Dear Dad

Today you are 80 years old. 80 years.

What an amazing life you’ve led.

I’m know you’ve stopped many times to consider all you’ve experienced and I’ve listened to and loved your stories, I’ve retold them to my children. I hope I never forget.

How different this world must seem to you. How fast, how unnecessarily  complicated when you compare it to the life you lived as a child.  A simpler, quieter, harder life. But a great one.  And a tough one. I love how you tell is how it was without complaint or drama. It just was the way it was ‘back then’.  There are so many cliché’s and jokes built around that old chestnut of ‘when I was a boy we had to walk miles barefoot in the cold just to get to school’  but you actually did walk miles to school, barefoot, in the dark and cold, barely older than Oscar is now. I can’t even imagine it.

You must look at us and shake your head at how soft we are, how good we’ve got it, and always have had it. 40 years I’ve lived and I’ve never really done it tough. Not in the way you did. You made sure of that. You have been there. Providing, teaching, loving, guiding, being.

40 years. 40 years of knowing, without question, that you are there. That I am never without options, that there is another home for me to go to, that I am loved, unconditionally, that there is nothing I could do or say that would change that, that I am loved for everything that is the best and worst of me because you and I know both know you’ve seen it all. You have withstood everything I’ve had to throw at you and never wavered.  On the darkest nights my world just  feels safer with you in it. Even when you have been thousands of miles away I have always known you’re there. There is no greater gift you have could have given to your child.

I know there could have been a different path for you, one where you didn’t become a dairy farmer and continue the only life you’d ever really known, on the land. I know you’ve wondered about where a different, more selfish choice might have led you, the ‘what ifs’ and ‘what could have been’, but rather than grow bitter, you took what you had and you made the very, very best of it and you succeeded, and along the way you and mum created a beautiful life for us. I hope as you look back, you will recognise that no riches or glory could have been better than what we had and the life you built for your family. I hope you know how loved you were, and are still.

I have learned so much from you. Lessons that I will teach my children and hope that they will teach theirs.

I have learned that one of the most important things in life is to be true. You fight so passionately (and pretty loudly given how deaf you are) for what you believe in, for what you know to be fair and honest and while we don’t always agree, there is something I love about our family shouting each other down over the table about one world issue or another while someone calls for more beer and wine to fuel the fire a little more and mum wonders what on earth is going on. You raised us that way, to be passionate and true and stand up for what we believe to be right.

I have learned that when it all comes down to it, that family and the people we love, are everything. Everything.  You and mum raised us to be decent, good, kind, fair, honest human beings. We work hard, we live passionately, we love each other, and you deeply. Thank you for them. For my sisters and my brother. For teaching us to look out for each other.  And for everything you taught us to be.

My love of words, of writing, of expression, of books, are a gift from you. You have the most amazing way with words, a sensitivity, a depth, a wisdom and although we don’t see it often, it makes me wish you had spent so much more of your 80 years putting pen to paper.  I’ll do it for both of us. Every word I write has a tiny part of you in it and wherever it takes me, I will carry you with me.

I see your incredible intelligence manifesting in your grandchildren, in their remarkable gifts and talents and while it’s easy to believe that spotlight should have been shining on you in this lifetime, it turns out it was just gently flickering away in the background, ready to burst out in full glory two generations later.  Look at your family, at these remarkable children, at each of the extraordinary people whose lives you have helped shape and tell me you have not achieved extraordinary things in this life. Your life has been a beautiful gift.

I have been blessed beyond measure to call you ‘Dad’, blessed to see you become a grandfather to our children. I don’t want to imagine a world without you in it and I am grateful for having you to guide me through the first 40 years of this life.

I know I tell you all the time that I love you but I wonder if you really know the depth of how grateful I am for you, for the choices you made, for the life you built for us, for the legacy you will leave. Your love has been the greatest gift to us and that will flow through the generations to follow us. We were protected so fiercely, hugged so tightly, held so dearly, loved so deeply.  That kind of love doesn’t stop at the end of one lifetime.

