A Sunday Off With Intent.

Introduction

This is how my day began.

It is going to be one of those days, one of those Sundays, where with the best will in the world, nothing happens and that is the whole point.  I had treated myself to a morning in bed this morning, with some tea and my laptop on which to watch One Born Every Minute, when in comes Giant Boy.  It is always lovely to see Giant Boy, but 10 am is very early, and my first thought is, how do I get out of this?  He, bless his heart, is not one to enter quietly and get on with some reading.  He isn't one to come in and sit passively on the bed and wait till I notice him.  He came in wet, from the shower, all 6' 6" of him, with only a small towel on, and lay full length across my bed, beaming at me.  This was the least disturbing of the videos he took with my phone. 

These days Giant Boy is inspired.  Inspired by MMA, Mixed Martial Arts, and being a kind of home loving fellow, his new moves are practised with mind boggling results on his mother.  He sees me coming to give him a hug as an attack, he tells me.  Very often I end up in a headlock or hugging him with my arms and legs immobilised so that I can't get away without tapping three times on his arm.  Fine, I say, it's all youthful enthusiasm, I can handle it, but usually I am on my feet, dressed, and able to assert myself if I need to.  You can understand and forgive then, that after the joy of seeing him this morning, my first thought was Where are my escape routes.

Middle Bit

Ready for our first Conversations with Gail and Tami. Gail's funeral top hat sits in the middle, which we didn't use in the end, we all couldn't stop talking long enough, so we left it as an enigmatic decoration in the middle of the floor.

This time last week, I was getting ready to go up to do the first of the Conversations about End of Life within our Busy World, with Gail Martin Stevens and Tami Peel from Elizabeth Way Funeral Service up in Mossley, Lancashire.  We had done what thinking we needed to do together, and had realised that we needed to see how it went, and take our cues from whoever came along.  We had a plan, Plan A, in which we worked out what we would do, but we were happy to revert to Plan B, working together to go with the flow.  Gail provided tea and cakes, and the Seraphina Centre http://seraphinacentre.wordpress.com/ hosted us.  Our first session was attended by some very experienced and articulate ladies, all of whom knew of Gail and all of whom made this session memorable and inspiring.  Of course as soon as they started to arrive, plan A went out of the window, and we reverted to plan B, which is really what we expected to do all along.  We realised at the end of our two hours, how fast the time goes and how much we need to talk these things over.  One of our ladies is a cancer sufferer, and made good observations from her perspective.  One lady is a carer, and talked of how her colleagues avoid going in to work with people who are called "terminals", and one lady lost her son last year, and has set up a charity to help those with mental health issues - her son suffered from bi-polar.  

I will now host a similar session here in Bognor, and Gail will travel down to join me to do it.  Our plan is to do more sessions. Our vision is not to train anyone, but to lead conversations.  We aim to do nothing more than guide people to do what they already know, and to help to think more clearly about end of life issues.  If you think Gail and I can do one in your area, let me know.  

Post Conclusion Build Up

Today, I must admit, I am off.  Off work, off cooking, off with the fairies.  I have discovered perfect joy in watching re runs of One Born Every Minute, all the more wonderful because it is no longer anything to do with me - I have found that going up to bed is the whole point of the day, and I have realised that my boys, of 17 and 20, won't die if I don't make them food.  They will complain, they will try and look like the cat with the big eyes in Shrek, they will then make the food and make the kitchen look like a Tom and Jerry cartoon, but they won't die, and I can still go to bed.  I like this.  I have found that if I cannot think two clear thoughts, it is not a problem, because today, I don't have to.  All I have to do, is think about how to make myself happy every ten minutes, and then do it.  Eileen is with me this weekend, and she agrees.  We are both supporting each other in doing nothing and both happy to fill up any gaps in our psyche with eating pasta and veggie bakes.  

Powerful Conclusion.

I love my old Dad, he is witty, academic, clever and has funny eyes.  When I was a little girl, I was very proud of my Dad's funny eyes, I thought that he was the best because you never knew who he was looking at, and that seemed to me, very advanced.  Dad has had a few strokes and now had memory problems.  He is still very amusing and witty about it, and knows that he doesn't remember on occasion, for example, my name but I always had a special bond with him.  In this photo, he is giving expression to how I feel today, and as we look very similar, you really have no real proof that this isn't me giving expression to how Dad feels.  Rock on, Dad, tell them how it is.

The Aged P with whom I relate in so many ways.  His expression here is how my soul feels.  Thanks Dad.  Rock on.