…a brief glance…

Here’s an attempt to rekindle what was once so second nature. Not a day goes by that I don’t go…oooohhh I should write that down/blog that train of thought and obviously up until now that is a thought that has never made it to fruition. As I sit here getting my hair ‘did’ I am somewhat my own captive audience…So what better time to do something you have been putting off for years (you don’t get to judge Bipo) I’m still waiting for yours.

In my somewhat contemplative moments I do wonder at what point second nature became foreign and scary land…it took a moment but it is all coming back to me now…ahhh yes when it started getting me in trouble 🙂 When I realised I needed to start filtering…which at that point, was way too hard.

It’s hard to believe that it has been over ten years since I started this blog. Reading back through it was like visiting an old friend and reliving those moments again. The good, the bad, the down right heart breaking.

It is not lost on me the timing of rekindling ones love affair with putting thought to paper. It truly isn’t.

The last decade has been an adventure full of rise up moments. I can tell you now that I didn’t rise every time it called for me to rise.

Admittedly looking back I know there was a lost day, weeks, months that would probably accumulate to a year or so…if one is to be honest. The thing with trauma, grief, devastation and life altering moments is that the effects of it isn’t always immediate and rarely is it ever one off.

We lost Mum almost nine years ago and there are emotions that are still finding its way to the surface as though it was only yesterday to this very day. Whilst I am a ball of erratic emotions that has been grieving from day one, my sister I guess has never felt she had the liberty of being the emotional wrecking ball that is expected of the youngest. After all she is my mother incarnate. In looks, typical matriarchal middle child who looks out for and after everyone. She would be doing my mother proud. I know it’s only in the last couple of years has she felt the full weight of that grief and allowed it to come to surface…Though in saying that I doubt ‘allow’ would be the word. I’m sure if she could control it, she would still be trying.

We lost Dad three weeks to this very day. Ann and I had spent the evening catching up over Adobo, That thing called Tadhana and home made baked donuts…I had just gotten back to my Unit after walking her to my car when I got Ate’s call. Who in her typical Ate way asked if Anna was still there in sheer hope that it would soften the blow but alas she was already gone so asking me to sit down was her next best move.

It took a moment…actually it took several moments. Whilst I was there for every stage of losing Mom, Dad was different. Having heard that he was gone, the processing of that was a bit like slow motion and out of body. I remember Ate asking if I wanted her to come and pick me up and me saying No. I remember asking how Kuya was. I vaguely remember packing what I thought was my entire wardrobe to go to her place which is literally two minutes away…and if you were around during that time you would laugh knowing how many times I had to run back to my place in the days after because I was missing one thing or another. Navigating Dad’s death was different. He had been sick for so long and we had been in this journey for awhile that it was almost just as shocking that he was gone. There has been several trips to the hospital when we thought we had to say goodbye and he would always come out of it. The shock lay in that it was final. That there was no goodbye.

Like clockwork and lemmings the three of us…my siblings and I gravitated towards each other. The toughest part was having Kuya in Canberra when we got the news and having to wait hours till we were with him. We were like our own version of Voltes V but Voltes III which doesn’t make sense but in those moments it was instinct to feel the need to ‘Lets bolt in’…and there ladies and gentlemen is my childhood with an older brother.

Whether it was our upbringing or the multiple loss in our lives, making decisions and honestly breathing in those first moments was easier when my Kuya and my Ate were there. It may also just be the fact that I am the Bunso in the family.

It hit early that we were now indeed orphans and there was a weight to that I hadn’t fully expected. In all honesty there is a part of me that hasn’t quite processed that.

As always from the get go we were surrounded by our immediate support system…the ones whom from the get go…were there. Whom in the last almost ten years have been so ingrained in our lives that with or without DNA would be family. The faces who were with us in that tragic December night/morning at Liverpool Hospital have remained by our side to this very day. They have loved on us and supported us so unconditionally.

I didn’t know it then but I have certainly learned in the years after that Unconditional refers to only very few. So we are certainly grateful for those who have stood by us through the tests of time. Never judging, never hiding behind pretenses, just allowing us to stumble ready to cheer us on when we need it. There to not only celebrate our triumphs but hold our hands in the roughest of journeys…Or hand us a cocktails/wine…samesame 🙂

I suppose the hardest part about Dad passing was knowing he went alone. When we lost Mom there wasn’t a shadow of doubt that she knew we were there. That as she struggled to take her last breaths and my sister and I uttered our reluctant permission to let her go she knew and felt that we loved her. I wish I had given him at least that. As supposedly Daddy’s Girl I had failed much, but if I bear any regret…it is that. (There Kaye, I said it outloud. Thanks for letting me practice on you first).

I would like to believe in my heart that my Mom would have been there holding his hand in those last moments to ensure that he wasn’t alone and those who know my Mom would know that she totally would have been there. Showing that Unconditional love she unwaveringly had for him.

Well that is it for this first entry of 2015…peace out ?