by Alison | Oct 20, 2019 | .
Aidan’s 0-7 years was not the calm, uncomplicated beginning I wished for my son, neither was it for Laila but I was determined to love them, provide for them, talk to them and have fun along the way.
Looking back on my life I know its been very different to yours. We all have a story or stories to tell on what has been, and whether we allowed it to define us or if we have grown, changed or just decided that was not the story we wanted, and moved into a new story.
My friends, and siblings/family have been such an integral part of my story.
My 0-7years were happy years, surrounded by parents, siblings and all the grandparents.
8-16 was odd at times, full of change, moving and unknowns. Back then I did not really understand all that was happening, and I don’t think my parents did either as heart disease and stress, smoking and diet was not understood as it is today.
Then 16 happened and death stood at the foot of my bed for the first time. My father went away for a weekend and never came home. The mother I had known, changed into someone I didn’t relate to. Love her I did, understand her I did not.
Having suffered I can now understand some of her grief and change, but not all of it. She didn’t see my pain, my disbelief, shock and hurt. But my friends did. They walked with me, held my hand, talked for hours and days, and stood by me.
It was the beginning of another story, and a long and arduous journey of pain, and immense suffering.
Losing so much family so fast was numbing. Within ten years my parents and four grandparents were gone. I felt so adrift and alone with what should have been an easy story turning into chapters of an ever-evolving book.
Marriage and Aidan, single parenthood then Laila, and the turbulence of life just kept coming at me full tilt. And so, another chapter got added to my book, and then another when Laila was diagnosed, and then another when she took her last breath.
Aidan and I decided to write a new story and moved to a new land that is home. But soon the story book was opened again but this time it was Aidan who wrote the first line… I’m sorry mom that you have to go through this again… However, this story crammed a lifetime into it with all its ups and downs. But so many magical moments happened, so many memories. Full of love and laughter amongst the agony, illness and suffering.
So many of us shared in that story which in part ended the day that A took his last breath.
But I carry their story in my story which I remind myself of so often. And I know you carry them in your story too.
My friends old and new, my family old and new, have walked with me, some have walked every step with me and held my hand, and my children’s who have passed. Some are no longer with us; some have moved on. But those who still walk with me, near or far… I hope you know how grateful I am that you have been part of my journey and the paragraphs in my story book.
I couldn’t have survived this far without you. Those impromptu visits that I do, the sleep overs, lounging on a couch with a brandy or red wine, the doctor visits, the calls from my car, the vet visits, the dawn visits to the hospital , coffee baskets, treatment rosters, beach walks, shooters, late nights dancing, the relocations, the arrangements, our coffee meets, the friendships, the tears and laughter, copious cups of tea, balancing work and life…basically just coping with me.
You have helped ground me where I am today. The glue that binds me has been stretched to breaking point so many times and putting myself back together has not just been my effort, it’s also been that one of you heard me, and answered. Its not always easy being here but here I remain.
From my heart – Thank You for being part of my story.
Aidan was not prepared to settle for where his story was, but was determined to keep editing it and growing it for himself. He loved Laila from the depths of his soul and always mourned her passing but he saw more for himself, and so he pushed for our journey to change course.
Sitting here today I understand why A did, and I am grateful, for he has left me where I should be. What a wonderful parting gift he gave me. I still howl at the moon, and agonise at dawn, and cry into the wind as nothing really makes sense although I try to just accept and be.
Aidan’s light shone so bright and enveloped us all in his love for life and for all of us.
How many children do I have – I’m often asked – well I gave birth to two and they are still with me every day. Just today we remember A, as he was and how much he gave us.
20.10.10
by Alison | Jun 26, 2019 | .
Last night I sat and listened to the rain pummel the roof while my tears dripped to the floor. I so wish that change stopped happening and that life could maintain the ebb and flow that I get accustomed to. But here I sit wishing my boy a happy birthday on my lounge chair in the dark of night accompanied by raindrops and feeling disappointed in myself that I’m so time poor and didn’t find the time to create a post for Aidan.
My scrambled thoughts trying to unravel my day and give me a semblance of order to the words I want to write. I know I’m my own worst enemy as I keep myself busy, drowned in work and committees, not giving myself time to breath and smell the roses. I do however always remember to look up and appreciate at least a moment in each day.
I opened A’s website and flicked through his photos. Each one brought back a memory and a recognition of time and place. The promise of life, of a future, of something new or just to be. Well that just made be sob as each thought just hurt.