Happy 80th birthday lovely Father, you are everything a daughter could hope to have and the very best any man could ever hope to be.

xoxoxo

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My lovely friend Caroline, knowing how I love documenting our life, suggested I do a weekly recap of life as it happened over the week (or rather as I captured on Instagram, my newest obsession). I completely loved the idea and so here we are, the week that was (well actually the week and 2 extra days, I blame the Easter Bunny

It was a pretty amazing week actually, according to my Instagram updates and looking through this little cluster of photos reminded me of just how ridiculously blessed I am, living this life with amazing friends, experiencing new things, watching my children grow and strive, going to concerts that feed my soul and having my prioritites thrown clearly into perspective as fast as a small blonde girl can fall headfirst out of a four wheel drive. This life, the beautiful little life of ours, I am so grateful..

On Sunday we went to a Fig and Macadamia Harvest Party. It was amazing.

On Monday she wore pink pyjamas to school with no shoes and insisted on leading Teddy all the way (particularly the wrong way).

On Tuesday she woke up and declared that pink was no longer her favourite colour and had been replaced by blue.

On Tuesday afternoon Oscar swam, rode and ran his huge little heart out to finish his very first triathlon. I was truly proud of him.

On Wednesday night the full moon was beautiful and haunting and Eli was as mesmerised by it as I was by him.

On Thursday afternoon, weeks of arguments, tears and effort were rewarded beautifully.

And Opa came to stay

On Friday we played on the beach at Rosebud.

And watched Oma sail by on The Sea Princess from the Blairgowrie foreshore that night.

On Saturday the boys ran with the waves at Portsea Back Beach.

And I watched Adam Duritz and Counting Crows for an hour or two then stayed up way too late drinking wine and putting the world to rights

On Sunday Nick cooked an amazing Easter lunch

And I watched my girl tumble out of the car onto rocks too fast for me to break her fall.

 On Monday morning all was well and the beach beckoned and breakfast was cooked by our boy.

I watched the boys build sand forts at Portsea and was reminded why I love this man so much, the same one I had fought with half the weekend. He gives our children the greatest gift there is, his time.

We drove home from our Easter at Blairgowrie tired and happy and reflective.

It was just an ordinary week, filled with extraordinary moments …

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Last month, when I was searching the internet for the perfect gift for a friend’s birthday, this beautiful print by Amanda Cass found its way to my browser and I fell in love with it (and all of her work for that matter). I sat and stared at it for the longest time, loving the colour, the peace, the way she floats above the chaos beneath her, the way love pulls her safely up, gently above it all. It was perfect.

As blessings in disguise would have it, FedEx lost the original package and the American supplier shipped me another one just in time for it to be two weeks late. Then last Friday, the original one arrived in the post. It is sitting in my lounge room, waiting to be framed to hang in my office, reminding me, daily, to rise above the little challenges, the temptations to yell at my children when they frustrate the life out of me, to take criticism to heart, to stress about money, to worry that I’m still not ‘there’ yet. ‘Rise above it’ she seems to whisper to me, quietly, calmly, lovingly. It is a gift, this new, beautiful piece of art in my house.

Rising above it can be easier said than done some days. And some things are just harder to find peace with than others. In the last week I have had two friends talk to me about the devastating effects of bullying of both the real life and internet kind. Both equally insidious. Oscar is doing his school project on cyber safety and internet bullying and while I applaud his school for raising awareness of it, it’s sad that it is so necessary for 9 year olds to understand it.

I am still very new to the wild beast that is social media and naive I’m sure about dos and don’ts and particular etiquette but there seems to be a growing pattern of appalling behaviour online, fuelled by the anonymity of online usernames and the facelessness of internet interactions. I am often shocked at just how vicious posts on the web can be. I don’t understand it. I am all for healthy debate and the right to disagree but respectfully expressing your opinion is vastly differently from viciously attacking anyone who dares not to share it.

Good manners, respect and basic human kindness online seem to have become relics of a time when our conversations had to be more personal and our grievances were either aired directly to the person involved and subsequently resolved or vented over drinks with a friend and forgotten about.

I’m not referring to true internet trolls, they are a species I don’t even want to understand. It is everyday people who for reasons that just baffle me, find sport in nasty comments on blogs, personal attacks in response to a post someone might have written that they don’t agree with, vicious naming and shaming and generally being offensive just because they can. It also often seems too tempting for others to jump gleefully on the bandwagon of abuse instead of suggesting the offender might like to take a step back and reconsider the venom in their words and the unseen damage they could cause.

