Saturday, November 29, 2008

Nearly six weeks since

Life is currently a strange dichotomy of post-bereavement emptiness and frenetic year-end madness. Maybe this is a good thing, as a string of individual days survived eventually add up to a week, then weeks, and then months, and perhaps this is the only way to get through it. The long-term future without him still seems an impossible burden to shoulder, particularly when I think of my mom's loss - far greater than mine. Logically, I know there must be a way through this, but it seems unattainable at this point, impossible to imagine. It is now nearly six weeks. I am still in the stage of thinking in terms of how many days (or weeks) since but I am past the stage of waking each morning, and several times a night, with a violent lurch of pain.

Last week, as it happened exactly a month after his death, we attended a fond farewell tea at the physics department at the university. They spoke of his commitment and enthusiasm for teaching physics and showed some of the video clips he made to demonstrate physics principles when the apparatus required was too big to bring into the lecture theatre. The best loved of these is the one which illustrates the Doppler effect. In the clip, my dad's driving his beloved Viva, at about 60 mph, down a long straight road. Neeeeeeee-yow, the car goes as it passes the camera. Voila, the Doppler effect. Followed by a dramatic noise of crashing, added for fun by my dad and the audio-visual guy, and then by an angry police siren.

The worst of the frenetic year-end madness will be over in a few days as the kids break up for the summer holidays on Thursday and Friday next week. I am so looking forward to their being on holiday and to lazy, watermelon-and-icecream days in and around the pool. Some friends with younger kids are busy planning holiday camps and other activities to shorten the time their kids are hanging around the house - but I cannot wait to have them hanging around the house. Term time is too busy. I feel a desperate need for us all to reconnect.

Today was a summer days taster, as we finally had a hot Saturday. It has been cloudy and raining for about two months. Today the four kids and I were all in the pool together. Stephen, predictably, loves the pool - he wants to do everything everyone else does. I finally had to take him out when he started turning blue.

Other things we've been doing:

Peter and I went to a work end-of-year function last night while my sister-in-law and her boyfriend babysitted all four children for us until 11.30pm - including Stephen who was awake when we left and whom they managed to get to sleep eventually. Big milestone for us as this is the first time he's had a babysitter he doesn't know very well. Surprisingly, he wasn't too upset at all by the experience. I think it must help having all his siblings around him.

Robyn is playing mommy to a mini-colony of ants. Interestingly, they seem to be vegetarian ants, enjoying cheese and apple but not wanting anything to do with raw chicken.

I went to listen to Robyn play in a recital at school, and was totally creeped out by a little girl in the audience having a doll like this. This is really, really creepy. The doll was so totally lifelike it actually resembled a real, dead baby. Ghastly. Who in their right mind would want something like this?

Some related, similarly sad and creepy, links:

Documentary about women who collect fake babies
Sculptor makes dolls of babies that died
Police smash car window to "rescue" reborn baby doll

Daniel and Lauren learned about toad reproduction first-hand as some toads decided to persue love and happiness in our pool a few nights ago. In the morning a pair of them were meandering around the pool trailing strands of eggs several meters long. Lauren even went diving to rescue them from the chlorine water and transfer them to murkier waters of the bird bath.

Peter's been playing his birthday wii game (cheered on by the kids; fortunately the 13 age restriction seems overdone and it's pretty harmless for them to watch).

We've been doing way more ironing and cleaning than we'd like as our cleaning lady is off sick with some as yet undiagnosed illness. Stephen follows behind the rest of us undoing our efforts.

The girls and I are hooked on the Mamma Mia music and have been singing it in the car for weeks. Peter, who didn't see the movie, doesn't get it and thinks we are a little strange.

Time for bed, and hopefully we'll be greeted by another hot day tomorrow.

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