She's growing up....

Freyja turned 8 yesterday.

I remember being 8. I felt like I was growing up faster than my friends, and a year later I started my period and pretty much decided that all those childish things were too immature.

Freyja has always held on to her childishness tightly, she hasn't wanted to grow up. This week though, for reasons we had no control over, my baby has shown just how mature she is becoming in some ways.

On Monday we found out that the victim of the truck crash last week was the Dad of one of her best friends. Lee and I had met him several times, and I have to say he was a lovely man, always smiling and joking, clearly a devoted father and husband. It was terrible finding out that the victim of that awful scene was a man we knew, and especially for Freyja, that it was her friends' Daddy.

Monday evening she cried lots, as did I. She worried about me and her Daddy dying in an accident. But mostly she worried about her friend. "How could it be her Daddy?" she asked "I just don't understand Mommy, why would God take such a nice man away from his family". "How will M manage without her Daddy? How can I make her feel better?"

So many questions that I just didn't have the answer to.

Tuesday she went to school and there was a grief counsellor there for the kids to talk to. She talked, she listened, and when they said that there should be 2 kids to meet her friend when she came back to school, Freyja put her hand up and said she had to be one of them, because they had known each other the longest and she knew her friend would need her help.

Wednesday, it was her birthday. She turned 8. She went to the Aggie Days with school. She opened presents and we all had KFC for dinner at her request. It was her day.

Thursday, today, her first thought was again for her friend. She comes back to school today. Freyja disappeared as we were about to leave the house and came back with a favourite stuffed dog. I told her stuffies weren't allowed at school.

"Its not for me" she said " Its for M. She comes back to school today and I think she will need something to hug sometimes, so this is for her to keep, so she can hug it and feel better and know I love her".

Only 8 and so grown up......

Happy Birthday Fidgetty Widget!

When I was pregnant with Freyja, my sister-in-law was expecting at the same time, and the baby who would become Charlotte was known as "Bean".  As "Bean' was no longer a family option for a nickname for our bundle to be, we started calling 'it' "Widget".  This soon became "Fidgetty Widget" as that little baby on board never kept still.  She's been the same ever since.

Today, my little tornado turns 8!  At 4.04pm GMT (9.05am here in Calgary) my little girl moves that step closer to being a woman, and I'm scared!

Its been quite a week in our house, good and also, pretty much as bad as you can get.  At the weekend, she went off to Brownie Camp.  I dropped her off Friday night, and barely managed to get her to stop chatting with her friends long enough to say goodbye to her sister and I, a sign of how grown up and independant she is getting.  When I collected her on Sunday though, I got a huge hug and "I missed you" whispered in my ear.

While she had a great time at camp, impressed the leaders with her enthusiasm and her behaviour, she also missed her family and even had a little cry at night.  While I hate that she was upset, a little part of me is happy that there is enough child in there to still miss a night time hug and kiss.

When she came home on Sunday, she told me how she had been worrying all weekend that I was going and never coming back, that something was going to happen.  Nothing did happen, of course, but my sensitive little girl was maybe picking up something in the cosmos.

On Monday, I got a call from the school asking me to collect Freyja as she was not feeling well.  I left work, went and got her, much to her surprise as she had expected her Daddy, and took her home.  She had a tummy ache that wouldn't go away, so we went through all the questions.  Did you eat your lunch?  Did you eat the fruit or just the bad stuff?  Did you eat properly at camp this weekend?  Did you drink enough water at camp?  How about at school?  Did you go to the bathroom at camp?

The answer to the last question turned out to be 'No" so I figured I had my answer and promptly ordered her to the bathroom with a book to "give it a try".  Success, but still a tummy ache that persisted.  I dutifully set her up in my bed with a glass of water and the TV remote.  I then began making phone calls to find out which of her friends was coming to her party this coming weekend as I hadn't had RSVPs.  "I don't think M is coming" she says as I'm about to call.  I make the call and her Grandma answers, not her Mom, and sure enough M isn't coming.  I tell her she was right.  "I thought she wouldn't because K said today that M's Dad died in a truck accident last week"

Oh My God !!!!!!

There had been a horrific accident involving a tractor trailer on the main route near our home the week before, but it was Easter week, the kids were off school, I hadn't had a chance to read the details and Monday had been their first day back.  I got out my phone, Googled his name, and there it was, an obituary and the date of the crash......

