Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the messages, She Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

She was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

- W.H Auden

In not too many hours, this year will have ended. Undeniably, the worst year of our lives. New Years Eve is normally a time of reflection anyway but this year it’s so much more significant…a huge part of me does not want this year to end. I do not want to have to say we lost our daughter last year. I fear that somehow it will seem to people that it might have a little less significance, be a little less painful, that time might have made a difference between “this” year and “last”.

I used to joke that I couldn’t keep using the excuse of having a newborn for forgetting things when the newborn was turning 2. How long can I say that I’ve lost my daughter “recently”. How long does recent cover? And if I can’t say recently, does that then mean that I’m supposed to miss Ava a little less or feel a little less broken?

I struggle so much with the notion that time is supposed to heal. I know to my very core that time will not heal our pain. Time will only make other people think it has. Time will show us what Ava should have been doing. Time will simply mark the hours since our adored daughter left and a part of us died.

When we first lost Ava, I would plead for people to tell me it would get better. I would seek out other bereaved parents who seemed to look “okay”. I couldn’t fathom that my life, my forever, would now include engulfing heartbreak every day. But it does. It’s awful and it’s uncomfortable and it’s unfixable. It is what it is.

I don’t want to move one second, letalone one year further away from my last day with Ava. I don’t want to think of her kindy friends starting school shortly. I don’t want to find her toys dusty or watch her dresses fade. I want the World to know that no matter how many New Years ring in, our pain and our missing and our yearning will never fade.

Do you remember the tv show with Eva Gabor? I loved it as a child, espescially the bit where she’d throw her dirty plates out the kitchen window rather than wash them. We actually did that ourselves as kids, at my grandmothers house. If there were pots to scrub, we’d conspire, all seven of us cousins…and while one lot would distract,the others would tiptoe out into the garden and bury the evidence on the council land next door. Like it had never existed. Years later when the council actually turned up to mow, they were dumbfounded to find dozens of unwashed pans. So when I saw Eva doing just this whilst wearing a feather boa and a smile on her face, I knew it was the tv show for me.

I have thought of Eva lately now that I have my own “Green Acres” – albeit 1.5 acres about 10 mins from Westfield – but still, it’s got a shed and a stable even. It’s SO dark at night and there are endless varieties of wild-life roaming past the front door (apparently – I’ve not yet ventured out after dark!). I’m not really a rural gal. I hate camping. (Well I know I would hate it if I ever tried it). I don’t cope with creatures. I’d prefer my street brightly lit, thankyou.. But, I do love the tranquility and I love how friendly everyone is. It might just take a while before I’m out planting snow peas.

The best bit so far though is that the kids absolutely love it. They run around all day and sleep well at night. (well, unless it’s Xmas :p) They fight less and help more. The image in my head before we arrived actually matches the scene in my garden…how nice :)

“When I die, she said, I’m coming back as a tree with deep roots & I’ll wave my leaves at the children every morning on their way to school & whisper tree songs at night in their dreams.

Trees with deep roots know about the things children need.”

Tonight Jennifer gave me this quote, I loved it and wanted to share it.

I spent a little of today lying on my back on the trampoline. I’d had a good day, I’d shopped, I’d walked, I’d bounced and I’d laughed. But then, so suddenly, I found myself immersed in sadness and missing and trying to find Ava’s face in the clouds. I found her, of course, because you can make anything you want from the clouds above. I lay there for many minutes, until my ears filled with tears (an annoying side effect of being teary whilst lying flat) and Crayton came and got me.

I’ve never done that before…I’d never tried to find Ava in the clouds. And it wasn’t so much what I was doing, it was how I was feeling for that moment..the missing. Oh my gosh. It’s a hard thing that I seek her out in so many places yet when I find glimpses of her, the pain is suffocating.

So while it was a simple thing really, it stayed with me after and I was still thinking of that little part of my day when I spoke to Jen tonight. We’d only just said hello when Jen shared something she felt compelled to tell me. Out of nowhere, travelling in the car today, Aria announced that, right then, she could see Ava. But not just anywhere. She could see Ava in the clouds. She was sure and she was excited about it.

I do not have an understanding of where Ava is. I wish I did and I hope one day I find it but for now, it’s all just a big hazy void of confusion. Thankyou Aria, for sharing your vision with your Mummy and putting a smile on my face tonight.

S xx

At 3am today I woke to a stampede of boys in my room, shreiking “MUMMMMMM. SANTA LEFT A TRAMPOLINE IN THE GARDEN”. Yes, 3am. All of my efforts to unveil the biggest gift this Xmas at the “right” moment, with Grandparents present at a civilised time of the day, had failed. For the next two hours I had constant visits from them, asking if it was time to go and try it out yet. At 5am, crazy with sleep deprivation, I gave in. There I was, in half daylight, hissing at them to jump silently so as to not wake the neighbours. As Nanny said “You can jump as long as there’s no glee, okay.”

