Write. Ponder. Fear. Share. Inhale.
Exhale.

To all who’ve commented here & at FB and emailed this past weekend, thank you.  I have read each and every one of your beautiful words.  One by one..all your kind, gentle replies.  They’ve helped me believe that this is okay.   And with pondering my words, and yours,  I’ve spent time with Ava.  For three days, I’ve thought so much of her and we’ve talked so much of her and I’ve cried for her.  It isn’t enough, but it never has been.    The day after she was gone..with her towel still hanging to dry and her shoes at the door, with pen to paper and a thousand memories flooding in, it wasn’t enough.

When I look back at that first year I think of the panic..a constant and all consuming fear that it could not be undone.  The feeling of forever, the knowing I would never have her by my side again.  At least not in this lifetime.    Sometimes it would bring me to my knees,  literally.   Little by little though, I formed a new relationship with Ava.  One based in honoring her and creating beauty in her name and sharing her.   It was a poor substitute, but all I had and it helped fade the fear.   If I could stay there I would but alas,  nothing does remain the same.  Except of course, my love for her.

Today I feel light-hearted and less afraid.    I’ve not reached up to the top shelf holding my grief yet but I have stepped back far enough to see it again.   I know there will be different ways to spend time with Ava, perhaps different paths to that place in my heart.   In the soft sunlight, in the laughter of her siblings, in the start of a new day..I will seek her.  To feel peace with the ebb and the flow is such a relief.    For listening, for caring..thank you.

And thank you to Kristen, who shared this with me. It speaks loudly.

“Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs on his vacant garments with his form:
Then have a reason to be fond of grief.”

– William Shakespeare, King John

xx

I’m asked quite often why I don’t post anymore.   In the normal World of a normal family, that would barely be worth mentioning.  After all, it’s just a blog.  To me though, this place is so much more.   So much that I can’t even really explain and when you ask why I don’t spend time here now, I can’t really answer.  I don’t know why.  Or maybe there’s just lots of why’s and when I try to come up with one it all becomes a big jumble of something. Or other.   So, here goes.

When I started blogging, back in the days of four children here with me, it was easy.   For the three people who read my posts, I was perfectly happy sharing tidbits from otherwise unremarkable days..parenting stuff, cooking stuff, shopping stuff.   Complaints about lack of sleep and juggling business with babies and yearning after Alannah Hill frocks.  I never gave it any thought.

Then life..that uncomplicated, regular run of the mill life, turned upside down and for a very long time blogging was where I chose to pour out my aching soul.  Sharing Ava, and sharing the sorrow, became so important to my grief process and the support of so many along the way made a difference.  On my bad and badder days, I would put pen to paper, so to speak, and bare the brutality of a most unexpected life in the new Universe.  Somehow, it helped.  All that missing and yearning and endless wishing hung out for all to see.  I never gave it any thought.

Then that life became familiar.  A place where I have three children beside me and one in the Otherwhere.  Five years.  Tomorrow, it will be five years.  We struggle to fathom.   And you know, they were wrong.  Time did make a difference.  The unbearable suffering eased.  The wailing quietened and then the tears fell softly.    And, just as I’d feared, the tears stopped.  I closed the door to her room.  It’s still shut now.

I cannot explain the intense feeling of disconnection I’ve had from not just grief, but Ava too, over the last year.  It’s so hard to admit that but it is the truth.   And I hate it.  For the longest time, I’ve been aware of my grief tucked up on the top shelf.  I can’t even see it, but I know it’s there.  I wish I could reach it.  I just don’t know how.

The logical part of me knows this could be ‘normal’.  Maybe the book says it’s what happens at four years.  And five.  And the rest.  But what if I don’t want that?    I miss my time with her.  I miss the days she was here and I miss the days I lay on her bed sobbing with the wanting, the desperate wanting, for her to be by my side.  I don’t feel I have a place for her anymore.  Yes, her physical things are here.  Her bed is still here.  Her books and her clips and her shoes..they are here.  But the space in my heart where I promised she’d stay?  I’ve lost the way to it.

So if you ask me to share my thoughts,  I feel afraid.  How do I say my grief feels distant?  That she feels faraway?  To admit she’s not right here, front and center, every day.  From a place of such pain and suffocating sorrow, how can that be?

