baby faces

I loved this list from the late, great Nora Ephron. I think I have seen ‘When Harry Met Sally’ 72000 times.

It got me thinking what Id put on my list. It got me thinking about the anti-bucket list I developed last year. It also got me thinking about the impact parenting has on me.

Its Red Nose Day today here in Australia. Chrissie Swan wrote a lovely, eloquent piece on what she remembers from being a kid when she first released that people sometimes lose their kids. I was watching a TV show last night and my girl was perched on the side of the lounge. How is it that there can be 3 other seats available but kids have to sit right ON you? The story was about a mum who lost her little boy to SIDS last year. My daughter sobbed for about half an hour after the story – she asked to go in and check on her own brother to make sure he was OK. I kept asking her to talk to me while also thinking why the hell did I let her watch with me – but like Chrissie said I dont know how you hide the world from your kids – do you shield them from it hoping to keep all the yucky stuff out or do you open it all up for them to peer in to. Being asked questions that start with ‘why’ mean that I always stumble for an answer, because after 10 years working in the grief world there will never be an answer for those questions. I talked to her about life and love and we made a list of things that we should be grateful for, the things that will stick out when we’re old and wrinkly, the things that wont even rate…it went something like this.

Wont miss

Waking up early for swimming

Broccoli

Homework (that was me)

Bad Coffee

Bossy people

Miss

Hugs

Merit awards

Friends, best friends

Grandmas

Laughing  until your tummy hurts

Uno (or Unit as my girl calls it)

Snacks

I calmed her down and she opted to sleep in my bed until I popped her into hers later on. I carried those big, lanky limbs out of my room, around the corner to her bed filled with 100 toys and tucked her in. The face still looks like the baby I used to stare out, like most mums I held my breath after both my babies had started sleeping through the night worried as I stepped in the room that something dreadful had happened during the night. I still check on all the kids at random times through the night. Watching. Waiting. Admiring (and secretly relishing the quiet)

You can donate to SIDS and KIDS or to River’s Gift or just raise awareness where you can. Cliched as it as, hold your bubs tight, talk to them openly and wipe away the tears when they learn that it isnt all rainbows. Im not sure if I tell my kids too much, I also know that I cant take away their empathy for other people. I figure its better to have it, than not.

Share this post if you think that coping with loss is about sharing the message.

Whats on your hit and miss list?

 

I type it loud.

When I worked in London just after the millennium bug didn’t hit, I worked in a time-warp. There was only one computer to share between 4 people. We would fight each other for who got a chance to tap out a court report or a care plan for a small person or a letter to a school imploring them not to expel someone.

On the off chance that I did get to use the machine Id sit down and punch out as many words as my small fat fingers could manage. Neatly presented chronological explorations of children ready for adoption and words of respect for those little ones ready to go home. The guy next to me used to laugh like a big old bear, a Scottish bear, he told me I was like a meerkat…Id put my head down and get busy with my hands and then pop my head up occasionally. Staring out into the middle distance for inspiration and then burrow back into my world again. I still type loud, its my fingers trying to catch up with my thoughts. They come thick and fast.

I was working from home on Tuesday watching the live streaming of the Azaria Chamberlain disappearance. Its part of most Australian families history to have had a chat, or 11, over the dinner table about a little girl who was no longer here. I cried watching the Coroner deliver her respectful findings to the family, taking care to look right at them, giving a space to acknowledge Azaria as someone other than a missing child. She spoke of the child as their daughter, not a newspaper heading.

Sometimes in the world of caring people think that you had to have gone through the same experience as another to be able to reach out the right hand to them (right as in helpful not right as in left and right). I disagree. I have been through little blips in my life where the world hasn’t been fair, where Ive sat alone in the living room trying to cry silently without waking anyone but I dont have to be traumatised to understand trauma. I don’t have to lose to understand loss.

Lindy Chamberlains interview explored not only why the findings were not cause for celebration (Im always perplexed as to how this can ever be viewed as good news, the truth about the death of a child) but her thoughts that the Coroner may have had her own experience of loss, to have reacted with such personal thoughts, didnt make me nod.

Ive never walked the path of any of the families I’ve worked with. I don’t have my own experiences of trauma at that scale. The thing is, I don’t think that everyone wants to yell ‘same same’ when they need help. If you’re someone that cares about the people you love then its easy to care about what other people have lost.

You think?

Riding in cars with…kids.

Image from here

When trauma and loss happen most of us know what to do. We know who to call, where to seek help and what we can (kind of) expect about the ways to cope. I guess we’re the ambulance chasers of our own experience.

But what happens to kids when life and all its catastrophes happen?

Catastrophes in a kids world can be big and small – they’re not proportional to ours. They have different meaning and the lens by which they explore them doesn’t match with the life lessons we’ve endured.

Centuries ago when I started working as child protection caseworker I did a whole lot of training on how to talk to kids, the ways to build rapport with a small person that had never laid eyes on you before. I cant imagine how scary that would be for a small person to be expected to bare their soul to someone – but I do know that being a place of safety for a kid overrides that fear of stepping into their lives for the first time.

Every Friday night my daughter and I drive a small distance to her dance class. We changed classes this year to a spot that was a few minutes walk away but I realised that in doing that I missed the chance to talk. Its funny to watch a 6 year old grappling with her identity, how quickly some kids are able to reflect on the who’s, whats and whys of their existence. In the driving to and fro we created chances for random, but meaningful conversation.

We started back at that place a little further away this term. As each Friday night looms I think of 1000 reasons why Id prefer to be at home with my Ugg boots on but once we’re set, when a small person has been dropped to his cousins and bigger girls are OK to wait for Dad to get home from work I relish in the talk of the journey.

Its been on these trips that Ive been able to explain divorce, explain the difference between Daddy and Dada, the reasons why its Ok to be married to 2 people (but hey not at the same time. This isn’t Dr Phil) and about what makes us happy and sad. Its not all drama, its all the places in between.

It was raining on Friday, the streetlights were bright and they smeared across the windscreen, the singing between her and I to songs that probably arent suited to a 6 year old were belted out. She cleared her throat and said ‘mum, tell me about you as a kid…do you think you were as funny as me?’.

Riding in cars with kids can create the chance to stare out the window and solve the dilemmas of the world.