It makes me wonder if these people would not be outraged if their child was a victim of the very bullying in the playground that they see fit to dish out online, or if they were attacked by a gang on the street who didn’t like their opinion or their haircut. I feel sure they wouldn’t be quite so ok with that. No one is ok with hurt inflicted on them or those they love but still believe it ok to heap abuse on strangers whose lives they know nothing about.

I wonder sometimes where we are headed as a society so out of touch with each other, so quick to judge and injure, so reactive and defensive.  I feel grateful that I have so far found communities both in my ‘real’ life and my online world, that are filled with kind, generous and supportive souls. I know others are not so lucky. I want to gently suggest to all those going in guns blazing to slow down, stop the flow of poison from their fingertips, step away from the computer, rethink and remember that perhaps it really is better to say nothing if you cannot find something nice to say. While you may feel powerful and unaccountable in your anonymity, karma has a funny old way of making sure you get what you give.  Wouldn’t you prefer something beautiful coming your way?

I have personally never once had a happy result from dealing with someone in a rude or aggressive way. Even if I got what I thought I wanted, even if I felt a momentary triumph from standing up for myself or retaliating against someone being unreasonable, the sense of satisfaction has always been short lived, replaced by the disquiet that comes from acting out against my better judgement.  Ultimately nothing good has come from responding in anger.  I am not suggesting we let the world walk all over us, only that we stand our ground firmly and gently without threatening someone else’s position on theirs. Agreeing to disagree opens up a world of fascinating possibility when we seek to understand and learn from other people’s point of view, even if we ultimately don’t share it.

I want to share with my children the incredible world that technology has opened up for us and the extraordinary ability to connect with other people all over the world simply by opening up our laptops. It’s amazing. But the dark side of it is dangerous and I am equally determined  to do my best to protect my children, or rather teach them to protect themselves, from the ugly parts of our society, both in the real and cyber worlds. I think the best we can do is teach them to think, and then think again before they act, to be a little street smart without removing their sense of wonder, to help them discover their own self sense of their enormous worth, an unwavering belief in themselves that will withstand the battering of a million other opinions.

It is perhaps the best we can hope for. That our children are safe, that they understand that good people with peace in their hearts don’t bully others. That it is never ok, online or in the playground, the workplace and sports field, anywhere. That it says so much more about the person doing the bullying than it ever does about them. That they choose to be kind, and when others make a different choice, that they can rise above it…

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My darling friend, you are one of the greatest gifts of my life, and I am grateful for you, every single day.

Happy 40th birthday. May all of your brilliant dreams come true.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Just few little moments from the start of your beautiful festival Your amazing, generous, funny, fabulous family. Just all filled with so much love for you.

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So it’s week three of the school term and my life is starting to take on a concerning and rather familiar theme. Chaos.  I have often referred to the general mayhem that we exist in as ‘happy chaos’, probably trying to gloss over the fact that I am hopelessly disorganised by making it sound like it’s fun. But actually, if I’m really honesty, it’s not fun, and the chaos is not happy but an altogether unhappy experience that I swore this year wouldn’t be the overriding feeling in our home and our lives.

In my simple new existence, there was just not going to be chaos. There was going to be smooth sailing from dawn until dusk and everywhere in between. I was going to be smiling serenely as I moved from my position at the stove, stirring wholesome goodness in pots of love and making early morning muffins, greeting neighbours as I walked the children (and various pets) calmly and early to school, playing endless hours of creative play dough with my girl, going about my shopping and cleaning whistling a happy tune under my breath and greeting my husband with delight and sweet shiny,faced children lined up when he arrived home to hang up his coat at the end of each day.

The trouble is, I hadn’t factored in that to make all the changes in our life, I would have to actually change the biggest thing of all, me. Completely. I am, by nature, disorganised and impulsive, hopeless at cleaning up after myself or keeping a schedule. If I were to record the most common things my husband says to me I feel sure the top two would be, ‘have you finished with that?’ and ‘slow down’. I move from one thing to the next with lightning speed, no time to put things away when I’m finished with them, there are new tasks to be tackled. And so, it is no small wonder, my children are largely the same and my poor tidy, schedule keeping perfectionist husband spends a large part of his home life in despair (the other part I hope, in joyful delight at the good bits). I know all this, yet am still surprised when after a day of cleaning and tidying, the house returns to its ‘just been ransacked’ state within a matter of moments and I feel dejected and frustrated and yell at everyone, demanding that they start picking up after themselves.

