A door is open and shut, all at the same time

A wound is bleeding and healed. all at the same time,

The tree is growing, yet burns in the grate, all at the same time,

We are born and yet die, all at the same time.

After we die we shatter and scatter

Becoming the fragments of memories, snatched pictures, half forgotten conversations,

Floating in peoples minds.

We fade into their memories' DNA, shaping them and their children

In turn shaping the world.

This is our shining soul, our human imortality.

http://www.careers.brad.ac.uk/feature/jason/

This thing that should be about death and feeling distraught is changing.

Like walking under trees in rain and complaining about the wind and the rain and the noise

and forgetting that I'm there, under the wind and in the rain and listening to the noise

And that just being there, right there is enough.

Jason dying has changed so much but left it the same. It's lovely to be in touch with friends I've not had contact with for years though, his final gift in a way is love. Can't undo his karma but part of me would still like him back even though in the bigger picture it's sort of ok. Well it's beyond me saying it's ok.

Grumpy day today, but the kids were still loving. My double standards amaze me - I expect them to be calm and not cross yet what do I do when I'm tired and hungry? Have to work on that one. Probably important not to be too self-judgemental.

Reed bed rippling in the light,

is that the wind blowing

or a soul parting the leaves as they pass by?

Well today I found out Jason wasn't on his own when he died. That seems good. He phoned his folks on New Years Eve as he felt unwell, who took him to their house and called the emergency Dr. They then took Jason straight to hospital, where he either fell unconscious or was sedated. It became apparent he wasn't going to wake up, then his parents called friends of his to say goodbye. A mutual friend contacted one of these friends (Jason's ex) and kindly told me how he died. It seems terribly important to know how he died - and its a huge relief that he wasn't afraid and alone when he died.

People have been immensely kind today and I need to not overlook this in my grief. The gift of simply being here to feel this pain is quite something - I've been so overwhelmed with it all that I've quite forgotten that.

So, Louise was kind in immediately letting me know how Jason died. She phoned on her way back from meeting Steve. Greg was kind too - he owns a local coffee shop and is coffee intense! We'd been talking to a mutual friend about his autistic children, he mentioned this to us and his whole demeanour changed. We went to his shop on Christmas day, and he held my daughter's hands as she was cold and recovering from an awful bug. We've not had the easiest relationship in the past so this means a lot. It's not a tragedy to find out your child is autistic but it needs adjustments and he was talking about that. It's good to talk to someone who has trodden the same path. We also spoke to friends of ours - a gay couple as it turns out. For some reason, because Jason was gay, it was somehow healing and life affirming. Marc's mother died some time ago and I was talking about Jason. I don't seem to be able to stop, but Marc was saying some really poignant yet pragmatic things. Just that dying is inevitable and that for some, dying in their prime as opposed to lonely in old age might be preferable. Plus he urged me to do something on the day of the funeral. We've decided not to attend as it's a long way and I would be quite upset which wouldn't be great for the kids. Plus we can't afford the associated costs. I am sad about this but myself and Marc both came up with the idea of perhaps burning a photo or something.

Letting go - I've forgotten about this. In the past I've relied a lot more on this but it's been hard to do now. Another reason why is I feel guilty for being here now Jason is not. It's only fleeting but its there. Guess it's a version of survivors guilt - he was younger than me and I feel protective.

The world still turns after all. Wish I could go to the funeral. Thinking of releasing something down a stream or maybe going to the Priory although as Jason was a Christian not sure how that sits right now.

Living in the Past

Ok - today has been a good day. I have sniffed at a lot of people that " a very good friend of mine died etc etc" and not dissolved into a heap of tears. This has been a good thing. Plus I haveea actually started to feel slightly cheerful. The unadulterated wallowing although painful is obviously the right way to go.

