What it feels like…

I spent some time last night getting that project of mine underway… It isn’t an easy thing to tackle as it is a series of photographs depicting my family, which I am placing in frames to give to my siblings..

It is really tough looking upon the smiling faces of your parents and missing them so much it physically hurts. I wish I could just snuggle up with my mom sometimes while discussing the fact that the country is going to the dogs with my dad.

Funny how even though you know that your parents will ultimately (under normal circumstances) pass away before you..when it happens it still comes as a shock and you feel cheated that they dared to leave so soon when you still have so many questions remaining..

You only really understand your parents when you have been one for more than 5 years.. Because in the first five yearsor so you are desperately trying to do everything as differently as possible to your own upbringing that only when you stop, pause and realise that all those “things” that you are so obstinately avoiding were human reactions and not as bad as you first thought and only once you are able to be honest with yourself you will begin to understand what it took to be a parent in their time.. I don’t agree with everything that my parents did, But I do understand why they did it.. And I take what they taught me and apply it a little differently but all the while remembering those important rules and I think I am finally getting positive results my pumpkins.

I still don’t know how to make Yorkshire Pudding.. And I would like to have a crossword showdown with my dad just one last time.. hehehe

But then I look at families where the parents live till 90 odd and drive their kids insane with whining and complaints and I smile… That will be me one day!

I refuse to die young.. I will not go down easily.. even after my last breath has left my body I will be flipping a birdie at the world.. reincarnate myself into a pigeon and fly over the heads of all the people who didn’t cry at my funeral and drop a coil on them for good measure..

I have warned my boys that mommy is there to stay for ever and that I want to have no sass from their wives.. I expect obedient co-operation from any girl who wants in on my team!

My mom however was such a sweety (her name was “Hannie” but everyone thought it was “Honey” lol), far too soft and always a smiling face with the inability to be mean to anyone, whereas my dad was loud, opinionated and funny.

My mom always moaned at me for being too much like my father.. I don’t see how this is such a bad thing.. He was an incredible person with the kind of personality that put everyone at ease and he had this way about him that you had no choice but to love him.. Most people never even knew his real name, he was always just affectionately known as “Fergie”..

So know tonight I have to roll up my sleeves one more time and try and complete this project so that my brothers and my sister can hang it on their walls and remember better and happier times and can show their kids and one day their grand-kids as well the smiling faces of our young family and the fact that this world was blessed with the presence of our parents who produced such an outstanding bunch of hooligans!

B