Life..

Dirk found a new job and he’s so excited about it! It will entail longer hours, more travelling and probably more stress. But he needs something new. Something different.

I’ve decided against buying the franchise I considered, because it is just too expensive for our current financial situation.

The boys are well. Marco, being the little radio-receiver he is, picked up on our excitement/tension within minutes and has been impossible for the last few days. Magnus decided to channel his energy elsewhere and came up with leopard crawling as an alternative to tantrums and crying. And, oh boy! I’m not complaining. I just thought I had a few more months to childproof things in and around the house…

Anna – who used to be Loren’s caregiver – now looks after Magnus. The other night, when the kids and I were taking her to the taxi rank in the car, she asked out of the blue when we were going to visit Loren’s grave again. I explained that we went over the weekend, but said that if she wanted to go, I would take her.

“You know, Nelba, I love Magnus. But he hasn’t taken Loren’s place in my heart. I miss my baby so much. I thought that when Magnus starts crawling and walking I would take Loren so that he could play with Marco and Magnus outside. I never thought God was going to take him from us.”

She started sobbing.

“The other night I dreamed he was back with us and when I woke up and saw that it was just a dream, I was so angry. So angry.”

At this point Marco was all ears.

“Anna, what did you say? Where is Loren?”

With such hope in his voice that I wanted to cry too.

“No no no, Marco! It was a dream. Lorentjie is gone!”

“Oh…”

Silence in the car.

Then Magnus gave a long drawn-out yawn.
And we all laughed.

Gifts

It is a Sunday morning like any other: I’m busy organizing breakfast. I have the coffee perking and the bread is in the toaster, but I seem to be going around in circles. Not quite sure what to do next. Dirk is making beds and Marco has some “project” going that demands my constant input. I’ve put Magnus in his control tower, but he’s thrown all his toys out of it and now he’s bored and irritated and demanding with shrill screams to be picked up.

Suddenly I know what has been bothering me: It is time for Loren to wake up. I want to go and check on him….

A friend of mine, Sanet, is an occupational therapist. Her preferred field of work is the elderly and particularly patients with Alzheimers.

One of the most heartbreaking aspects of Alzheimers is that people often forget that a loved one has died. And then they will ask for the husband or child or sister and will be told that their husband or child or sister has died years ago. But the problem is that the information is completely new to them.

Every time there is the shock of realization, the agony of assimilating the information, the grief and finally…. finally the acceptance. Until tomorrow.

Just before Christmas, Sanet took gifts to the frail care centre of the local old age home. She had her five-year-old daughter with her as the official hander out of the presents.

They would knock on a door and hear a mumbled invitation to come in. The tired face on the bed would take in the picture. A small child with a gift in her arms. And then the face would light up with a joy so pure that Sanet often had to hide her own tears.

Her daughter was not affected in the least. Matter-of-factly she wanted to know afterwards why the granny wasn’t smelling so nice. Or why the grandpa couldn’t get up. Sanet explained that this is what happens sometimes when a person gets very old and that all of us get old eventually. I think my friend has bestowed upon her daughter rare and precious gifts in an age where disability and infirmity is often hidden away. The knowledge that old age or imperfection is part of life, the compassion to recognize need and the ability to make things better.

A week or two ago I dreamed that I could get Loren back by just thinking about him hard. He would then materialize in my arms. Holding him – not alive, but at least there in physical form – was enough for me. Sanet was there in my dream too and she was better at the materialization part. So I would ask her to concentrate and then I would hold Loren.

Some people just seem to have that gift.

Hide-and-seek

Who wants to play?

Where’s that cat?

Oh, here she comes! Quick, hide!

Bet she won’t find me here!

Cold! Phew…

Tee hee!

Heaven

There is a place where all people feel at home. A place we all are looking for, even if we don’t know it. Rare is the person who knows to seek it out voluntarily. Even though it has no GIS co-ordinates, everybody finds it easily once they know what they are looking for.

I sat in my car next to the beach, staring out over the Indian ocean, when I heard somebody tapping on the window of the car and an excited voice. I glanced down to the small black face of a street child. For a moment I thought that he was about to beg for money. A mixture of irritation and guilt started swirling in my gut. But then I saw that he was merely looking for company – someone to share something awesome.
“ Oh look! Look! There’s a beeeeeg dolphin!”
He was jumping up and down, pointing to the horizon.

I got out of the car and looked in the direction he was pointing. And there it was.
A whale, spraying water and frolicking, its huge tail smashing the surface of the water.

Transfixed, we both stood staring at it. The child was around eight or nine years old, his face thin and his clothes shabby. His eyes have already seen too much, his little body has endured too much. But at that moment, his sense of wonder was pure and his joy true. And so was mine. When the whale disappeared from sight I reached back into the car and gave him something to eat – which he accepted with a shy smile. I think that we both recognized that for a few minutes we shared a world where neither of us was wanting for anything.

Beauty has the ability to acknowledge and accommodate pain – makes it bearable. And it extends its grace to both the creator and the beholder of it. My darling sister, thank you for this.

Beauty knits together the ragged ends of wounds – even old ones. On Christmas evening, we sat watching my gift from Dirk, the acclaimed Swedish film “As it is in heaven”, and as the beautiful song sung by the character Gabriella sounded, I heard my father swallow hard. My father the doer who scoffs at sentimentality. Our father, who was only able to say, “I love you too” back to us when he started getting old and seldom ventures the words out of his own. Our father, the little fat boy, who thought himself unlovable, never good enough.

Gabriella’s Song – As It Is In Heaven
Py Bäckman
Helen Sjöholm

It is now that my life is mine
I’ve got this short time on earth
And my longing has brought me here
All I lacked and all I gained
And yet it’s the way that I chose
My trust was far beyond words
That has shown me a little bit
Of the heaven I’ve never found
I want to feel I’m alive
All my living days
I will live as I desire
I want to feel I’m alive
Knowing I was good enough
I have never lost who I was
I have only left it sleeping
Maybe I never had a choice
Just the will to stay alive
All I want is to be happy
Being who I am
To be strong and to be free
To see day arise from night
I am here and my life is only mine
And the heaven I thought was there
I’ll discover it there somewhere
I want to feel that I’ve lived my life!

The faces of children, interacting and learning to love are beautiful gifts offering hope to the future.

There are homes, lovingly filled with photographs and beautiful things made precious by their associations. And in them there is a place for children to play and grow. There are big old trees to sit under, shade against the harsh sunlight. Moments to treasure, shelter against the world. There is space for new relationships to be formed and time for old ones to be strengthened. There is understanding for past hurts and there is accommodation – not only for the body, but also for the soul. I feel welcome there in the homes of my childhood friends.

There is a place on the Southern coast of South Africa where the sun sets and rises from the sea. It has the smell of herbs and the salty air from the sea. The river mouth forms a lagoon – and the water is coloured the shade of strong tea by the lush vegetation it flows through. Children disappear for hours on end to go swimming in the surf, playing in the sand or hunting for treasures in rock pools. It is beauty undiluted and it was shared with us in a gesture of generosity that took our breaths away. To me it was a tribute to friendship even if the friendship coming from us has been imperfect. Even if things didn’t always turn out the way we wished. Jannie, Marlene, Samantha and Lizanne, thank you for sharing this with us and thank you for accepting us the way we are.

There are people who are able to transform everything they touch with creativity. They see flowers in rusted metal and sprout gardens from wrecks. I salute them.

For 2008 and all the days of your lives I wish you beauty, the ability to recognize it and the time to savour it – heaven on earth.