I tried scheduling chores for the boys and regular ‘spot tidying’ during the day last year but it didn’t last longer than a week. I have reminders in my phone to prompt me to look at my diary, so prone am I to forgetting appointments, although I’m actually still using my 2012 diary so it’s not much help at the moment.  I haven’t quite got around to getting a 2013 one, it’s only mid February after all, and they’ll all be on sale soon for sure. Our family planner sits lonely and unfilled in on the back of the kitchen door with notes for school activities pinned hopefully to January. I live in fear of being the mother who forgets to send money along with her child to the annual Mother’s Day stall and kind friends have been known to (regularly) text me on the morning of casual day or excursions just to remind me.

I don’t want to be that person anymore. Just like I don’t want the crazy in our lives and have made massive adjustments to create a simpler existence, I don’t want the chaos in me. I’m happy to be a little crazy now and then, but I need for our home to be peaceful and organised, for me to be peaceful and organised. For me to reach my small, modest goals each day (like using the gym membership I’ve had for seven years for more than stopping by the cafe for a take away coffee) or taking teddy for an early morning walk each day which I scheduled last year and did once.

I have my moments of brilliance. It’s just that they are very short lived. I start with so much enthusiasm and determination and then it just kind of evaporates after the initial burst. I think perhaps, I need to list the most important changes I want to make, turn them into small achievable goals each day and give myself time to change the habits of a lifetime. I know that order creates freedom. I know to give myself the time to do things I want, I need the structure in place to deal with the things I need to do first.

I want my friends and family to stop expecting me to forget, to be late, to not be able to rely on me. I want them to suddenly realise one day that I turned up every time, that they didn’t have to step over a million toys and piles of laundry when they came to my house, that I wasn’t frazzled, wasn’t rushing, that I was peaceful, happy, calm, organised.  I want to open my diary every morning and not be surprised and not have that sickening shot of adrenaline hit because I forgot someone’s birthday the day before .

On Saturday, I saw an elderly lady being walked into a nursing home, bags and boxes of belongings coming with her. It made my heart break a little bit and I thought about her all morning. Was she happy? Was she satisfied by the life she was leaving behind. Was she at peace entering this final phase? Did she have enough memories to sustain her? Had she lived her life?  I want to be everything I can be, the best version of me, and give myself, and our little family, a real chance to be and have this beautiful life we trying to create.  When I enter old age, I want to look back and say ‘Wow, I really gave it everything I had’ and smile. I don’t want regret. I don’t want to be held back by my habitual lack of organisation. I can change. One small step, one tiny achievable goal at a time. Every single day.

Everything I want for me, for us, depends on me finally, really, permanently making these changes. The biggest obstacle to our dream life is me and I don’t want to be in the way anymore. I have David Bowie on repeat in my mind and I know I can do this.

It’s time…

(any tips gratefully received

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Last year, just before my 40^th birthday, I attended a photography conference in the Hunter Valley.

On the first night, I happened to hear the very fabulous Israel Smith speak about the concept of doing ‘enough’ and I’m not sure I really heard anything else for the following three days. His words were ringing far too loudly in my ears for me to take in much of anything else.

He had sat down with his wife and they had mapped out their dream life and worked out exactly how much work he needed to do for them to have that and that’s what he was doing. Just that much and no more. Just enough. Their dream life was simple. In a nutshell, live in a place they loved (beachside, Sydney eastern suburbs) be there for the kids when they got home from school. Have a beautiful family life. Nothing fancy. Just enough. But filled with time for what was important. Not easy, but simple. Perfect.

It stopped me in my tracks. In that moment, the goal posts shifted, the freight train that was my out of control, ever growing business derailed, the dream changed and I was shaken to my core. So many of my darling photographer gang came away from The Event that year so pumped about their businesses but I just wanted to shut mine down, wrap my exhausted arms around my children and never let them go. I was bewildered and frightened and unsure but mostly, I was done.

2012 was a huge, crazy year. We wanted (or so we thought) a big business, big enough for Nick to quit his job in the city, come on board, run it with me and live happily ever after dancing in the freedom of the vast amounts of money we would earn and long exotic holidays we would take with our children to the far flung corners of the globe each summer.