Part of me is now back at being in my early 20's. This was of course when I saw Jason regularly, especially our tome together working in Manchesterl Museum. Its a slightly trippy experience - most of me is with the kids, arbitrating, feeding, nursing etc, just a little is wandering around, cataloguing stuff early 20 years ago. I loved that collection too! I loved sharing it with Jason as well. I also remember so many kindnesses he showed me, moving me up to Leicester, taking me shopping oce in Manchester when I'd just moved there (I've lived there several times, I don't remember which one) his general attitude that he was there to help. I remember walking into the main gate of the museum to the stores behind, him making coffee at break times, him charming the extremely wonderful Prof Rosalie Davids who I was too scared to talk to. It was a good time - and how much did I enjoy that work?! So much!

Not sure what's happened to all of that now. Not sure if it's lost underneath the pile of leaving job, being ill with ME, recovering and then children or if it's still there. Certainly the 20 year old me would be terribly surprised to be a full time mum, but the essence of me being me and carving out my path in my own style is still there. Not sure if it's even important or not.

Sunlight streams in my memories.

Somehow

this horrible horrible thing is going to be a blessing. I don't know how, I suspect it will be one of those things I don't get for years and years and look back and it will click. Jason was that sort of man.

I think this is so extremely hard for the following reasons:

1. Everyone else I've know whose died was either older than me and/or long term ill so there was't the same shock element.

2. Jason was a year younger than me (his actual birthday was 364 days after mine) so this is the first time that my entire life has encompassed someone else's.

3. This brings me back to being nearly 40 and feeling the need to seize the day.

4. This brings me to needing to see a professional about D.

5. When I was at university, it was the first time in my life that I was actually happy. I believe I spent the first term at university quite down simply because I wasn't expected to be caring for and being depressed about my mum. It was a huge learning curve to be happy.

6. The friends I formed there were in a way the bedrocks of my future life. The previous bedrock type friend was Sharon who died a few years ago (2003) - but she had muscular dystrophy so I was expecting her life to be shorter.

7. Jason was one of those bedrocks and he's suddenly and completely gone. We'd made contact over the summer and talked briefly on the phone since and it was just the same, just the same friendship.

8. We spent a lot of time together in Manchester Museum working on a project cataloguing the Egyptian collections. We got closer as friends.

9. The whole thing about Facebook is that it means you can suddenly keep in touch with people that you haven't for years - Jason was one of these. He was a prolific twitterer so he was very much there - even if he was so techy I couldn't understand half his posts!

10. He was a genuinely special person whose Christian faith and his ability for deeds to match his words was amazing. His faith alone and his way of interpreting it was inspiring.

Wish it didn't hurt so much. Such a wimp!

I turned my face to the sun,

I watched as you said goodbye.

I felt you leave this world,

and move onto the next.

The streaming sun,

knows no difference.

RIP Jason

One of my very best friends from university died from meningitis over the weekend. He would have been 38. We met up with him briefly over summer for tea but the kids were running wild as they'd been in the car all day so we didn't really have chance to talk.

Heatbroken, metta for Jason x

Back on the merry-go-round

D starts pre school on Thursday (should be Wednesday but she has a party on Wed afternoon so a day's grace is necessary). We were all very ill over Christmas so leaving the house was not really an option. When she starts back she will be too tired again to see anyone. So given that the socialising at pre school knocks her for 6 - well I'm glad I know she has at least one friend there. So hard for all of us.

Not really a point to this, feels dreadfully confused and narcissistic. Cabin fever.

What the Dr said.....

... was a lot more than the speech therapist. I went as my pms is worse (stress) and also my asthma (also stress) meaning I can't take my usual painkillers (stressful in itself :). I also wanted to chase up whereabouts in the system Deborah's referral is, as we've not heard anything yet. It turns out that the speech therapist had already discussed her suspicions about D being somewhere on the autistic spectrum with her, yes, more than had been discussed with me the mother but hey why make me worry? If I wasn't so desperately, desperately upset I might be cross. Yes the speech therapist had said she wanted to refer D on, but as she hadn't actually used the word "autistic" to me - well somehow it seems worse and more final now, even though it actually isn't.