For now, I will shake my head in disbelief, still.
I will know that some things can not be explained.
I will know that I could have done better.
I will know that it wasn’t my fault.
I will know that some days, it will all be my fault.
I will keep her pictures on the wall.
I will speak her name.
I will wait to dream of her.
I will try to write of her.
And I will keep searching for a way back to my darling Ava.

xx

I always was a warm weather girl.  As a child, I loved everything the sunnier months brought – bbq’s by the creek with family, hours spent on the slip n slide,  ice-cream.  At 18, when I moved to the Gold Coast (Australia’s answer to Miami), the warm weather meant the beach every day and parties at night.   I married beside the ocean in beautiful sunlight and as a mother, I loved watching my own babies play outside in Summer,  soaking up the sunshine and goodness.   As Winter rolled around each year, I’d miserably shiver my way through an unbearable three months, all the while searching for an alternative to Havianas.  The cold, it’s just not me.

And then came the Summer of 2007, beginning like every other Australian Summer and ending like nothing we’d ever known.  The loss of our darling Ava.  Instantly and dramatically, my love of warmer weather was no more.  It became the other 9 months of the year that I found unbearable.    Grief just brings such incredible sensitivity to the most normal of things and  when the sun shone brightly,   I struggled to even step outside.

To sit out in the sunshine today..a simple nothing that felt like a simple everything.  Like so many other moments in a strange journey.  When it’s hard, it feels impossible but sometimes easy feels impossible too.  Along the way, I want to share my days and my photos and my thoughts with you..and I want to tell you how the ordinary is still anything but ordinary but then I hesitate.  The truth is, I sometimes struggle to know how to include Ava.  Not in our day to day life..there she nestles comfortably in our conversations and memories.  It’s here, I wonder. Where I once wrote pages through the tears and shared without thinking, I now sit in hesitation wondering what even makes sense.  It’s hard when I share only random snippets of  life.  I’m not sure if it seems disjointed. Do my stories of life with grief seem out of place in the every day?  

The thing is, I can’t do smalltalk. If you know me in real life, I much prefer real conversation. I can’t make stuff up. It’s the same here. I want to keep it real but still share the everyday and then I’m back to the bit where my every day still looks different to most.   My every day is not like it was before Summer 2007 and it’s not like it was for a long while after. It’s something different again..and yes, it’s largely about the balance of sorrow and gratitude but it’s also about raising children and wanting more children and dreaming with my love and taking photos and time with friends.  It’s about everything that I knew with Ava and everything I’ve learned without her and trying to move forward but never wanting to forget.  If it seems disjointed, it’s probably because it is.   When your days and your relationships and all your waking thoughts are filtered with a different and sometimes complex perspective, it takes work to turn that into everyday words. I can’t take the filter off and I wouldn’t want to but still, sometimes it’s kind of hard to see out. 

Thanks for waiting on the other side.

Sheye xx

Lately I’ve been struggling to keep time aside for my own creative pursuits and it’s been ever so frustrating.  Amidst a business that completely surrounds all things creative, I still end up with so little opportunity to explore the things that really inspire and motivate me.   Probably because when I’m not running the creative business, I’m buried underneath other business.. family business or school business or renovation business.   Oh, and did I ever mention we also have a childcare center?  That we do.

And another not so small something..you know when I said I was thinking of moving on from making babies?  Or trying to make babies? Well I didn’t.  I haven’t.  In a four year long moment of insanity, it seems I’m not yet able to let go of that particular wish and each babyless month continues to roll around while I continue to visit the doctor or the clinic or the acupuncturist, lugging along a confusing jumble of hope and resignation and frustration..all wrapped up in a heavy layer of meh.    If I ponder it too long I feel 1000 degrees of unstable so lets not.

My point is that much of my week is spent juggling a lot of balls, all of which I have a great deal of passion, good help and only just enough time for.  Generally, I manage okay.   I wouldn’t say I’m the most structured person on the Planet and every day is just about crossing off the things that absolutely have to be done but I seem to get from A to B with my sanity in tact most of the time.   Do I think there is a better way?  Hell yes.  Am I  going to pull that off any time soon?  Twice over, Hell no.  So I just accept the crazy that seems to be our lives and appreciate the good things that come out of the madness.  The trouble with this is that in the midst of trying to being efficient and organized and positive there are many days where I find I barely resemble myself anymore. Where a ponytail is essential and somehow a balanced meal is not.