My boys do this to me every year..for both Easter and Xmas. It is horrendous. We dread it. I’ve found them before in the middle of the night scoffing Easter Eggs. I’ve never woken on a Xmas morning with the sun up. So it’s not even dinnertime and half the family are asleep trying to become human again.

Can I just say though, I feel a bit proud of myself for actually getting them a trampoline. 2 years ago, we had one ready to deliver for Xmas and I cancelled it the day before. I was just too terrified of all the “what if’s” and I’d googled myself into a paranoid frenzy. I am still a bit unsure but then I am a lot unsure every single day about so many things…I’m trying so hard to accept I cannot control everything and to make sure they’re still allowed to be kids. Anyway, I sold a kidney to fund the very best I could find, a Jump Safe one, so here’s hoping it’s not something I live to regret. So far, they absolutely love it.

Ivy, discovering a tree decoration featuring a picture of Mason.

And Ava, Xmas last year.

I should have some more pics a bit later, depending on how long they all nap!

One morning, Ava noncholantly wandered into the room wearing seven skirts. There was no fanfare about it, she appeared just the same way as if she’d popped on one. I, of course, was aghast…thinking of the fact that most of them were “good” skirts and then the washing and the ironing of those seven skirts. I asked what possessed her but naturally, she had no answer..she really couldn’t see the problem and simply wandered off with no intention of removing any one of them.

The photographer in me had to pull out the camera and hurridly snap off a few shots which pretty much stopped me stressing and let me focus on just how cute it really was. I’ve thought about those seven skirts so very often since that day. For me, they highlight what I love to capture in children, that complete innocence and ignorance of all things adult and proper and practical.

Crayton and I are not terribly conventional in our approach to life in general. For a start, we are both home pretty much 24/7 and actually love each others company. We really enjoy just hanging out together. You’ll often find me in my pj’s at lunchtime and even though we are crazy busy, neither of us wear a watch. Once I bought an organiser and thought I was going to be amazing. I programmed in every damn domestic chore I could think of and after three days of hearing that thing beep, I found myself glaring, swearing and telling it to go do the washing itself if it felt that strongly about it. My Mum laughed when I told her I’d bought one, saying “Oh sweetie. No. Those things are for Organised People”. I admitted defeat and switched it off. Not long ago, the list-wielding, schedule-Nazi, sooooper organised Jennifer lovingly told me if she had to live my life, she would be found sitting in the corner of the room, licking paint off the wall. I told her she was boring.

We have found school life, and the requirement to be highly organised, challenging at times. Our paediatrician said, “It’s no good living in Rome and sending your children to school in Japan”. He definately had a point..we don’t disagree..we do subscribe to the notion that children need routine and structure. We try so hard, we’re just not experts in the field.

The problem with all of this is that along with this unconventional approach, I also have the tendancy to be highly self critical and have had hugely unrealistic expectations of what mothers should be. Before February, I went to bed on so many nights berrating myself that I had forgotten swimming that day or that I still hadn’t done up the reward charts. Sometimes I would get in the car after school drop-off and drive home actually telling myself out loud “My God. You are HOPELESS”…because I’d not managed to get all the books covered or left Luca’s hat at home. I cried with the frustration of wanting to be the Perfect Mum and falling short on many days. I so desperately wanted to get it right, to do it all really really well and with a smile on my face at 9pm each evening. I could never have met my own expectations but that didn’t matter…I was determined to evolve into the finger-painting, cookie-baking mother no matter what…Obviously, then, I would be a Really Good Mum.

Losing Ava has had an immense impact on how I see motherhood and what I expect from my children and most importantly, myself. I can see clearly now that I used up so much energy in each day wanting to do it all perfectly that I’d miss out on the perfect bits that were already there. Now I am so much easier on myself. Just trying to keep sane through some really tough days has meant I’ve been forced to let go of so many parenting ideals that I had in place. The criteria has been reduced down to it’s most basic…At then end of a day, as long as we’re all healthily fed, freshly bathed and cleanly clothed. As long as we’re hearing the children laugh and we all feel loved. As long as we’re together. What an enormous lesson in what matters. And you know what, because I’ve found new freedom in the World of Parenting, I am a much better Mum. I find myself edging a little closer to Japan each day. I even use a diary now.

So for all those parents out there, scalding yourselves for not doing it perfectly today, please think of Ava and her Seven Skirts. She wasn’t thinking about the washing. She wasn’t thinking about the protocol for how many skirts one should wear at once. She wasn’t worrying about whether it was flattering or whether the toddler next door seemed to pull off eight skirts. She just saw how beautiful she looked.

Parenting is an extraordinarily difficult job. However you’re doing it, it’s perfectly perfect. Promise.