Now I knew why my baby had a tummy ache.  She had been holding that to herself all afternoon, not knowing what to say, or if it was true.  We knew M's dad.  Not well, but enough that he and M's Mom had once come to our house and had food before we all set out Trick or Treating together one Halloween.  We'd see him at school dances and Christmas shows and chat. He was a truly nice, good man, and a wonderful father and husband.

All Monday night, Freyja would ask for hugs and squeeze tightly, she didn't want to go to bed, but finally, after an hour of cajolling, she did and amazingly she slept soundly for a few hours, not waking until around 2am.  I lay with her another hour then, and I am not sure who needed it more, me or her.  She fell asleep again, and slept till morning, waking in that resiliant way that kids do after bad news. 

She went to school Tuesday and I called to tell them we knew what had happened and was told a grief counsellor was going to be with her class that morning.  I wish I'd had one myself as I was a wreck.  We weren't close, but I knew him, I knew the horrible way his life had ended, I knew the confusion and sadness I was feeling were the same feelings my poor girl had, and like me, she was likely imagining "what if it had been her Daddy".

My big girl came home yesterday without mentioning her friend or the grief counsellor, so I mentioned it to her. "Yes" she said "it helped to talk about it. M is coming back to school on Thursday and they said two of her friends should be close to her all the time and go to meet her at the door.  I told them I should be one of them as I have known her longer than anyone, and I knew her Daddy, so I think I will be able to be a good friend and help her feel better."

Only 8 today, off to 'Aggie Days' with the school to see the animals, she will be a kid having fun again, but tomorrow, she will be that mature girl, the shoulder to support her friend.  Saturday, she will be the kid again, enjoying her party, but I know part of her will be thinking about the friend who isn't there, the friend who is at home missing her Daddy. 

My baby isn't a baby any more.  She has kept telling me she didn't want to grow up, and I kept telling her it happens to everyone, but I thought the biggest thing threatening to bring the end of childhood would be the onset of puberty....  I never thought my girl would have to deal with such big issues so soon in life, and I am so proud of how strong she is being, and how her first and continuing thought is how she can make her friend feel better, feel happy, even if just for a moment. 

What a wonderful person she is growing up to be, my sweet, kind, loving, feisty, argumentative, creative, all singing, all dancing, Fidgetty Widget xxx

My name is Lisa and it has been a month since my last confession...

Well, not confession as such, but really, what is a blog if not a chance to expunge our soul and psyche of all the floating doubts and lingering guilt trips that we take ourselves on daily.

Since my last post, the feeling I have had of my own impending mortality has become stronger, and is now accompanied by pain, and lots of it.  What started as a niggle here and a niggle there, has become in a month a mind numbing assault of aches and stabbing sensations everywhere between chest and thigh level.  My whole lower back and abdomen is rebelling against me and I have no idea of the cause, so I am to visit the doctor in a couple of days.

Of course, I did the worst thing any person could do on getting pains, I consulted the internet.... never ever consult the internet with the intention of making a self diagnosis.... you will ALWAYS be dying of cancer!!  ALWAYS!!

Of course, I could be, but that is not the point.  I don't know what it is causing the pains.  It could be kidney stones, ovarian cysts, IBS (otherwise a very bad case of gas!), really any number of things, but of course what it now is, in my head, thanks to the internet, is Ovarian Cancer.  A cancer which kills more than half of the people who get it and therefore my prophetic feelings of doom are coming to pass.

But really, I am trying to talk myself out of this.  There is absolutely no history of cancer in my family, I am 36 so not in the prime age group to get it, I took the combined pill for 10 years which hugely lowers the risk, I have 2 children, both delivered by c-section, the second only being a year ago, so you'd have thought they would have noticed while they were in there if anything was not looking right.

Of course, that always brings up the other option - they left a foreign object in me at the c-section....  again, it has been over a year so probably would have shown up by this point....

The problem is that I do not know what is wrong, and I hate that!  I hate not knowing why something is happening.  I hate not being able to stop it.  I hate having to rely on a doctor to get enough information from my garbled list of symptoms that they will send me for the correct round of tests in order to successfully come to a correct diagnosis.  I hate not being in control.....

I am a control freak.....  there, that is my confession.  My wonderful husband used to call me Monica when we were first living together, after Monica from Friends.  My fridge magnets were symetrical.  My CD's and DVD's were alphabetised, and catalogued, my books were grouped alphabetically, by author and then by date released.....  Yep!  Control freak!