It's getting to be the elephant in the room at pre school - last week I was on the verge of taking her out completely after they started rehearsals for a school nativity which resulted in a 24 stress fest and screaming for D. I kept her home the next day, only for the nursery teacher to phone up saying the head teacher stated that D "needed" to be in that day....... Needless to say, we went to town and to the museum and met up with friends who D relaxed and laughed with. The day after we had 2 sets of friends round in the afternoon, the second a nursery friend who was amazed to see D laugh and sing. Pre school is now treating her as if we have a diagnosis (ie pushing her with the play because "that's what worked for another little girl in year 2 with transition problems") so we are going to have a word with them. Anyway, being on the brink of removing D she has now started to really enjoy pre school, which is lovely but confusing. Talking to the leader at our local Home Start group she says that when we do finally get to see the specialist we will get a list of all of Deborah's specific needs. This same leader always emphasises how much eye contact Deborah makes and how elaborate her imaginative play is which is heartening.

On top of everything, we took D to a festival celebrating the Buddha's Enlightenment at the Priory on Sunday. Over the baby monitor yesterday we heard the following,

"Not have ears, not have mouth, not have elephant, not have door, not have fingers, not have hippo, not have momobot, not have momobot, (then with feeling and satisfaction) I AM momobot". There was also a "not have nothingness" in there somewhere too. Direct link to the heart sutra which we had recited.

Ian is so beautifully constant with all of this, I love him more for it. Talking about it yesterday he just looked at me and said simply, "She will be ok you know". I don't know but I'm heartened by the fact he thinks so.

Worry not Boudica!

Nope, I'm not suffering delusions, just that somehow the worries that have bee destroying me and making me awful (again) to the children have now become my foundations and I'm dealing with them. Only some, I can't do anything about Ian's diabetes although he's had some good news for that this week, and happily Michael's chest infection has responded really well to treatment which means I can PUT HIM DOWN and MOVE AWAY FROM THE SOFA AND MAKE FOOD. So maybe its not so much better coping skill as just more food, more exercise and slightly more sleep.

Am now actively chasing the speech and language services for D. I think she was looking forward to going back to pre school, she'd mentioned she wasn't going there and said she liked it when asked. But, well, I'm never 100% on how reliable all that is. I think she likes all the things they do there, but she wilts when she's there, and its destroyed our social life as she is simply too exhausted to do anything. That's a very minor point, but for her if she is wilting at pre school then feeling too tired to see her existing friends - well it sounds very isolating for her. Poor sausage. Her behaviour generally over half term was better than during school time, again it's hard to know if this a sign for immediate removal, or just a sign of exhaustion. The nursery nurses say this is normal -but this is not a cause of comfort.

So more chasing, actually now really wanting a developmental assessment at the hospital.

This hurts now

Feel stuck in a sort of twilight zone quagmire with D atm. Not knowing if there is something wrong or not is a special sort of hell made much worse when one is perfectionist like me. I'm starting to notice so much though, how many games M initiates and D doesn't, how many small kindnesses M shows to D that aren't reciprocated, how much speech she does repeat, how zoned out she gets, how screechy she gets, argh. Poor sausage, this is dangerously close to scapegoating. I'm getting so scared by the things I dislike that I shout at her - how awful, when love and kindness is the only way forward.

All made worse by a week of no sleep and a cold.

Must remember

Snuggling up to Michael as he falls asleep, foreheads touching, little rasping snores, fists unclenching, unfurling like flowers, ah sleep! And children. Tonight I almost wished for the world to stop right here and now, stop in that one perfect, perfect moment. Then I realised what I was asking for and let go.

In other worlds we have started doing yoga after lunch time. That and not actually attempting so obviously insane as leaving the house seems to be helping with the post lunch tantrums. Plus an extra snack at 3 ish. For all my collywobbles which have been many, D runs into pre-school happily, is getting less inclined to kiss me goodbye and runs off quickly to get on with stuff, is happy when I pick her up, and I hear reports from another mum that her daughter really enjoys D's company.

