She keeps on growing…

“Slipping through my fingers all the time 

I try to capture every minute 

The feeling in it 

Slipping through my fingers all the time 

Do I really see what's in her mind 

Each time I think I'm close to knowing 

She keeps on growing 

Slipping through my fingers all the time 

Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture 

And save it from the funny tricks of time

Slipping through my fingers all the time”

“Slipping Through My Fingers” - ABBA

I love this song. It provides a beautiful picture of a mother watching her daughter grow through the years – changing all the time. And it echoes just how quickly childhood goes, especially from the perspective of an adult watching a child grow.

If I had been blessed with a daughter I would have wanted, as much as I could, to teach her to be spiritually and physically strong, to be comfortable in her self and her skin, and to dare to follow her own path. I would have wanted to celebrate the milestones that come with passing from one stage of her life to another. One of the most important rites of passage that I would have liked to celebrate with her would have been her first cycle of menstruation.

Does that sound crazy? After all, a woman’s monthly periods can be annoying, painful, and can sometimes get in the way of life – such as stopping a woman from going swimming or wearing light coloured pants! What is there to celebrate?

There is much to celebrate. In many tribal cultures a woman’s first cycle is celebrated with rituals, with the gathering of women (mothers, grandmothers, aunts, female friends) to share advice, stories, and women’s wisdom. In the West we have lost that. The natural monthly cycle of a woman has been relegated to something that is annoying at best and abhorrent at worst – and definitely something to keep hidden away. I have even heard stories of girls believing they are dying when their first cycle began because they knew nothing about menstruation. It saddens me.

Obviously I don’t have a daughter and so I can’t organize a celebration for her with a group of women who are important to her. I can’t give her a gift from me to commemorate her change from a little girl to a young woman.

But, I do have many nieces, and one has recently started her menstrual cycle. I decided that I could do part of what I wanted to do for my own daughter for her. I wrote her a letter and I bought her a blue moonstone pendant.

Blue moonstone pendant

The pendant and photo is from Village Silversmith on Etsy. 

I chose the moonstone because there is an amazing connection between women and the moon that many people do not know about. The moon’s cycle, and most women’s cycles, are 28 days long. Many women will find that their period begins on or about the new moon or the full moon, and ovulation will occur on or about the new moon or the full moon. Unfortunately, because we use artificial lighting now, some women will find this is not true for them. There are “researchers” who deny that this link exists between women and the moon, but I don’t really care what their “research” says. I know it to be true for me and many others. And the ancient Greeks were onto it – the word menstruation comes from the Latin words menses (month) which comes from the Greek word mene, which means moon. So someone at some time realized there was a connection between women and the moon.

Well – now that I’ve explained all that I’ll get to the real meaning of this entry. I don’t have a daughter, and I can’t do the things that I hoped to do with her.  But I do have other children in my life that I can do these things, albeit adapted, with – such as giving the pendant to my niece and sharing some thoughts I have on menstruation.

I could give up and not do anything because I don’t have my own daughter, but I’d rather look at what I do have. I have so many opportunities to be in the lives of these precious children and to support them and share stories and wisdom (what I have thus far anyway) with them, and encourage them to share their stories and wisdom too. I’m very fortunate.

I just got a text from my niece thanking me for the pendant…she is my smart, wise, funny, and beautiful niece.

I don’t have a daughter, but I still feel the meaning of the song “Slipping through my fingers” when I think about my niece and the many other wonderful children in my life.

I’ll finish off with two more lines from the song…

“I'm glad whenever I can share her laughter 

That funny little girl.”

My Legacy

I can’t believe it is already six days into March. It really doesn’t feel like two months of 2013 have passed already.

This year, in July, it will be two years since my beloved Nan passed away from leukaemia. I miss her every day, and when I drive past where she used to live, I catch myself thinking I will call in on her. Then I remember that she is gone.

Every day there is something that I wish I could tell her – that I’m going to Thailand, that last week my two year old nephew told me it was nice to meet me, that my dog, Ari, fell into the lake and was embarrassed. Often I tell her anyway. I don’t know how it all works when we die, but I like to think our loved ones are around at least some of the time – that they check in on us. I can almost hear Nan’s laughter when I tell her that my cat, Minerva, was chasing her tale or feel her arms around me when I tell her about the waterhen I found who was sick and that I took to a bird sanctuary, but then it died.