So, I’ve gone and done something that feels awfully indulgent, but so very right.   I’ve taken back Thursdays.  Yes yes, I’m putting aside one day a week that belongs to me.  Not the busy, stretched, distracted, whats-next-on-the-list-me but the other one.  The girl who used to lie under the sprinkler outside, listening to The Doors.   Her.  I leave all of the grown up things back at Wednesday night and for just one day, I hang out.  I have hot chocolate with my sister.  We order nachos.  We reminisce and dream and sometimes we laugh so hard nothing comes out.  We swap Canon and Nikon.  We play with film.  Or Instagram.  It doesn’t matter.  We talk to strangers and we ask to take their photos and no one’s ever said no.  We’ve had massages and we’ve explored the dollar stores and we’ve tracked down the house we lived in as toddlers.  We drive with no set destination and no schedule and eventually, someone has to ring us to say come home.

It took me so very long to justify this time in my week..years actually..and now I can’t imagine it not being there.   So you, all of you frazzled working mothers, sahm mothers, self employed business owners,  dedicated employees,  stressed out students..I think we should all take back a day in our week.  If it feels hard to do, it isn’t.  Really, it isn’t.  It’s actually much harder to get by without it.   No matter how important your role in whatever realm, I’m inviting you to set aside something for yourself.   Your self will pay you back ten fold.  What say you?

xx

When I first met you, I was an early twenty something.  I was impressionable and you, you were all things impressive.  I marveled at your glamor, I swooned at your glossy stores.  You were the same as home, but different.  Calvin Klein t-shirts for under fifty dollars?  A whole restaurant serving only vegetarian food?  Cirque de Soleil in Vegas and sugary bignettes in the French Quarter.  Sunny walks through San Francisco.  Needless to say,  I fell rather hard for your amazing self and then, well,  it was over.  Ten days later and I made my way back to the simpler life.

Fifteen years on, I’d mostly forgotten our love affair.  I’m sorry.  Life got busy.  I grew up, a bit.  I found another love and we made four children and honestly, I had no plans to meet up with you again.  Fate however, guided me back and one Summer day,  I found myself strolling through Laguna Beach.  Surrounded by breath-taking Spanish architecture and late afternoon sunlight, my heart swelled while I declared that I had found my Heaven on Earth.  I dreamed out loud of spending every day with you.  I soaked you up and I embraced the other you I hadn’t seen through younger eyes.  Your natural beauty.

It wasn’t just me though, we all fell for your charms and between then and now have returned more than once.  Every time, we travel further, we discover more.   We return to the same community where we’re welcomed in by our neighbors and little by little, you have become our home away from home.   And every single day, when the light drops over that ocean, my heart swells all over again and I ponder how it feels to be really and truly in love with you.  I know there’s more of you to see, so much more.  I dream of Summer road-trips though the desert and meandering down Madison Avenue in Winter.   We both know that Australia will always be my first love,  but you will always live in my heart as the refuge that gave us hope for a happy future when our present was nothing but unbearable.  You offered sunshine through the clouds and a place to create new memories with our children.  You helped us find a way forward.

This past weekend, we’ve never felt closer, or further away from you.  Watching one of your darkest days retold from the safety of our lounge-rooms, we’re so awfully sad for you and we’re so filled with pride seeing how you have rebuilt.   Your loss is big, but your strength is bigger.  You’re an amazing example of resilience and unity and today, you make us very very grateful for the luxury of freedom.  To sleep safe in our beds and to spend simple days at the beach with our children.  America, we think you’re pretty special and just wanted to tell you so.

Love Always,
Sheye x

The lead up to Ava’s Tea Party is really big for me.  All sorts of big.  I want it to be amazing, I want everyone in the World to stop what they’re doing and participate, I want it to matter. And to so many of you, it does. Words can’t express how it feels to see the stream of beautiful tea parties images, or to hear tales of family gatherings and cuddles. To know that Ava’s Rule is being shared and that our girl is being remembered. It is incredible and it is comforting.  And yes,  it is big.  And then, behind all that, lies the strange, quiet hum that persists throughout the planning and the emailing and the baking.  (Well, other people’s baking).  Sometimes it gets really very loud and then I’m lost in what should be. Not tea parties and everyone else hugging their eight year olds. That should be me. I can’t see past just missing my daughter and wondering how we got here. Then, someone will send a beautiful photo of a pink sky.  Someone will tell me how Ava’s Rule helped their child.  Someone, some thing, will remind me that Ava’s Tea Party is worth it and it’s making a difference and it means so much to so many families – not just ours.   It’s an endless see-saw of emotion and honestly, getting to the other side is just a little bit of a relief.

This year, the weather meant our simple plans for a family gathering were relocated indoors last minute. I didn’t really have an ideas for pretty decor – I’m no party planner so it really was just an gathering of little bits I already had along with home made and store bought treats.  We marked her day and we shared happy conversation and we took time to show love for those we love.