And so bigger it became until last year it exploded and grew bigger and more stressful and less fun and soon I was not shooting at all but desperately trying to run a business that had become a wild animal and hiring more and more people to work in it and paying more and more people to help me look after my children and manage my home. I didn’t know what my place was, only that I was trying to be everything, everywhere and was nowhere. I was lost.

Nick and I would handover when he came home at 7pm, I would go to the office to try and snatch an hours work, he would put the kids to bed, we would quickly eat around 8 or 9pm then I would come back to the office and he would start work, on our business, on the laptop in the kitchen. Most nights. Most weekends. For what?  I don’t think we even knew anymore. We didn’t have time to ask ourselves. We were too committed, had sacrificed too much to give it up and so we kept going.

We were getting what we thought we wanted but I was exhausted at every level of my being. I had no time for my children, my husband, my family, my friends, myself, my life. I had shingles three times in three years. My GP and homeopath both shook their heads in disbelief that anyone could be that stressed and have their body try and tell them in such an extreme way and still not stop. I didn’t know how to stop. I thought it was it was what we wanted. It was the dream and we were achieving it and I couldn’t let it go.

Until 10 minutes with Israel Smith. Until the concept of doing enough. Until someone wise pointed out to me that in chasing the dream, we were missing it completely, couldn’t I see that? Killing ourselves to create a business to give us more family time and in the process missing out on exactly that. Family time. I turned around and Oscar is nearly 10, Eli is 8 in May and Willow, somehow, is almost 3. Another minute with them became just too much to lose.

And so, this year, I am doing enough. Enough to help my husband support our family. Enough to send our children to the school we would like them to have the opportunity to go to. Enough for us to have a modest family holiday each year. That’s it. That’s all we need. We sat down, like one particularly inspirational family had done before us, and talked about what was important, really important to us, and what we needed to do to have that in our lives. We came up with a number and that number will allow me to scale our business back by almost 75%.  And what we will get back in return is time. Precious, glorious time. Worth it’s weight in gold.

And that makes my heart jump in the right direction. It doesn’t frighten me. It doesn’t make me feel like we failed. It makes me feel free. Free to walk my children to school every morning and stroll home with Willow, slowly and spend all day with her. Free to do my own housework (even if I don’t enjoy it),  free to cook for my husband and sit on the sofa and hold hands with him and watch TV if we want to. Free to volunteer at school and be there every afternoon to collect my boys and actually have the prescence of mind to listen to the important stories of the day they have to share with me. Free for coffee with the girls and playdates and homework and walks to the park and a somewhat reluctant return to exercise.  Our business will still run and it will be a small and perfectly formed version of it’s former self with an equally small and perfectly formed team running it with very little involvement from me (just between you and me, I think they’ll do a better job without me

And me? You won’t find my anywhere particularly exotic. You’ll find me on the phone to my mother while staring in confusion at my recipe book. You’ll find me in the herb garden trying to work out my thyme from my coriander and attempting to convince my husband to let me have chickens. You’ll find me on the reserve watching my funny little family play soccer or cricket as the sun goes down. You will find me lazing about on the trampoline with my loves because it makes me happy. Happier than I have been in longer than I can remember. Feel free to drop by. It’s a simple, happy place to be.

It’s enough….

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I fell in love with the name instantly and promptly googled it. The little girl on the cover looked like Willow and the title could have been written for my tiny whisp of wild blonde heaven.

She is wild, my girl. And sweet and funny and outrageously behaved, often. She’s 2 ½ and every other day is her birthday. She is everything that is pink and sparkly and princessy and Dora and Tinkerbell. She is heaven. Heaven. She generally refuses to have her photo taken and is non compliant with most reasonable requests. She is bewildered by unkindness and is a tiny slip of a fiesty fairy with hair that has a personality and life all its own. She reminds me of a Guns n Roses song that I still love. Sometimes when I look at her it makes me catch my breath that she is mine. Sweet, sweet, sweet, child of mine.

We tried not to have her, not to want her, not to long for her. We tried to be done with our two beloved boys. We tried to just be content and satisfied with these two gentle, perfect, healthy, little people we had been so very blessed with. And we were, for a while. For years actually. But she was missing. I dreamt of her long before we conceived her. I knew her. She was our only planned baby, almost the moment we decided to let fate decide on a third she was on her way. We didn’t try for a girl, but it was always her. She was just waiting to be invited.

