Do not assume

Do not assume that because I am an atheist that I have no morals or faith.

Do not assume that because I dislike confrontation that I will not stick up for myself.

Do not assume that because I am smiling that I am happy.

Do not assume that because I share a lot through social media that I have no secrets.

Do not assume that because I am broken that I will let you treat me like a door mat.

Do not assume that because I am a mother that I have no interest in anything other than child rearing.

Do not assume that because I wear makeup that I am vain.

Do not assume that because I am a SAHM that I spend all day colouring in and going out for coffee.

Do not assume that because I am pro-breastfeeding that I am anti-formula.

Do not assume that because I have lots of friends that I'm not lonely.

Do not assume that because I am outgoing that I am not insanely anxious.

What do people assume about you?

Waiting and Dying

Last Tuesday I was having lunch with my Dad. His phone rang and I don't know why or how, but I just knew that it would be my Uncle saying that my Grandfather was dying or dead. For almost a week now we have been waiting for the inevitable.

Yesterday it happened again. I had a missed call while I was on the phone to someone else. I heard the familiar beep beep of the other line and then again for the voice message. I didn't even have to listen to it to know. It was time. The family was being summoned to the hospital to say their final goodbyes to my Grandfather. The wait was almost over.

I run to the bathroom and furiously rub away my makeup. Bright red lips are too perky for ICU. Tricky and I jump in the car and make our way to the hospital. Partly to say goodbye, but mostly to support my Dad.

Since having his operation last week, my Grandfather never regained consciousness. He would show some signs of improvement but with each step forward he would take two back. His body was failing, even with so much intervention. The decision was made to remove life support.

We gather around his bed. His wife, his five children, two of their partners (one is my Mum), three of his grandchildren and one sweet little Tricky boy who senses that something is up. He is unusually calm and happy to be held. All these people, most of whom Tricky hasn't met before, smile at him with sad eyes and he smiles back. He never smiles at strangers. Maybe he knows they are family?

It has been years since all the children were in the same room and we are all aware that this morose family reunion should not have happened this way. Not like this. There should be food and wine not ventilators and catheters.

We hug and we cry. And we wait for it all to happen. For the show to begin. For the show to end. For death to come.

My Dad holds his father's hand. They have the same hands and it's difficult to tell which is which. I look around and notice that they all have the same hands.

The Priest arrives. All the identical hands join in a circle around the bed and the Last Rites are read. Tricky decides now would be a good time to giggle. I cringe and apologize and everyone else just smiles at him... he is a welcome distraction. A bundle of life in stark contrast to the shell of a man who lays upon the bed.

The nurse, an absolute angel, stops the medication. One by one we go to him and say a few words. When it is my turn I walk to his side with Tricky on my hip. I hold my Pop's hand and lean in to kiss his forehead, mumbling some last words in his ear. I call him mate and then immediately wonder why I said it. It's sounds stupid and foreign and I hope that no one else has heard me.

I stand back up and without any prompting Tricky looks at his Great Grandfather and waves bye bye. He knows. My Dad crumples and his body is racked with heaving sobs. My Mum holds him and weeps, memories of a much earlier time haunting her.

We wait. We share memories of happy times, practical jokes and a warped sense of humour. I have forgotten that he was once funny, it seems so long ago. I mention the Easter, when I was only young, that he handed me a large, heavy, gift wrapped box that had me so excited... only to find a tiny egg and a brick inside.

The sobs of "what a great man" and "I'll miss him so much" anger me. These are the people who complained loudly when it was their turn to finally help out when my Dad couldn't do it any more. The people who hated helping so much they rang my Dad five short days after his open heart surgery, when he was still in hospital, to ask when he could drive again so desperate were they to be rid of the old man. Who after only six months of helping him have forgotten who it was that took care of it all for years. But now is not the time for bitterness... that will come, I just know it.

After almost an hour he is ready to go, he is ashen. The nurse asks if we'd like the breathing tube removed for the final few minutes. Everyone solemnly nods. Take it away, let him have his last few minutes on earth with as few tubes as possible.

The wait is almost over. The final drabs of life drain from his face and he is gone. A doctor quietly comes in to confirm it. She warms her hands before feeling for a pulse and apologizes to him, by name, for their iciness. If it wasn't so sad I would laugh. Warming your hands to touch a corpse has to be the height of compassion.