We have done D's initial speech and language assessment, the 2nd comes tomorrow when she will be observed by the therapist in the setting of the nursery to find out exactly what exhausts her. So that will be useful. We are also being referred onto the hospital for checks for further developmental delays. It's hard to know at this stage if D is needing more help. But now we've started this process I think we need to carry on with it. The speech and language therapist said she wasn't going to advise interventions just yet as D's sentence structure is long enough and quite coherent but there is an issue with D repeating things we say, and appearing to zone out. I'm assuming these are pointers towards aspergers. In all honesty I think at this stage a sensitive child who's speech needed to come on would also present the same , so it's good to be getting the further tests at the hospital.

Gosh I love the children so so so much.

And more emotions

Today was Deborah's first day at pre-school. They nearly called me as she was very upset after falling down and grazing her knee, but then she calmed down, so they didn't. Which meant she was there for 3 hours. Through a growth spurt and everything. She seemed qutieter afterwards but in a happy tired kind of way, and was certainly more vocal again after resting. 3 hours! I'm amazed and gobsmacked and impressed, and I hope that it's what she wants because it feels like it might actually be the thing D has been looking for. Fingers crossed.

I of course was a wreck this am. A very lovely and most unexpected thing happened. I held a friend's 9 day old daughter and holding this precious bundle brought back all of Deborah's pre-Michael days. They had partially disappeared in a maelstrom of exhaustion and overwhelmed, so it's the rarest and most precious thing to have that sense of pre-Michael Deborah back. Whilst actually having M and D as they are now of course! This is not nostalgia, just appreciation.

The children cuddled up together on a big cushion giggling this afternoon. I hope they retain their closeness or at least their largely positive will towards to each other.

Finally a friend sent a book by my Lama. It's the first book I ever read on Dharma and combined with today's crisp autumn air - well it's like there's a new cycle happening. New Pratchett out too and my online course in Egyptology starts in October, although I registered for it yesterday.

Being reminded of Deborah being born reminds me once again of that feeling of responsibility towards all beings, of being their mother. Common to all parents's but coming at it from a Buddhist perspective I pray for Tara to protect all beings.

And today

I was incredibly stressed about lots of things that dont actually matter in the slightest but all needed done first thing, all with urgent sellotaped to their foreheads. So I was shouty and stressed and screamy and shouty, but I explained to the kids and asked them to hug me to make me feel better and they did.

The kids were lovely and calm and got on, and friends came round and they shared and were lovely, and I realised that I can be stressed and grumpy and angry around them, just not at them. They can cope, and did magnificently. Unlike the other day when I had been stressy, and stressed at them, so the next day they were foul too. Karma and reflection in one lovely bundle.

Older people and Suicide

Shocked today (probably a mark of my naiveté) by an old lady at the bust stop. She had threatened suicide to a gp as a method of getting further treatment for a minor (her words) heart condition and is attending the funeral of a close family friend (aged 74) tomorrow. He had committed suicide after a hip operation had gone wrong, and whilst waiting for further treatment his dog had died which was too much for him to bear. Just seems so incredibly sad, to reach such an age and to have such violence as the end pages. This is not suicide as in mercy killing, but suicide in response to depression, which links to me because of my mum's suicide attempts in the year after Deborah was born. There were lots before that of course, but it was these ones that have stuck with me. At the time, it seemed awful and as if some part of her was choosing depression over Deborah, now I see I shouldn't take it so personally, but it's just awful how fragile life is. For these people too, awful that that is it for them.

Brrrr, we are our own cold wind, unsettling ourselves.

Today I managed not to shout and even to listen and reflect Deborah's feelings which helped stall a tantrum. Then we realised she is pushing M when our backs are turned (he has some big bruises from yesterday when his trajectory included the door frame). I was shouty yesterday so the guilt is there for all that. I was thirsty today and asked D to move off my lap so I could get a drink. She ignored me, but M went to the dining room table and brought me a drink. Gosh.