Thank you to every one of you who sent support this year, one way or another, and especially to those of you who joined in with Ava’s Tea Party.  Lets do it again next year, shall we?  :)

Love and gratitude, always.

Sheye x

Instead, I will wander to the morning you were born.
I will greet your dark wisps and your puffy nose and your olive skinned chubbiness.
I will watch you in your Daddy’s arms while he sings to you.
I will think of dancing with you in the kitchen, on my hip in a pink kerchief.
I will imagine you in your Grandy’s lap while he whistles and laughs and dotes.
I will remember hair clips and kneesocks and spotty shoes.
I will watch you skipping into kindy while I call out to slow down.
I will recall your long golden curls and your wide feet and the brown of your enormous eyes.
I will find you with your brothers and your sister, there will be four.
I will see you spinning in our hallway, I will hear you squealing.
I will answer to Miss Mummy.
I will put my arms around you and I will breathe you in and I will love you.
I will be right back there, with you.

Happy Birthday, my darling Ava.

As we venture into August, I’ve spent the last week wholly immersed in Ava’s Tea Party, gathering up ideas and contacting suppliers and making pretty things.  I’m so excited to see lots of plans in the making and to have had such encouragement to continue the event that makes this month not just bearable for us, but on many levels, quite beautiful.

We are happy for people to celebrate at any point in August..it doesn’t need to be on the 22nd (Ava’s birthday) but I know many of you like to plan for that date.   Because the 22nd falls on a Monday in Australia, I’d love to think of Ava’s Tea Party being celebrated where-ever you might need to be on a normal working day.  Should you be looking for suggestions, the wonderful Steph at Party For A Cause has been so helpful in putting together a list of ideas so with her permission, I’m sharing it here..with some random thoughts added by me :).

While the original concept for Ava’s Tea Party began as nothing more than two best friends planning something very pretty, it’s since become so much more.  From the simple to the elaborate, there have been so many beautiful ideas shared over the last three years but however you love to celebrate is the best way.

take time with your FAMILY:
Plan a full top-to-bottom tea party (with or without the fuss).   Enlist the help of your children in decorating and baking, plan out cupcake flavors and choose the location together.  A lot of the fun is just planning the details and I know my own children ask for weeks before hand what we’ll be doing for Ava’s Tea Party.  If you’re a details person and event planning makes you happy, this is the perfect opportunity to stock up on pretties and pull out the recipes (or call the caterer).

For those who break out in hives at the thought of the above, there’s always plan B.  It doesn’t matter if baking isn’t your thing (it’s possibly not mine :p)..take a stroll to the corner store together to pick up some little treats or take ten minutes to make fairy bread at home.  Get the children to color in paper chains and dust off the patio table.   Remember, more than anything,  it’s about the time together.

take time with your NEIGHBORS:
Ava’s Tea Party is about community.  Perhaps this could be an opportunity to knock on your neighbors door and invite them over for a cuppa?   What about a street party or bbq?   Get the neighborhood children together to make their own lemonade stand and donate proceeds to their favorite cause. 

take time in your WORKPLACE:
In my endless list of wishes for Ava is one surrounding the simple idea of work. I don’t know what she wanted to be when she grew up but whatever it was, she didn’t get the chance. As much as I wish for more birthdays for her, I wish for the chance to have formed a career.  So,  those of you who work..amidst the mundane of a regular Monday, I just ask that you give thanks.  Irrespective of the stresses and strains that come with work, it is still a gift to be able to do just that.  So many people cannot – through accident, illness, lack of education or opportunity.  See if the boss will chip in for morning tea or have everyone bring their favorite something and turn Monday into something special.

take time with your MOTHER’S GROUP:
If everyone brings a plate, it’s such an easy way to add something fancy to your regular meet-up.  Or perhaps each make a donation – half for catering and half for your favorite charity. Wear pink and take five minutes to chat about the amazing things motherhood brings, alongside the trials.

take time at SCHOOL:
Could your school participate in a cupcake fundraiser?  What about approaching a local bakery and asking for donations to support Ava’s Tea Party? If not a business, what about asking Mums to bake and donate?  Of course we’d love to raise funds for Paradise Kids/Kid Xpress but you might also have something worth raising funds for.  Ask the student committee to get on board, see if you can add something special to the tuck shop menu for August and share Ava’s Tea Party in your monthly newsletter so that the whole school community can participate.

take time at a DAYCARE CENTRE:
Last year, Ivy’s kinder held a “Fairytale Day” in honor of Ava’s Tea Party.  The children came in dress-up and they read fairytales and turned a regular day into something very magical.    There are so many simple ways to mark Ava’s Tea Party and children just love the chance to plan something special.  “If you want your children to be brilliant tell them fairy tales. If you want your children to be very brilliant, tell them even more fairy tales” – Albert Einstein.