The formalities of death are over and the time is noted. 1:20pm. I stroke his tattooed arm and kiss his forehead. Still warm. I wonder how long it takes for a body to go cold and panic that I might have asked out loud.

My fear from last week has eventuated. I have watched someone die. Witnessed their soul leave their body. I am overwhelmed and it is hard to process. I am the first to leave the room, making my excuses that Tricky needs to go and I head straight for the bathrooms where I scrub at my hands as if the stench of death is on them.

And now we wait again. We all know it won't be long before we are back here, going through the same motions, with the wife he has left behind.

Four Generations: My Grandparents, my Dad and I with a two day old Tricky

The Dalai Lama, Kurt Cobain and me

I've just come back from an intimate gathering with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and 14,499 of my closest friends.

If you've been playing along at home you'll know I'm not a religious person, but I am one of those annoying people who consider themeslves a 'Lifestyle Buddhist' - I may not believe in the mystic side of the religion, but I appreciate the morals they teach and try to live by them.

Security was tight; all bags were searched and every single person was 'wanded'. It was similar to going to the airport in that you couldn't take in drinks, the food was overpriced and undercooked, my ears popped (the venue was pressurized) and there was a lot of waiting around in rather uncomfortable seats.

In fact when we left I half expected to walk out the door to a different city. No such luck... I'm still in Dullsville.
 
The conditions of entry on the ticket prohibited "video or audio recorders of any type" which I took to mean mobile phones... apparently I'm the only one who thought that because looking around, I was the only person there not taking photos with a phone.

Even a Buddhist Nun was walking along talking on her iPhone. Yeah. Ponder that for a moment.

Behold, my mad photoshop skills

The crowd was full of doppelgangers, it was amazing; There was Map Guy aged 45,  Jesus (complete with white robes and sandals), one of the chicks from the Waifs, Kurt Cobain and a girl in front of us who looked like a shorter version of Miranda Kerr and had His Holiness' book, 'The Many Ways to Nirvana', in her hand bag.

All around me people were being enlightened and all I can think is that Miranda should give her book to Kurt and he could wave it away with a laugh, saying "I don't need to find it, babe, I created it."

But I did actually listen to what he was saying and some of it really stood out to me for a range of reasons:

When he said he loved his friend George Bush but didn't agree with some of his policies; that stuck out in a "Did he just say he loved George Bush?" kinda way.

When he said we should live spiritually but have secular ethics; that stuck out in a "OMG a religious leader not being preachy preachy" kinda way.

When he said he liked how the Maori people integrated to the 21st century but kept their language even though he wasn't sure if it was a sophisticated language; that stuck out in a "Dude that's a bit racist" kinda way.

But the message I took away from the morning was one of love and compassion. When we have compassion for each other, when we truly strive for what is best for the world in the long run by forgoing some of our needs in the short run, and when we can forgive those who have done us wrong and remember to love the sinner not the sin, we can find happiness.


Obviously not everyone took the message of compassion on board because waiting for the shuttle back to the carpark someone tried to cut in front of us in the line. Nice.  

What do you do to find happiness? Can you differentiate between the sin and the sinner?

Dude Where's My Rapture?

So we know there was no Rapture right? Well we're all still here so it's either there was no one worth saving or it didn't happen.

Old news, I know.

But now is one of those times when I wish I was a more organized person because Map Guy actually went out and bought a second hand filing cabinet (so we can become more organized people) last Saturday, but only yesterday did we bother to look in it and find it's hidden treasures (a whole week too late to blog it but I'm doing it anyway).


Unconcerned with all things Rapture, Map Guy ventured over one suburb to pick up a second hand filing cabinet from an elderly gentleman who had white hair, a white beard and small silver spectacles. He would have been a spitting image of Santa Claus if it were not for the wonky glass eye.

So the Santa wannabe offered Map Guy all the manila folders in the cabinet, and since we're tight arses frugal, he jumped at the chance.

The cabinet and all it's folders has sat, untouched, for a week in our junk room study.

Today when we opened it we realised exactly why this guy was getting rid of all his stuff...

Yep... the Santa guy was one of the believers. There were about 50 of these files, but these were the best/weirdest. From top to bottom they are:
Understanding the Apocolypse
Are you prepared?
Rapture of Transformation
Seven things God was doing
The Echad of God
The Early Christian Meal
Origin of the Secret Theory - Rapture

At first I just laughed. Then I cringed. And then... well then I felt a bit sad. Felt guilty for poking fun.

