how beautiful the snake was, and how attached I became to him in the few short hours I had him.  Not sure if I'd keep one as a pet, certainly not a deadly one obviously, but they belong in the bush and hopefully that is where our little fellow is now (and not in the yard of the house we let him out in front of).

Okay, now it's 9am, I've been to Junee and back, what a lovely drive that was in the early morning, felt so, so good to be alive.  A little bit kinder to my husband and feeling bad for my recent irritations with him. 

I just put a pot of meat sauce in the slow cooker for lasagne tonight.  Some woman from Juvenile Justice is coming this afternoon to inexplicably talk to us about the "procedure" for the mediation between Kate and Emily.  It's such a joke.  Emily could have feigned remorse at the courthouse just as easily as she can in mediation which Kate probably won't even participate in anyway.  In fact just last night we finally got Em to speak to Kate on the phone for the first time since it happened and all is well between the sisters once again.  Thank God.  Emily needed a wake up call and to be taught a stern lesson and I feel she got both.  This woman today is coming from Griffith, which is hours away from here.  All on the taxpayers' dollar.  On a Sunday.  Craziness.

I'm sitting out on the back patio and it's a beautiful Spring morning, wafts of various scented flowers are blowing in every now and then on a warm breeze.  All is finally well and peaceful in our little world here, while the four of us know the abject sadness that our extended family is going through just a few hundred kms down the highway.

Life and death.