Tattooed memories…

Photo by Gina Minton Kearns

I’ve been planning for a long time to get a tattoo on my shoulder blade for my children. It is based on this beautiful photograph by Gina Minton Kearns. The tattoo will be based on a close up of these children’s hands. I’ve often dreamt about my children holding each other’s hands and looking after each other, so this picture is a perfect representation of them.

Skyla on Odi's day bed...

This past week my cousin Alicia, her partner, Pike, and their two year old daughter, Skyla, were over from Laos visiting family. It was the first time we had met either Pike or Skyla, and they both won us over very, very quickly. Pike is such a lovely man, and Skyla is a real character – as you can see from these photos of her.

Skyla and me

There was a family gathering on Wednesday night which Kirby and I couldn’t go to, but we were lucky enough to have Alicia, Pike, and Skyla stay with us on Tuesday night – so we got them all to ourselves!

Pike, Skyla, Alicia and the kangaroo

Alicia, Skyla, Pike, and the pelican

The next day I got to take Alicia, Pike, and Skyla to Cleland Wildlife Park so that Pike and Skyla could see their first kangaroo. Skyla has no fear of animals at all and was fascinated by everything she saw. Alicia, Pike, and Skyla got a photo of them holding a koala, and we fed birds in the wetlands in the park, and went face to face with emus.

Hugo doesn’t have any cousins here in Australia and so we like to get him involved with the children on my side of the family – we tell him that they are not really his cousins, but that we can say they are anyway. Hugo came over on Tuesday night to meet Alicia, Pike, and Skyla, and the two kids got along really well. It’s true that Skyla bopped him on the head with a toy car when he wouldn’t let her put her car on the cat’s scratching ramp, but overall they played together and laughed together and danced together all evening.

Skyla and Hugo

When it was time for Hugo to go home Skyla and Hugo gave each other a big cuddle. Kirby headed down the hall to the front door, and you’ll never guess what happened next.

Hugo and Skyla followed him, hand in hand, chatting about something that only they understood. 

It was an incredible, magical moment. It was not only adorably cute, but it was the photo above, my tattoo, come to life. I was really touched and it is a picture I have stored in my memory bank so that I can take it out and cherish it for the rest of my days.

Empty arms and sweet cats…

The other day I was on Facebook and checking out the activities and latest photos of my friends.

It suddenly struck me that most of the photos I was looking at were of my school friends with their children.

There was one photo in particular where my friend was pulling a face in a photo with her son and daughter (they were also pulling faces). It was a gorgeous snapshot of an ordinary, but special, family moment.

My arms suddenly felt very empty.

It doesn’t happen as much as it used to, but sometimes my arms ache to hold our children. I feel like there is a heaviness in my arms where they should be, and I almost feel that if I held my arms out long enough they would come into being and smile up at me.

I could almost believe it if it weren’t for the heaviness that is in my heart because they are not here with us.

That night I went to bed and had a bit of a cry. Our cat, Minerva, was curled up on the pillow next to me as always, and then our black cat, Frankie, jumped up on the bed with a chirrup and stared at me. She then nestled her body and head into the crook of my arm and put her paw over my stomach (as much as she could anyway). I’ve never heard her purr so loudly!

Frankie

Minerva

My animals always amaze me by how they can pick up when I am upset and will sit with me and do what they can in their own ways to comfort me. It’s especially touching when I am missing my children.

I should add, though, that later on when I had stopped crying Frankie bit me because I wasn’t patting her in quite the right way! That’s my girl!

You won't believe this, but the song The Lovecats” by “The Cure” just came on!! Great song! 

You don’t know unless you have kids…

I get quite frustrated and upset when people say or write this statement followed by whatever it is that they think people who don’t have kids don’t know.

Okay – it’s true that because I don’t have children I can’t possibly know exactly what it is like to parent a child 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I know that. But I’m not totally ignorant about children either.

These kinds of all or nothing statements completely disregard the knowledge I do have about children and the feelings I have for the children, and other people, in my life.

There are many things people who don’t have children supposedly don’t know.  I want to mention a few of them:

Kids are gross and dirty. Trust me – I know. While changing my three week old niece’s diaper she did an almighty, runny, smelly poo and then stuck her foot in it. It’s not the only time I’ve changed pooey or wet diapers, or cleaned up snot, or wiped up vomit (sometimes all three substances end up on me…) And, oh my goodness, the smell of poo when children are teething! Nothing else quite like it…

Kids take their time. When you’ve sat with a child for an hour trying to get them to take a few more mouthfuls of their dinner, it’s not that far of a leap to realise this is a regular occurrence.