This moment was one of the most perfect of my life. Captured, of course, by my beautiful Angie. I am so grateful.

I can still feel it every time I look at these photos. The moment our family became complete. The moment our boys met their tiny sister and all my loves were present and accounted for.  Now there are enough little faces at our table, now there is enough noise, enough laughter. Now I don’t live in limbo anymore.

I want so many things for my tiny daughter. I want her to stay wild, to stay sweet, to be strong, to be brave, to choose to be kind, to believe that she is fabulous and beautiful and clever and capable of achieving anything. To understand she doesn’t need anyone to make her whole. I want her to know, with absolute certainty, that she is loved. Completely. I want her understand that things get better, that everything really does look brighter in the morning. That life is beautiful and worthwhile and a fabulous adventure. Like her….

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I had planned this week to write a blog post about Eli, my sweet, gentle, heaven-sent second born son. And suddenly the timing of that brief conversation on Friday night seemed so much more than a coincidence. My memory of the joy of Eli’s first two years is clouded by the sadness of knowing how much I missed of those moment thanks to a post natal depression diagnosis that didn’t come until he was 15 months old. My fault.  A kind-hearted friend had gently pushed a flyer into my hand a few months after he was born but I brushed it off with ‘I’m not depressed, I’m just exhausted. He screams all the time, he has colic, he doesn’t sleep. I’m just tired, I’m so tired. Anyone would feel like this. Doesn’t everyone judge their days by how many times they are in tears?’

No it turns out, they don’t.

But on it went. It was my constant, heavy companion weighing me down from London where the boys were born, on every adventure, from Thailand to Melbourne where we settled when Eli was 9 months old, only it was worse, so much worse here. In leaving London, we left behind my Mothers Group, every support, every friend, every routine, every everything that had been holding me together and keeping me functioning at some level of normal. Until a day, six months or so after we arrived, that I just ceased to be able to function at all. I put the boys into their double pram and walked out of the house, down to Sandringham village and called Nick to tell him that we were fine, the boys were safe but he needed to come and get me, now. It was the rock bottom moment.

And from then things started to turn around. The next day there was the doctor, the counsellor, the homeopath, the naturopath the everything to get it, me, sorted out. I started to feel better, started building fledging friendships, our little business, a new life. Slowly, gently, steadily I started to return to some semblance of who I’d been before. The fog was lifting and as it faded, I turned around to see a beautiful two year old boy, and my heart broke. I’d missed it. I hadn’t been there. I didn’t know him.

I just saw what I thought I had created in him. His extreme shyness, the way he clung to me yet preferred Nick, his self-consiousness, his anxiety, his insecurity. The way he cried inconsolably and was so angry when he woke up from his daytime sleeps, every day. The way he couldn’t cope with crèche, couldn’t be apart from me.  Oscar’s start in life had been so different, so idyllic and I couldn’t help but feel Eli had been robbed of that, that something had been broken in him, that I had let him down.

It’s a sadness I have felt so often when I look at him, when I wonder if he’s ok, when I wonder if he remembers. Until last night, when I went looking for some photos of him to put in his blog post and found myself immersed in images from a time I had so wanted to forget. But this time, somehow, I saw something different and something extraordinary happened. I found different memories. Happy moments. Moments where I can see and feel how loved he was, how happy he was and how connected we were. Even if they were fleeting they were there. I was there.

I started to remember a million different, precious, wonderful things. I remembered how sweet he was, how intensely he would just gaze at us. I remembered my sister in law calling him a cuddle thief because the only place he was happy was in our arms. I remembered the funny little way he used to hold his fingers and crumple up his nose, I remembered how he would hold his hand out for us to kiss it, like a prince. I remembered how I loved him in all-in-one pyjamas. I remembered he used to walk around with his hands behind his back, thinking. Our little professor. I remembered how he loved the Wiggles. I remembered helping him put his first ever Christmas decoration on the tree and dressing him for his Naming Day. I remembered blowing out the candles on his first birthday cake. I remembered that he felt safe enough to fall asleep in my arms on an elephant’s back in Thailand. I remembered being there. I remembered the moments of joy, of breathing him in, of saving whatever light I could salvage on the darkest of days for him, for them, for these memories, preserved in precious, priceless photographs for me to stumble across on a day like today and be healed.