The constant chatter in my head, the work and the meetings are actually what keeps driving me and getting me out of bed. Without them all those unanswered questions, thoughts and doubts would just keep resurfacing, incessantly spinning and turning like being caught in a hamster wheel. They don’t do me any good and pull me to low ebbs.
A friend asked after her 4-year loss if it gets better. Never. Loss just hovers under the surface just waiting to overflow at any opportunity.
Sometimes I can exert control and keep life bumbling along with little outward sign of this ‘under the surface turbulence’. But sometimes it just bubbles out like an inner volcano that just erupts when it needs to. Often taking me by surprise but most of the time I know the triggers.
It’s the bitter sweetness of life that I often struggle with and try to accept. Knowing there is much that I will never experience, that I have to witness others doing. These are often the most difficult moments to bear.
Many cannot understand my need to keep busy, to work, to be involved and to tease my head but I know if I stop and be still for too long it’s possible the stillness will overtake me and paralyze me, forcing me to peer into that dark hole that beckons and I fight to stay out off.
Everyday is a tussle of mind, will, memories and living.
A few hours yesterday I spent with little miss Ruby and her wonderful mother, Aleisha. I know how lucky I am to have a daughter in law who still wants me as part of her life and shares her bundle of joy with me, filling some of those holes in my heart. I kissed those adorable cheeks and remembered how I loved kissing Aidan’s.
He was such a wonderful, loving, caring child who just shared his open heart with me so easily. The rumble of laughter, the easy jokes, the big hugs and the ease of his nature and kindness combined with his openness to talk and share made him easy to love and enjoy.
As many of us who have lost do, we persecute ourselves with doubt, and question if we did enough and loved enough. Did we pass on bad genes and cause this or was it just life and chance? I try hard to not keep going to those thoughts knowing if I continue on that path I might have to find a cliff to jump from.
So, I climbed into bed with the rain still thundering down and put my feet onto my hot-water bottle for comfort and sobbed into my pillow until darkness and sleep enveloped me, unsure if the dawn would greet me.
I woke and it was today, and I survived another birthday.
Aidan, I loved you before you were born, I loved you while you lived, and I will love you till I am no longer breathing. Happy birthday my darling boy, for yesterday! XOX
by Alison | Dec 31, 2018 | .
I decided to look up Aplastic Anemia and see if any progress had been made in their success rate. To many this condition is unknown as the incidence of aplastic anaemia is 0.7 – 4.1 cases per million people worldwide.
21 years ago, I lost my beautiful daughter to this rare disorder. I was told that she was a 1 in a million as at that time they had only seen it once before in a child of her age. The odds …50-50
It is not cancer, but serious, as the bone marrow is severely affected and there are very few blood cells left in circulation. Without adequate numbers of blood cells people with aplastic anaemia can become anaemic (low red blood cells) and more susceptible to infections (low white blood cells), and to bleeding and bruising more easily (low platelets).
Needless to say, it was like a fast rewind, as words of immunosuppressant drugs, immune systems, platelets conjured up memories of anxiety, disbelief, hope, happiness, sadness and grief. And of the beautiful baby girl who entered the world and filled our lives with unmeasurable love and joy.
21 years ago, I made the decision to take Laila off the ventilator and let her be. There were some who were angry with me for making that decision, and others accepted more easily. Aidan who was 11 at the time cried as though his heart would break. Mine was breaking but I had to be steadfast.
When Laila was first diagnosed her Doctor said to me that she would do everything in her power to try and make Laila better but if she felt that the time had come to make choices, she would tell me. That morning when I arrived at the hospital and stood next to Laila as she slept, she looked me in the eye and said the time had come. There was nothing more they could do and that it was now unfair to keep putting this child through more pain.
I understood as at Christmas, her presents still at home, I had stood next to her and watched Father Christmas come and wish her. Later she bit me and stared at me, those big eyes bored into my soul with sadness and made my heart ache. I couldn’t hold her just sit next to her and wrap myself around her as best I could.
So, I made my decision and told those close to me and just after 3pm on the 31st December we unhooked the machine and pushed her out of ICU, outside and back into the kid’s cancer ward where she had spent much of those past months. A small oxygen cylinder at her feet with a nose clip which helped her until we got her settled. We took it out and she lay on my lap and just breathed so quietly and slowly until her breath just eased away and all was still. Utter quiet is what I remember surrounded by vases of beautiful flowers, and filtered sunlight pouring through the windows.
Why oh why – I have no idea – and never for one moment did I think I would have to endure something rare and similar again… but I did – and the why oh why just rattles louder in my mind.
It is hard to believe that it is 21 years ago.