Kids need you. On many occasions when I’ve looked after children there have been times when whatever I was doing was put aside to hold a crying child, a child having a tantrum, a child who wants a cuddle, a child who is tired, or a child that really needs me to play with them right now.

Kids are too honest – meaning they may say things that hurt feelings. I’ve been told that I didn’t need that extra biscuit by one of my nieces. I ate it anyway - it was chocolate...

Kids break stuff and hurt themselves. Yep – we’ve lost ornaments and dishes to the hands of children, and the kids we love have taken tumbles and falls while we were looking after them. That’s why we have children’s paracetamol, Disney character band aids, sunscreen and insect repellent for children, cough medicine for children, and a dust pan and broom at the ready, in our own home.

As a parent you would put your life before theirs – you would plead that your life be taken in place of theirs. You would put yourself in danger to make them safe. I would do anything to make our nieces and nephews safe, even risking my own life – and I would do that for our friends’ children too.  I don’t have to be a parent to have that level of protective instinct and love.

Speaking of love – one of my least favourite sayings is “You don’t know what real love is until you’ve had children.” Seriously? So my love for Kirby, my love for my family and friends is not real? I actually find this offensive. I love my nieces and nephews with a love that is so tremendous that I sometimes feel like I must be shining with a boundless happiness. That is real love as far as I’m concerned. And, let’s face it; there are parents who don’t love their children. Parenthood isn’t a guaranteed path to knowing what real love is.

Nobody can know what it is like to live anybody else’s life. I get it that I don’t know what being a twenty four hour, seven day a week parent is like – but I do have knowledge and feelings and fears about the children in my life. These are real and I will not let them be disregarded. My experiences and feelings are mine. I feel deeply, I care deeply, I love deeply, and I know stuff.

Life passes by...

Twenty one years ago, almost to the minute, I was studying for my final high school exams which were being held the following day. My parents were both at work and I had books, pens and papers scattered over the dining room table.

Suddenly the roller door to the garage went up. I looked outside to see Mum and Dad in the car – Mum’s face was white and Dad’s expression was grim. Something was wrong.

Mum and Dad came inside and told me to sit down. I didn’t want to because I knew when I did I would hear words I didn’t want to hear. I had no idea what, and I didn’t want to know.

I sat down and Dad said “Ben was killed in a motorcycle accident last night.”

I remember feeling like I had been punched in the chest, I couldn’t breathe, and there was no sound from my mouth – no scream, no cry, nothing.

Ben and me

 Ben was (is) my older cousin. We actually didn’t know he was my cousin until after he died – Mum and Ben’s Mum found that we had a common recent ancestor about four years later. Even so, I had always felt that he was like a cousin to me.

Ben was only twenty one when he died.

Ben has been gone now for the same number of years that he was on the Earth. I wonder what he could have and would have done by now if he had lived. And, it’s made me reflect on what I’ve done in the past twenty one years, and who I am now.

I have done many things – got three degrees including a Masters, owned my own apartment, worked at different jobs, fought my way through different health conditions – even if it is to the point of living with them rather than getting rid of them. I’ve found my soul mate and got married. Obviously, with Kirby, I’ve gone through trying to have children and the hope, fear and grief that accompany that journey.

This is all important stuff, and I’m not dismissing any of it as every single thing I’ve done has brought me here and helped to make me the person I am.

The only thing I wonder about now is – if this is me, is this the me I want to be? Without a doubt I want to be married to Kirby, I love my friends, my pets, my family – but who am I really in all of this? What do I want to do with this life?

I think I’m going through the kind of crisis that most people go through when they are around my age – the kind of crisis that leads one to wonder, “Is this it?” A few months ago one of my precious friends said to me “this isn’t what I signed up for.” I can relate with this right at the moment. Life is good, don’t get me wrong, but I want to do something more – I want to be something more.

The only problem is that I don’t really know what something is.

I’ve always thought that since we can’t have children I would do something else – something that matters – with my life. In the past few years I’ve thought about it, talked about it, made some steps towards it – but then I seem to get a bit scared and run back to hide behind a rock or disappear behind a grove of trees.

My brother, Paul, me and Ben

Well – enough already. I need to get some gumption and start doing. I need to stop thinking and start acting. I need to stop worrying about whether I’m on the right path, what people will think, and anything else that is holding me back.

