So busy, my house, my home. Full of life and movement, it is rarely so tranquil, so quiet. Even at night, the restless turning of a child in the next room, the sounds of a teenager, body wired for the nocturnal life, attempting unnaturally timed sleep, for grumpy awakening in the morning. The pattering of paws on carpet and vinyl, as the Labrador continues her vigil, checking on us all in turn, as the Greyhound lazily stretches his length, languidly rolls over to resume his pre sleep nap.
The children, the teens are away for the weekend, as they do twice a month. Somehow, it never feels right, even after all these years. Today, my youngest daughter turns 9, and for the first time with her, I will have only her voice, shy at first on the strangeness of the phone, to echo in my day, until the counted down morrow.
The dogs are uncertain, for they, too, have never quite adjusted. The Labrador in particular shall be my shadow until, her tail wagging her body in joy, her world is also put to rights tomorrow lunchtime. As a reward for our oddly empty domain, the rest of my family, my brother and his partner, my dear once first utter companion and lover and now wonderful friend will be here with his lovely new partner, and best of everything, all of my children home, including my first born not child but adult daughter, still my hearts child, here with her own partner too. We gather as usual in the informal ritual of celebrating the year passing, heeding the beat of time that indicates that another member has marked an age achieved. So fast, so fast they grow.
Another gains adulthood this year, another still my child, ever my child in my bones, my soul, my heart.
Today I took my also beloved father to the doctor who will, we hope, kill the cancer that months of treatment has now barely got under control. Seven weeks, five times a week, radiation will be tightly focused on the errant cells. For anyone, quite an impact. As his hand, once so sure, now starting to struggle with trembling, disobeying his command to write with certainty, frustrated him today, I sat and realised the passing of the years is finally impacting the man I was sure was immortal. He will be 78 end of next month, and his signs of aging, and this cancer, have pointedly bought home to him his time here has limits. A brush with septicemia post operatively, where he actually, thankfully briefly, died, but was saved by virtue of being en route to hospital in am ambulance, has even more sharply reminded him of his mortality.
He is scared. Oddly, it has made us closer, his age, his cancer, my pain. Once he wouldn’t have dreamt of me going in with him to the doctors. He has not asked, but never refused my company on each visit. Today, I was deeply moved when he said briefly how grateful he was for my presence there. A poignant twist of my heart.
So, I sleep little, another restless patch night, without focus unless I force it, and let the thoughts run like sand through my fingers.
