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As humans we like to judge. We apply our own experiences and moral compass to situations and make snap judgements.
Sometimes I read a post written by my daughter and it breaks my heart because the pain in her words is the only clue that I have to the pain in her heart.
Other times I will read a post written by Veronica and I know that it was written purely to get the words out of her head, to give a tiny glimpse into how difficult parts of her life are.
Amy is an exceedingly difficult and tempestuous child to parent. She stretches and challenges every single one of Veronica’s parenting skills every single moment of every day.
It is very nearly impossible to get Amy to do something that she doesn’t want to. It isn’t because she is naughty or because she has pulled the wool over her mothers eyes.It certainly isn’t because Veronica is lacking some vital parenting skill. It is because Amy is so focused on doing what she wants to do in that moment, that nothing else registers. Some of the parenting advice that Veronica receives makes me shake my head and roll my eyes with frustration.
I have impeccable parenting skills. My ability to get small and not so small children to behave is legendary. I am also very good with dogs and horses. But with my grand daughter Amy I am at a loss. So I don’t bother with traditional discipline at all. We skirt issues and avoid situations and I use distraction as my main tool.
We do the same things every single time Amy comes to visit. We check for eggs, then together we cook Amy an egg. We paint a picture or two, play with some clay, watch a bit of telly together or read some books and then we go outside and throw the ball for the dog.
When Amy was still eating gluten we would do all these things at a frenetic pace and at the end of her visit the house would be trashed and I would be exhausted. Minus the gluten we are still very busy together and Amy isn’t quite so exhausting.
Veronica and I have been talking about Aspergers and Amy, we have been talking about how there is a very real possibility that Amy has Aspergers. Now that the A word is out in the open I can look at Amy’s behaviour with fresh eyes. Veronica and I are noticing more and more things that Amy does and more importantly we are noticing things that Amy doesn’t do.
So the next time you see a small child running amok in the supermarket or having a tantrum in the middle of a shopping centre don’t be so quick to judge, to shake your head, to glare at the obviously incompetent parent. And as for the whispered advice that all the child needs is a bit of discipline, a good smack will fix her.You can keep that under your hat as well.
Today is one year since Mum died.
It has been a very long year.
I am okay now. My grief ebbs and flows but it isn’t as all consuming as it was.
Thank you for holding my hand this past year.
Last week Brenda asked on her blog, Mummytime, “where do you hope your blog will take you?”
This morning I followed a twitter link to a blog post that asked why do most artists blogs fail?
I commented with Interesting point but it all depends on how you measure success. I am an artist and I have a successful blog as well.
So this morning the ideas have meshed and I need to ask the question,
“How do you measure success?”
This time last year I measured my success by my ability to keep those I loved, alive and safe from harm.
I failed to keep my mother alive. The cancer that consumed her was too strong and the strength of my love was not enough to save her.
My love was strong enough to let her go peacefully though and Veronica writes about it beautifully here.
I failed to protect my daughter from my brother and in his pain he lashed out bitterly at my girl and wounded her deeply.
I am an only child.
I am an orphan.
I am motherless.
I am successful.
We have survived the first year and my son is alive.
I kept my son alive in those dark months following the death of his Grandmother. It was touch and go there for a while and I watched him like a hawk.
I didn’t restrain him when he punched the walls.
I screamed back at him when he screamed his anguish at me. I held him as he cried like a baby and my tears mingled with his, I fed him pizza and let him sleep and protected him as best I could.
How do you tell a 15 year old that grief will pass when you are so immersed in the same grief and the tunnel is too long for even the tiniest glimmer of light?
I managed to get through this last year because of my blog. I could write out my grief here. When there was a deathly silence after the funeral and only my closest friend rang me, I came to my blog for solace. When my head was going to explode with all the words I needed to say I came to my blog.
And you listened. You sent me chocolate and clippies, classical music and cards. You commissioned my art work and made me think of renewal. You posted photos on your blogs for me and You held me close and let me cry. You filled my inbox with emails and when there werent any words You hugged me and now we are here together.
My blog is successful and that is down to You.
The images of the oiled birds weigh heavily on my spirit.
The ancient trees cry out to my soul as they are cut down.
Once the ocean is dead what will become of us?
I am hurtling towards the last of my year of firsts and I miss my mother desperately.
I can feel the weight of depression heavy in my chest, a hard lump underneath my breastbone and I can taste its sour flavour at the back of my throat. I can feel it clutching at me at the edges of my mind.
As the heaviness threatens to drag me down, I could easily leap into the darkness and stay there submerged in my own sorrow but I don’t have the time to linger on self absorption, I have wasted enough time already.
A cup was stuck in the mould and I ripped it in my impatience. As I smoothed the jagged edges and altered its shape I became lost in the moment and a series has been born.
I will be exhibiting in the Tasmanian Ceramics Association’s annual exhibition in August, the theme of the exhibition is the seven deadly sins. I cant decide between greed, pride or sloth as my sin of choice, either way this cup and its resemblance to a jagged tree stump will be my interpretation of the brief.
Our sloth, our laziness, our apathy in the face of a world on the brink of catastrophe. Our pride, our vanity, our overriding arrogance that we can control nature and bend to the earth to our will is uppermost in my mind. The essence of our destuctive human natures will be represented in these forms.
They wont be blue like the picture above as I need something harsher than that to get the idea out of my head. Blood and ashes, graffiti and despair. There wont be any hope in these pieces at all, as they will contain my anger but maybe it is better to have my anger contained in these vessels. We will see.
Last year, Easter Sunday was Mum’s birthday, We had a barbie and then Mum and I went down to the hospital for Mum’s chemo. Mum wrote in her diary…
Easter Sunday, back to the hospital for another session of chemo, made sure I left with plenty of anti-nausea tabs, they provided a roast lunch this time and surprise I was able to eat most of it, made Kim feel a bit teary poor baby, I didn’t realise that my not eating was causing her so much worry.
Tomorrow we are having a barbie at Vonnies and it will be another first, another milestone to be gotten through in this first year of living without Mum.
When Mum was having treatment at the hospital, quite often we would have an hour or so between appointments and so we would hang around in town as it was too far to go back home. Often we would browse away some time in camera shops together, drooling over the latest DSLR’s. Mum wanted to buy me a DSLR but we decided to wait until we went to Sydney together. Mum died three weeks before we were due to leave.
So it was with mixed emotions that Vonnie and I went camera shopping a couple of days ago. If I hadn’t had Veronica there to explain the lenses and give me a gentle push, I think I would have kept on dithering and not bought a camera at all. It has been very hard emotionally to spend some of my inheritance on such an extravagence as a new camera. But I could also feel Mum telling me that It was now or never Kimmy.
So I leaped off the cliff and bought a Nikon D90 with a very good 200mm lens.
Time to step it up a notch I think and take my photography to the next level.