I do wonder what my happy child would look like today, as she will be turning 24 on the 9 January. Its all I can do …wonder… and try not to drive myself demented with questions that will never be answered.
I will drive to the hill after work and sit with A, and gaze out beyond and remember.
To the small person who lifted my heart to places I did not believe were possible – who bought joy to her brother and her mother and those that knew her – I give my gratitude.
Laila Vaun Rip
09.01.1995
31.12.1975
by Alison | Oct 26, 2018 | .
October is a month I celebrate two weddings, a passing and a funeral. It’s a time I reflect on what is and what has been.
I miss Aidan, and Laila in more ways than I can ever express. A deep-rooted yearning and sense of loss that I experience all the time.
I miss many others too that are absent from my daily life. The ones we don’t always talk about. As a parent, a friend and as a migrant there are many that I love, have loved, that have moved away or been left behind.
The cliché of someone being in your life for a season is a nice explanation of trying to understand why this happens. We love people and its painful to say goodbye. Sometimes that goodbye is harder if they do a U-turn and just leave.
I struggle to work out how these bonds are so easily broken, or why some die before others. Random or ordained …I carry so many scars, the hurt I bury deep within. To survive I need to stop tearing myself apart with adopted guilt, despair and unanswered questions.
I’ve asked myself so many times why I am still ‘here’.
Why are some oblivious to others, just forget them, or treat them disrespectfully, why do some inflict pain on each other, why do we still love and keep getting hurt, why do some have to die too early. It’s a cruel world but also a miraculous one.
Aleisha is soon to give the breath of life to her bump, and a new life brings renewed hope.
The seasons come and go, nature binds us all together, the storms clear and the sun warms us, the stars envelop us and suck us into their mysterious world.
I sit on our hill and look out over Aidan’s flame tree and see hope. Beyond in the valley the earth is greening up after the rains, the sun is beaming down, and the birds are in full song. Cars swoosh past behind me as they move people to school and to work.
It is fitting that tonight we are holding a fundraising event for breast cancer. It is one of the ways that I can pay it forward.
Life is not for nothing – it’s the time we are given to grow, to nurture and learn that even though we can suffer terrible sadness and heartbreak we can give back, and make a small difference in this world – to a stranger, to a child in hospital fighting cancer, to a survivor of breast cancer, to a homeless person or someone suffering abuse, or saving a koala. Its about becoming more open to the good in each other, to put selfishness aside and to try to not take this life for granted. We only know this moment and the past.
I sit with my memories and celebrate Aidan and thank the universe that I have these to hang onto.
Miss you, your warmth and kindness, your strength and your love my darling son
by Alison | Jun 25, 2018 | .
We all need something to believe in, to make sense of this sad, crazy, happy world we live in.
Last Friday I sat amongst tears at a wake and heard of fairies, hope, life, accomplishments and sadness.
I wish I could see the fairies dancing at the bottom of my garden, and all our lost ones dancing among the stars. I hear them, I feel them over my shoulder and in my space. Be that love, or energy or just belief it doesn’t matter because as I said to my beautiful therapist, it doesn’t get better…
I just hurt, I’m just soo sad, I ache, and I miss my children and I accept that I will till I take my last breath.
When brother Michael was with me and we were walking through the rainforest we talked and agreed that this is an awesome place to live. I have Aidan to thank for that – it was his dream and tenacity that helped me make the choices for us, that brought me to the place where I am today.
His darling Aleisha will soon be a mom and bring a wonderful addition to our family. I know this is not my mine but I have loved so many that are not mine, as I will this one. This much loved baby will add joy to my shattered heart.
I don’t live with regrets. I am sorry for some of the choices I have made in life, and how I handled those choices but good or bad, I’ve lived with those choices and made them work or moved on.
Life is about choices, in seizing the moment and putting yourself in the path of random events and capitalising on them. Its about taking a leadership role in your life. Errors and failure, disappointments and heartache will always happen. Its how we get up and go forward and get stronger that’s important. Recognising the need to get back up gets you stronger, and helps you push forward and upward.
Life keeps me here, anchoring me to my sadness but also giving me time to seize moments and keep getting back up.
Its easy to act in the moment with all our technology, and hurt and wound as we move through our digital world, removed and distant, without a thought of consequence or emotional backlash.
Consider your next choice. We only know this moment and the past, the next moment could be your last, or it could be the start of something new. Embrace life, be aware and care for those around you.
Don’t live selfishly – think of others and pay it forward.
Happy birthday my darling boy – Aidan Cale XXX