take time at FAMILY DAYCARE:
How about making the 22nd “Sparkle Day”?  Make crowns and learn a new song (here’s Ava’s favorite).  Maybe your carer can bake some cupcakes with the kids and they can all share them together?

take time with your FRIENDS:
It was wanting to celebrate friendship that started the idea of Ava’s Tea Party.  The idea of pausing to say “Wow, I’m so lucky to have  you”.  This August, stop and say thanks to those who know us best and love us anyway.  What a great chance to all get dressed up in your favorite frocks, and maybe host a girl’s night in..or get together and bake some cupcakes, over a glass and a laugh.  And why not some pink bubbles at an adult only get together?  Ava’s Tea Party can just be Ava’s Party, if you so wish :)

take time with our ELDERS:
For those who have an elderly family member, why not  pop by and visit them?  What about time with an older neighbor?  I like to imagine a lonely elderly person receiving an invitation to your little event..it might just make their year.   In researching ideas, I learned that the most depressed group in society are the 60+ as they are often isolated and alone.  Given Ava and her “Grandan” were best friends, this struck such a chord with me.  I just know she would be so delighted to imagine some of the older generation celebrating her special day too.

I hope these ideas give you inspiration if you don’t have plans already but as always, the aim is just to take time in whatever manner works for you and yours.  I have created down-loadable Ava’s Tea Party invitations here for you to use as you wish.  There is also an A4 poster version should you wish to spread the word en masse.   Of course Belle and Boo also have their beautiful invitations available, year round.  If you’d like to purchase the Ava’s Tea Party illustration, you can do so in A3 here and A4 here.

Finally, if you are a organization, supplier or business and would like to be involved in Ava’s Tea Party, please email us so we can recognize your contribution.Thank you to these wonderful organizations who are supporting Ava’s Tea Party in 2011:

Babyology
Party For A Cause
The Lemony Cupcake
Dorothy Cowie School of Dancing
Babycakes
Little Party Paper People/Invite Me
Details Details
Belle and Boo

along with so many other individuals who take time out of their busy lives to pause for our darling girl for what would have been her 8th birthday.  Words could never express the gratitude we feel.  Thank you.

xx Sheye

ps  We’d love to see images of your tea party, if you’re happy to share.  Please upload to the Ava’s Tea Party page at Facebook.  Also, if  I could ask just one more favor?  While you’re planning out tea parties, could you also find ways to distribute the Ava’s Rule postcard?  Whether it be via email, Facebook or in print, it’s so vital that people be aware of the dangers of hot cars.  I like to think of myself as a vigilant parent yet I was unaware and my ignorance resulted in the worst possible outcome.   Over the past four years, I have received numerous emails from families who found their missing child in time, just because they’d seen the Ava’s Rule postcard.  Your simple act of distributing our message could make such a difference.

Keep up with Ava’s Tea Party via Facebook
Visit the Ava’s Tea Party website
A Superprincess

I had meant to just type up a post about the plans this year for Ava’s Tea Party..and I will.  Soon.  But firstly, I went looking for an image to go with my post. I wanted pink, pretty, princess. All the things you’d expect to find with a tea party post. Instead, I stopped at this. I stopped and stared and I remembered. I thought of all the things that made me love having a daughter. That made me first catch my breath while tears sprung to my eyes on hearing she was a girl. The times I’d stop and give thanks just to be able to buy hair clips and the joy I’d get from dressing her. That act, that simple act of buttoning her shirt, so many small moments where I’d fill to overflowing with happiness that she was here. Ava. I got her, I got my girl. I would raise her and she would grow and talk to me and fight with me and love me and we would travel a life together, as mother and daughter, seeing each other through good and bad. Oh, my love for her.

In this very image, I see all I adored in Ava. I see the ordinary, every day moments of contentment and gratitude.  I see all my hopes and expectations and I see what never was.   And, I see what Ava’s Tea Party is for.  I don’t mind if your plates don’t match. You don’t need to bake. Paper lanterns aren’t necessary. Please though, this August, take a moment..an extra moment..to reach out and grab your babies or your partners or your best friend. Find that person, find lots of persons, who need to be told how much they mean to you. And if you can’t say it in words, say it by sitting beside them and watching the sunlight hit the grass while you plan your tomorrows. Say it in laughter. Or in silence. Just take time and give thanks.   That’s all.

xx