what i would like

my sister died on 7th Feb just gone. she is gone, despite everything and there was no proper warning, no goodbyes. she has faded into yesterdays. i would like her back very much. this i would like most of all and all other would likes, pale into dusty nothings. i want her back.
i would like a little bit of time to myself now and then; time that isn't painful to acquire or worrying in my desperation.
i would like Mary poppins to tidy my house and nanny macphee to take care of my children.
i would like lots of money to make those i love's live's more comfortable- we are like something from dickens's tales of Victorian misery or zola's grittiest novels on poverty and despairing alcoholism .
i would like to have the answers.
i used to sing love me or leave me in harmony with my sister -by Nina Simone- i would like to sing that with her again.
i just listened to a take that song  want you back cos the words 'i have a picture of you beside me; the lipstick marks are on your coffee cup' have been going round my head for days. it made me cry so much because while we didn't care for take that when we were young and they were out there, about a decade later we discussed the merits of many of their songs.
i remember some years ago in our twenties at the twelve bar in new cross the paradise bar my sister sang 'don't you feel like like crying' so beautifully and brillliantly i am listening to that too on utube by solomon burke.

my kitchen is a total mess again

it is as usual a total dump and as usual i am not looking forward to getting it sorted. i took the kids out today to a local funfair and they had loads of fun. then we went to a pet shop and my big son bought a ferret cage with his birthday money. he is planning to buy a ferret next Friday. yuk, they smell apparently, but i think he needs to get it out of his system; he needs a creature to bestow his love on.
little d and a are watching astro boy on the sofa, hopefully they will fall asleep there and baby is finally asleep.
tomorrow the kids are gonna go to their uncles house so i can have a bit of time off from kids.
i have a plan. i am going to buy a spade as our one has disappeared and i want to dig stuff up and replant it.  my partner is complaining constantly about stuff and i find it so damn infuriating. 'i would love to go to a fair all day' he exclaims when i say he has had plenty of time without kids. yeah whatever. standing in a cold cloudy park with a heavy restless baby on hips watching children go form attraction to attraction; no where to sit down; etc etc; then off to play in the park; then to pet shops to stumble round the smelly place patiently waiting for children to look at all the pets. yeah, you'd love it much better than being alone at home doing stuff you like to do.
he likes things just so. he likes to be able to play darts- or practise rather- without kids underfoot; without tumble driers going; without anyone interrupting, he likes a hot supper and clean clothes and children cared for; a tidy house; a clean tidy car; no stuff lying about; a full fridge; me time; watching sport; not that he gets all those things but that's what he likes. not devoting an entire day to the whinging moany needs of kids; of going from pillar to post to entertain them rather than just plonking them in front of the TV and getting on with stuff more suited to the self. he must think that i find it fun running round like a fucking headless chicken and devoting myself to kids all day. then rewarding myself with doing the laundry and feeding people and comforting them when they cry etc. moan moan moan.

in which it goes on

i was feeling incredibly knackered today and started it the same as always, stumbling around trying to get my daughter ready for school, baby ready, son off to school. i know there are better ways of doing it, like being more organised, washing up the night before, not consuming alcohol the night before etc. but anyway, there i was, running from pillar to post to get out by 8 30 and wehey i did it, i just couldn't find the car keys. so today it was a walk up the hill. a passing mum who emphasises with my chaos suggested i walk up with her. and that i did. it was okay and daughter got to school on time. the walk down the hill was much nicer. i invited the said mum in to my hell hole for a cup of coffee and we discussed the pains of housework and lack of space and i played her my sister's song.
i spent the day avoiding dreadful house work- or bomb clearance as it always feels like, and visited various friends home for tea and company. a change was as good as a rest and i returned home able to at least throw rubbish away, clean the kitchen floor and hoover the living room which was some improvement. 
around 7 30pm i went to tescos with my baby who was pretty tired and moany. i had some good luck and managed to get a load of reduced food- legs of lamb-organic for like £2 and lean steak mince- 60p and other such bargains. so i brought a scratch card too since it seemed my luck was in. it wasn't, i won nothing. it is the start of the Easter holidays and i am just hoping i can gater some energy to enjoy them and not get completely stressed out with my children and mess. 

