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