I won’t have any children or grandchildren to remember me when I am gone. At times I feel sad about it. In centuries to come, if any of my brother’s descendants are researching family history I will be the name on the side – Paul’s sister, not the direct ancestor. I am not sure how interesting I will be – unless, of course, I am one of the first people to colonise Mars.

I am not certain what my legacy will be, but I know it won’t be from my body – at least not directly.

In some ways I feel like this makes me try harder to find a way to do something that matters, to leave the world a better place even if it’s just in a small way. Whether I’m remembered or not, I want to leave something that might be passed on not only through my nieces and nephews, but through other people that I meet and even just because I helped plant trees that have grown into centuries old beauties.

It might be the case that I am forgotten as the years, decades and centuries pass by, but in reality, how many of us will be remembered whether we have had children or not?

All I can do is do what I can do. And I intend to. I want to give something back for this amazing life I have been given and leave a legacy – even if my name is never spoken again.

My Funeral

This week Kirby and I attended the funeral of my Aunty’s father. He was a lovely man – very kind and patient and full of good humour. The funeral was beautiful. Two of my cousins spoke and it brought tears to many an eye. I was really proud of them – they are strong and intelligent men and very much take after their Grandfather.

The chapel was full of people who loved my Aunty’s father – children, grandchildren, friends and extended family. It made me think – who will be at my funeral? I won’t have children and grandchildren to talk about me and how my life has influenced them. It made me feel sad. Will there be anyone to see me off? Will there be anyone to say I’ve been a positive influence on their lives and that they will miss me?

It was easy to sit back and do a bit of self-pitying, but then when I thought about it seriously I realised that there are children in my life and that they might very well be the ones who care about me and attend my funeral. What I need to do is to continue to care for them and to be an important part of their lives. My nieces and nephews are as close to my own children as I will get, but they will only care enough to be at my funeral if I give them all I can of me.

So, enough self-pitying for me and I need to get my butt into gear and show my babies how much I care for them. And I do. I love Hannah, Ella and Hugo. I also love Jessica, Amelia, Oscar, Oliver and all the other children who may not be related to me, but I would give anything to protect.

Perhaps this sounds like a bit of dreary post – talking about my own funeral – but really it makes me think about truly living. And I plan to be living for a long, long time yet. I want to be the crazy old cat lady at 70 or 80 dancing at my babies’ fiftieth birthdays…

Mother's Day

There is no two ways about it – Mother’s Day is hard. As are the weeks leading up to it – all the cards to Mummy, to Mum, even to Mother and Grandma and Nana. There are reminders everywhere of that day that comes every year that will never be for me.

This year was both wonderful and hard. With the birth of Hugo we got to celebrate Zoe’s first mother’s day and it was beautiful. We also had the privilege of organizing a present for her from Hugo. He has very good taste and got her a wooden necklace. I wrote a poem as well (from Hugo) in a card. It was a lovely day.

But there is always a tinge of sorrow for me – I don’t have a child that looks at me the way Hugo looks at Zoe. This year was particularly hard because it was the first Mother’s Day where there was a baby with us – before it was Zoe, Kirby and I celebrating our mothers.

Zoe and Mum B (my mother-in-law) have decided that Mother’s Day will also be Auntie’s Day. Hugo had a special little present for me as well. I was blown away. I held it in, but I wanted to cry because it was such a thoughtful and amazing thing to do. It is true that Hugo will never look at me the same way he looks at Zoe, but he does love me and he reaches out for me and he trusts me. He loves me in a different way – and it is absolutely precious.

Kirby and I do celebrate being parents to our fur-kids though. We have five of them (I’ve put pictures with this post, top to bottom and left to right - Minerva, Frankie, Felix, Ari and Odi). We figure – why not? They are our children. This year they got me a soda-stream – but I have to admit they were exceptional naughty on Mother’s Day for some reason – fighting with each other, stalking each other (this is the cats I’m talking about), and Frankie did a freaky flying cat thing out of the front window blinds and scratched my hand (she was sorry and wanted cuddles not long afterward – I think she may have thought I was Felix who had been annoying her).

I love Hugo as an Aunt as well as my nieces Hannah and Ella and my friend’s children too, and I love my fur-kids as their Mummy. So I guess, in a way, Mother’s Day is for me too –just in a different way.