And now? He’s 7 and he’s extraordinary. I see him now. I see every gentle, beautiful, soft, wise, clever, funny part of him. Every day. His favourite place to be is climbing the trees in our front garden and on the reserve at the back of our house. He is happiest doing tricks on the trampoline and begging me to watch ‘just one more, it’s a really quick one’. He is a quiet achiever, astounding us regularly with his intelligence and the quiet understated way he goes about it. He is stickler for rules and fairness and amazes us with his sensitivity to other people. He wants to prove he is grown up enough to stay up late but still completely falls apart when he’s over tired. School has been the making of him. He loves it. He loves any kind of sports and is the polar opposite of the brother he adores. Willow hero worships him. He is quiet and self assured and sure of his place in this world and I pray he holds on to those feelings. He is loved. And he knows it. And we’re ok. And we are building new memories all the time. And I am so grateful.

I’m not really sure what happens during Post Natal Depression Awareness Week. But to anyone, everyone who has walked this path, you are not alone. Just knowing that has brought me more comfort over the years than words can express.  xoxox

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9 years.

9 years of motherhood. 9 years of feelings that knock you sideways in their intensity. The joy, the fear, the happiness, the frustration. The love.

The love.

The love.

He is perfect.

He is ridiculously tall and impossibly thin, he has a million crooked teeth far too big for his tiny little jaw, he has a mop of thick dirty blonde hair that was once the colour of snow.

He can be rude and obnoxious far too frequently but will come back five minutes later and tell me he is sorry, and mean it. His attitude is all pre-teen boundary pushing angst, but he still runs into our room to climb into bed with us several nights a week. He is astoundingly clever but often couldn’t be bothered. He is all cool and I don’t care but can break your heart with his insecurity. He has the most incredible pale blue eyes. He is beautiful.

He is funny and wise and sweet and annoying. He detests most things that relate to any sort of sporting activity and adores anything to do with technology and computers. He is starting his own blog, with tips for children on how to program computers. I’m not sure how large his readership will be but my heart smiles when I see the spark in his eyes. He is his father’s son, in oh so many ways but he has my love of people, he shares my joy in company.

He is quirky and left of centre, he is a fabulous dancer but will not let anyone teach him how to. He hears a drumbeat all his own and moves to that, his way. He is an amazing writer. He is a reader of any and every book he can get his hands on. He likes to know what everyone, everywhere, is talking about. He has the best hearing of anyone I know. He is creative and unstoppable when he is engaged in something he is interested in. He is impossible to get started on anything else.

He is gob smackingly self-centred but the sweetest big brother that ever lived to his wild, demanding baby sister. He adores and resents his brother in equal measure. He can be as mean as he can be kind to him. I hope he chooses kindness more often than not.

He has a cubby house full of nerf guns even though we were always going to be a ‘no-guns’ kind of family. There were 19 at last count.After his gadgets, they are his favourite things.

He is complicated and intense and over thinks the simplest of things. He is incredibly fun and fabulous company. He used to believe he could do anything and we are desperately trying to help him hold on to that. I see age and subtle knocks and society putting dents in his sense of his incredible self and it makes my chest tighten.

I want him to keep seeing himself like he used to, like we do.

Perfect.

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I took some photos of them on Sunday and it made me catch my breath. This beautiful little family that not so long ago seemed like an impossible dream. I am awe of them. 9 years of struggling to become parents, 25 rounds of IVF and too many heart-wrenching miscarriages, and then this. Six years later. This miracle. These giggles on a Sunday morning.

When my brother called me to tell me they were expecting their first gorgeous daughter (who was then just a tiny little hope-filled dot on a scan photo), I was active on a UK based forum, it helped me feel connected to my beloved London. I sent out a post asking for prayers, positive thoughts, anything, everything, for them, for this tiny baby, for hope that this time, there would be a miracle. What happened next was the most extraordinary example of human kindness, generosity of spirit and love that I have ever encountered. A constant stream, from all corners of the globe, for 8 months, of messages, poems, daily prayers and positive thoughts for two complete strangers and their unborn child. Every single day, willing her safely into the world, into their empty aching arms, into our family.