I need to do this for Ben and I need to do it for our kids.

I'm going to be a Grandma...

Did that get your attention?

About eight years ago Kirby and I bought four tiny little fish home to put in our pond – we named them Katherine (grey fish), Humphrey (multi coloured), Ginger (orange and white) and Fred (pure orange). They were gorgeous, friendly and actually came when they were called – I’m not sure what the neighbours thought hearing me say “fish, fish” in a high pitched voice!

A year later my parents-in-law moved house and brought down a gorgeous black fish to join our fish and he settled in nicely. We named him Laurence. Yes there was a theme back then – Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, and now Laurence Olivier.

I was feeding the fish, just over a year after Laurence came to live with us, and I thought I saw some tiny little creatures flitting from one pond plant to another. At first I thought they were mosquito larvae, but I watched them closely and realised they were baby fish! This was the first generation of babies.

We now had a gorgeous grey fellow who we named Dylan and a pretty orange fish we called Ursula. This time we had the theme of writers and poets to name the fish – Dylan Thomas and Ursula Le Guin.

In the following years we have had four more generations of babies. Sadly some of them didn’t make it past the first year or two and the first five fish we had have also passed away.

When we moved house I was not going to leave my fish behind. We took a new pond to my parents’ house and set it up and then took the fish down there. When we were all settled in our new house we brought the pond and the fish home and they are very happy here.

While we were getting the fish out of the pond at my Mum and Dad’s we discovered two more babies that we didn’t know were there.

So, now in our pond we have Dylan, Ursula, Sydney, George, Flynn, Harriett, Holly, Maisie, Scarlett, Harry, Milly, Mika and Charlie (there’s no logical theme to naming them anymore...except Holly is named after Holly Shiftwell from Cars 2). They are all as friendly as the fish before them were – I guess they learnt that I was okay and was the bearer of food from the generations before them.

A few weeks back I was sitting by the pond watching the fish and I noticed that George was looking particularly chubby, as were some of the others. They were carrying eggs!

The other day their chubbiness had diminished and all the fish were chasing each other around the pond…safe to say I can expect more babies in the next few weeks…yay! They will be born in about 7-10 days, but I won’t be able to see them for some time after that because they are so small.

I’m really excited and I am already thinking about names, and wondering who they will look like – for example, Dylan has to be Katherine’s descendant, and there is a distinct look of Humphrey in Holly.

Hmm…now that I think about it…I’m not going to be a Grandma…I’m going to be a Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grandma! I feel old now…

I’ll let you know when the babies appear!

For the next two weeks…

I will be on a break from writing entries for “When You Can’t Have Kids” for the next two weeks due to some editing work I am doing that will be taking up most of my time for a little bit. When you see the photo below of me that shows what I’m like after editing for about eight hours I'm sure you will forgive me…

Yep - I generally feel a little tired...

See you soon!!

Tired me...

About last week…

I wanted to talk briefly about last week’s post “What kind of mother…”.

Sometimes in my posts, like last week, I can sound incredibly harsh on myself and sometimes I wonder whether I should share such dark emotions and self-judgment on “When You Can’t Have Kids.” I don’t want people to think I am a negative person or that these types of thoughts and emotions are a significant part of my life.

So, why do I talk about the darker side of me?

I decided when I started “When You Can’t Have Kids” that I would be very honest with you all as to the experiences I have. This includes the good times, but it must also include the not so good. It must include those experiences that hurt, are frustrating and are hard to admit to. Like everyone, I’d rather people think I have it all together, that I am happy all the time and that I have brilliant self-esteem. But, I don’t.

I am mostly a happy and positive person and I love my imperfect life, but sometimes that dark little voice that says “You are terrible, you are not good enough” pops up in my mind and heart.

I want this blog to help people who are in a similar situation to me. It’s true that no two people have exactly the same experiences, but I am sure that everyone has times where those dark emotions call by for a while. If I share mine, then I hope it will help other people to realise that these emotions are normal – they are nothing to be ashamed of. We are all human and that means we have low times. Let me say that again – we ALL have low times.

Happy me in Port Germein, South Australia,
with Conservation Volunteers Australia

I do – and I want you to remember that when you do, I am here thinking of you, understanding as much as I can without being you, and sending you a great, big universal hug.

Lastly, I want to thank Milly and Robin Mary for their comments on last week’s post – your support for me means the world. And it makes me realise that while I want to be there for others, others are there for me too – and that touches my heart more than you know.