MUSINGS FROM MIDLIFE
My Stories
These are the Moments
Every Wednesday morning about 6am the garbage truck arrives to collect our rubbish. Like clockwork, aged 2 to 5, my son jumps out of his bed and runs full force into the bedroom, and into bed. He hides under the covers, cuddled up against me. He hates the sound of it and he finds comfort with his mum. These are the moments. I find it a little amusing and relish in our snuggles, until he outgrows his fear. I let go.
I spend endless years reading books and doing jigsaw puzzles with him. We search the library to try and satisfy his need for Paul Jennings. We go to an Andy Griffith’s book signing. He thinks I’m ace. We bake goodies and he asks me for yet another story. I spend years bowling to him in the back yard. These are the moments. Until he declares that I’m a lousy bowler, and his Dad does it so much better. That is actually true. I let go.
The Journey
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice — though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. “Mend my life!” each voice cried. But you did not stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognised as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do — determined to save the only life you could save.