I wanted to share their story now for two reasons, because it is a story of everything that is good and beautiful, of dreams coming true, of overcoming impossible odds, of persistence and love and hope. But I also wanted to share it because I am constantly saddened by how much unkindness there is on the internet today, and yet what we experienced, five short years ago, was just the most beautiful outpouring of love and kindness. It still inspires me today.

When Neve was born, I posted this, for the hundreds of strangers who were waiting and hoping for this moment, just like we were:

In a quiet room in a Sydney hospital, nestled safely in her loving mummy and daddy’s arms is a beautiful little girl. She was born just before 1am this morning (on her due date!) and weighed 7lbs 1oz.

I can’t begin to explain the emotion of that long awaited phone call at 2am, when the same voice that told me he was looking at a scan photo of their 7 week old little heartbeat 8 months ago, said with the same awe and wonder and joy, that they had a daughter.

They are a precious family of three and our family finally feels complete too. She is utterly beautiful with masses of long black hair. She is perfect and the reason why all the years of heartache, hopes and tears were worth it. This moment and this miracle baby girl is the reason why they never ever gave up on their dream. We can’t explain how proud we feel of them and how humbled by their courage and love. They are already the most amazing parents.

And to all of you, I quite can’t type without tears spilling over when I think of all the love you’ve sent, the thoughts, the posts, the prayers, the poems, the committment to this tiny little being on the other side of the world. Its just overwhelming. There is a part of each and every one of you in this miracle and she will carry that love with her all through her life. What an amazing start. She will have your words forever and for those of you who sent love but didn’t post, we’ll know your messages are woven in there too. We will never ever forget this journey we’ve all shared together and the perfect end to this part of it. Thank you doesn’t even begin to express our gratitude.  

We saw her today for the first time, and I don’t think as many happy tears have ever been cried. I put all your messages in a special book for them and we all read bits and pieces throughout the day. I can’t begin to tell you how much they loved every post, every message, every prayer you all sent.

Clemsterdarcy/DonnyLass, your poem about the ‘Before Beans’ made our dad cry, and he’s a salt-of-the-earth Aussie farmer so that’s saying something. It has made everyone who has read it cry with the beauty of the sentiment to the babies they lost, guiding their tiny sister safely into the world.
LittleMissSensible, your line about the global joy being experienced around the world at Neve’s birth made us all just marvel at the love and generosity of you amazing mothers everywhere.
Kimi, your post about giving a prayer of thanks for a baby to people you don’t know on the other side of the world just summed this whole thread up. Words fail me.
AuntyStrawbery, as I said to you, the family has made a unanimous decision to adopt you so if you could just get yourself organised to come over that would be great. Every.single.day you wrote to this baby, and now she’s here.,…… you may now exhale!

It was, as I said to my darling brother, one of the most beautiful days of my life and I want you all to know that you were truly there, so much a part of it. Such a lot of the day was spent reading your messages to them, laughing out loud together over them, crying over them and just being enveloped by all of the love around us and this tiny precious baby. There were too many posts laughed and cried over to mention but just know that every single one of them was read and appreciated so much.

Our family has not all been together since before I left for England, 7 years ago, so for all of us, it was incredibly special to spend a day together in a hospital room, sharing in a miracle. I will be forever grateful to my sister who said ‘just come’. As we went to leave, the tears started flowing just as they had the moment we walked in, we just didn’t want to go. My father hugged us all and said ‘if you can wake up in forty years time and be as proud of your children as I am of all of you, then your lives will have been good ones’. It was an amazing day for him and our mum too. To have all their children together, meeting this, their tenth, desperately wanted grandchild.

I kissed my precious new niece and hugged her beautiful mummy goodbye and turned to see my brother sitting on the bed, suddenly overwhelmed. All of the emotion of the last two days, the complete joy, the overwhelming love, the sleepless nights, the sheer relief, the anxiety of the past 8 months, the grief of the last ten years, culminated in this moment he had dreamed of for longer than any of us can comprehend, to be sitting beside his wife and child, with his family around him to celebrate her birth. My eldest sister softly said ‘she’s here now, she’s here’. And she is, and all is as it should be.

And so it is. And with their second heavenly girl born just 16 months later, the happiest of happy endings.

This precious little family. This miracle. This proof of the goodness of humanity on so many levels.

This is their story and I feel so blessed to be able to tell it. In words and pictures.
xxxx

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