Now, with children (and a husband) in my life, my house is in chaos.  My books, cd's and dvd's are routinely removed from the shelves and strewn about the floor by my one year old.  My 6 year old has claimed most of the fridge magnets and they serve the purpose of displaying her artistic efforts for the viewing public as they pass through my kitchen.

As I worry about my health, I appreciate that chaos more.  We went camping at the weekend and the kids were covered in dirt head to toe from arriving friday to leaving sunday.  My 6 year old got through 6 sets of clothes in 2 days and still came home in dirty ones.  It was wonderful.

This weekend, we have played outside, the girls have had their playpool and ball pit out and I have been trying to find the flower beds under the weeds, and it has been wonderful to watch them play, carefree, dirty, no tv, no computer, just a bit of water, a few toy boats and some plastic balls in an inflatable car.  Last night, we sat and watched the first Harry Potter movie together.  I was nearly sent mad by the "who's he", "what's going to happen". What's going to happen now", What just happened" questioning, but we made it to the end, and she wants to watch the rest with me now - we'll see...  she's only 6 and the early ones aren't to scary but the later ones may just be too much for her I think, she is a delicate girl emotionally.

Today, I am finally getting on with that Will, and trying to up my insurance, just in case, but mainly, I am trying to make memories with my girls.  Whether I die next year or in 50 years, I want to be sure that every day spent with them is not wasted but enjoyed and treasured to the full. What blessings children are.  We see ourselves in their young faces, remember the innocence and joy of our youth and how quickly we wanted to be grown, and now we are, how much we would give to return to those happy easy days of childhood.  I wonder how much they will remember when they are grown, and if they will find the same memories crossing their minds as the splash and play with their own children in their gardens.....  I hope so....

A man's dying is more the survivors' affair than his own. ~Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

It is a month almost since I have written anything in this blog, and it has been relatively uneventful except for a certain feeling that I need to put my house in order, so to speak, regarding my own mortality and the consequences of my passing to those around me.

I am not sick (as far as I know) and, touch wood, have no intention of having a nasty accident, but somehow my mind has been turning to the what ifs.

Usually when I scan through the blogs on here, I get 20 quilting pages or 20 Baptist churches.  Last time I came on, I got one after another on cancer, sickness, support groups, people who had defeated illness, people who were fighting illness, and in two sad cases, the blogs recording the last months and days of people who in the end lost the battle.

It made me sad and thoughtful at the same time.  A year ago, a friends sister went to the doctor with a sore back, thinking she had pulled a muscle or something.  She was diagnosed with agressive cancer and died a year later, after having been given only a few months to live.  She was 29 when she was diagnosed.  She had 4 young children.

So I got to thinking, I am 36 this birthday, so clearly, I can no longer say I am "too young" for it to happen to me.  I have 2 young kids and a husband who live with me in Canada while all of our other family members are in the UK.  What if...

What if something happened to me?  How would Lee manage with the kids?  He works shifts so would he have to leave his job to look after them - how would he support them?  Who would help him?  What about bills and debts?

What if something happened to both of us?  Who would the kids go to?  Probably my parents, but before they could get to them who would look after them in the short term while my parents made plans to come out to Canada?  Would they end up in care until the legalities were sorted out?

We have no wills or life insurance.  We don't get regular check ups.  I suddenly realised steps need to be taken... and fast.

I am setting up a Will on-line and will get Lee to do the same.  We don't need to get a full notorised one as we rent our house and don't really own much, its mainly to ensure the kids stability.  We need to get Life insurance arranged asap and both get a medical.  And a really important one, we need to make sure our best friends here have the numbers of both of our parents so that if there is an accident, someone can contact them and make arrangements.

I am not someone who fears death, I never have, but I do fear what my parting would do to those around me.  I would not like a long, lingering death, but at the same time, if I were able to spend one extra day with my husband and children, would I not fight to do so?

Albert Einstein said "Our death is not an end if we live on in our children and the younger generation.  For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life."  This resonates with me.  I have always loved the image of the tree of life.  In fact, I have just been creating a family tree for the kids to know their heritage as they grow up, and I have drawn a tree of life image for the background.  The drawing is something I would like as a tattoo in time also, with my name and my husbands in the roots, and the kids names among the leaves.  My children are my legacy on the world, and I will do my best to teach them the errors of history and the ways to use them for a better future, as any good parent does, but mainly, I hope, I will teach them to love and be loved.