I think Mr Claus was one of the believers; his folders (some of which had a few reams of heavy rapture reading material in them) and the giving away of his possessions kinda point to it. Either that or it was just a freakishly timed bout of generosity. And if he truly believed he was being saved then it must have been a major disappointment when 6pm rolled around and there was no tremors and no big shiny lights (or whatever a Rapture is meant to be like).

What must that feel like? For something you have been looking forward to, praying for, depending on... to just vanish before your eyes. I can't even comprehend it.

Godparent vs Oddparent

This post may prove to be my undoing, because I'm going to talk about one of those subjects that tends to get people very hot under the collar (and not because there is fresh baby spew there)... religion.

My beautiful friend, Emily, is becoming a Godmother in a few weeks time and allowed me to pick her brain about what exactly being a Godparent entails these days and how she thinks she'll respond to the challenge. The invitation to be little Evan's Godmother came as a bit of a shock to her since she was never christened and not religious in any way. So with her self professed heathen-ness, Emily sees her role as being a support person not only to the baby but the parents – something she would have done anyway even if not asked to be a yummy (God)mummy. Currently that support is shown in way of copious amounts of cuddles and baby talk. An excellent start I think. She won't be the sort dishing out unwanted advise and telling the parents that they're doing everything wrong, because as she points out, that's not a Godparent's job – that's the In-Law's job.

The role of Godparents seems to have changed to be more hands on in recent years. Or perhaps that is just my view since although I had plenty to do with my Godparents, it was more in their original roles as my great uncle and second cousin. Their status as 'the chosen ones' wasn't really mentioned. My childhood understanding of the reason for having them was if your parents passed away, you automatically got given to them. I remember thinking “Which one would I go and live with?” the bachelor uncle or the married with two kids cousin? I always felt a little bit bad after wondering, as if somehow thinking about it would make it happen (if you're wondering I chose the cousin, just because her kids had a Playstation – I'm that shallow).

These days when my friends have their children Christened the decision of who the Godparents will be has been known to cause massive rifts. Aunty Mary is upset that she wasn't chosen and your brother thinks that he'd make a much better stand in parent than Uncle Bob, despite his numerous convictions and drug habit. In terms of playing happy families, these decisions can have massive consequences. Perhaps that is why, in my own experience, its becoming more the norm to choose friends rather than family for this role. If you can't keep everyone in the family happy, don't choose any of them!

Friends who are Godparents themselves seem to take the role very seriously, and swell with pride when introducing the little munchkin - its not just their mate's kid but their Godchild. Because what better proof is there that someone thinks you're awesome? They've entrusted you to help raise their child or look after them if something terrible should happen.

The other option these days for the non-religious folk is to have a “Name Day” where you have a civil ceremony pretty similar to a Christening, just minus the man in the robes at the front with the holy water. You pick 'guardians' to take on the Godparent role and hey presto, you have a Name Day, complete with cake. But I don't see myself going down that road either – to me it screams “I want you to give me presents”. Because the people you would invite to one of these celebrations would normally be your closest friends and family, the same ones who a few weeks earlier probably gave you a little something for the baby's birth. How many rattles does one child need after all?

After all that though, I'm not bestowing that honour on anyone. Like the delightful Emily, I too am a heathen (doomed to spend eternity in purgatory according to my Catholic upbringing) and don't want to have Tricky baptised in to a system that I don't support. I'm attracted to the concept of adults making their own decisions about faith, so when Tricky is old enough to understand the complexities of religion, he can decide for himself what path to follow.

Having a pretty un-religious family this isn't going to cause any problems. I'm not too sure what I'd do if I had very traditional In-Laws that demanded their grandchild follow the way of the church. Would I fight it or just go with the flow for the sake of peace and unity? I'd like to think I'm feisty enough to stand up for what I believe in... but I'm so open to suggestion that if I was presented with a super cute Christening outfit for Tricky I'd probably at the church steps in no time. Again, yes, I'm that shallow.

The only problem I can foresee with the 'choose your own adventure' path is that Tricky will join some bizarre religious cult where you can only wear fuchsia and have to shave the left side of your head. That would make such a lovely addition to family holiday events, I'm sure. "Could you pass the salt please Lord Tricky of the Holy Fuchsia Order?"