so damn tired and fed up

i am utterly shattered it makes me want to cry. the rent has been sucked up by a direct debit and moneys too tight to mention. i am tired of my children as much as i love them i am so tired and wish i could have a break. even a couple of hours would be nice!!!
but on and on it goes and sleep just isn't enough.
right now my baby is in his chair eating an ice cream- it's the only way to buy some free arm time.
the days keep ticking by and the new absence of one of the best sisters life could offer continues and is still brazenly hurtful and unfair. i hate that time ticks by like that and ticks and ticks to the rhythm of faded childhood memories of sunny dusty days like these in a different dimension of our lives in a peach wallpapered council flat bedroom years ago. my sister in her white shirt and school uniform and small brothers and sisters milling close by.
there is a remaining pool of uncried tears and caged anxiety in my chest which can't be soothed or put to one side. just there it sits like a brick in my solar plexus.
the reassuring voice of a girl who we once knew no longer there to understand this journey we're on.
we are the ones left behind; unable to cry as the alarm clock keeps ringing and the world keeps turning.
tired tired tired tired tired tired tired tired tired tired tired tired tired

onandon

and so it goes. i have been quite busy with children since there was a school strike today. i had my son and nephew at home and about with me and after school add daughter to the mix. little one year old was there all along.  so it has been busy.

today has been another shit day. i asked a friend to take daughter to school. i raced to take my son to my mum's so i could get to the doctors for 9 30. at 9 25 i phoned to cancel the appointment only to be told it was not till tomorrow. this was enough to make me burst into tears.
god knows where the rest of the day has gone- spent cleaning; driving; going to the park with the littles and just feeling tired.

ubendoory

i am so tired i feel like i am being turned inside out and my shoulder blades are catching on my lungs and my back hurts every time i breathe. i am starting to feel a bit better. my little one year old (baby) has just eaten 1 1/5 kiwi fruit and is wandering about the kitchen. my daughter is asleep and my fourteen year old (very grumpy today) is watching south park reruns- he has to go to bed soon. i am hoping i will wake up tomorrow refreshed and better- today has been difficult like walking through thick treacle.

anxiety

the sun is out today and it is warm. I got my kids off to school and now am home and i have a pit of anxiety at the base of my sternum. it is probably something to do with the fact that i am, as i type, also phoning my son's school to try and get a refund of 80 pounds for a trip he missed due to us failing to get up in time. I want the money back it's not even mine it was loaned by my brother.
I think it is also due to the exhaustion of making my son's birthday special yesterday, and getting up early- following a boozy evening of celebration- and the aftermath of silence now I am home. I feel slightly shaky. After I had dropped daughter off at school this morning, it was just me and nephew in the car plus baby; and we sped from Brockley to his school in Greenwich listening to Radio 2. My mind was awash with thoughts of my late sister and every now and then my little nephew's gaze would meet mine in the mirror. We share a prolonged wave and grin, enjoying the moment of communicating through the ingenious reflection of the mirror that lets our eyes meet despite my back being turned to him. "You alright little man?" I say, wondering if his mind too is awash with thoughts of his mother. But who am I to know? His little pale, freshly washed face and large blue eyes are framed by a halo of strawberry red blonde hair and he is dressed in navy blue school garms; I watch him thinking, and love him so much. 

My daughter was back at school following a week off with a mild case if impetigo. Following a day of great fun on her big brother's birthday which left her and her cousin grimy and grey, just as kids should be, she too is pale and washed and sparkly all ponytailed and ready for school. She is so excited to be back as she goes in and her and her little red head cousin share a lingering hug in the doorway as they part to go to their separate school room worlds for the day. It's not often they agree at the same time for a hug- one usually being reluctant, but this hug is genuine and heartfelt and a comfort to them and me who watches.

On my eventual way home following a check in and coffee with my mum, I drive home and acknowledge just how irrevocable the change in my own world is. Utterly irrevocable.
Now my mind flicks to the grave yard where the wilted flowers must still cover her grave. The shock we have felt in these lost weeks has subsided from explosive horror, to a drawn out continual feeling of things not adding up. But with death nothing ever adds up I suppose. It's the circumstances surrounding death that will never add up. Can dying ever be perfect? Can it be an experience that is positive. I can't see how. Even when an old person dies in their sleep, which sounds almost pleasant, the longing for everything to stay as it once was; for time to stop making fools and shadows of us all; of our earnest lives; our plans; our families ......that longing for things to remain doesn't go away. But with my sister, it's the uncanny story of live and fate, that uncanny choice of God or fate to choose her,  to take away from us now. Her, so utterly colourful and prism like and talented and full of depth and feeling of unsurpassed love for her child, for us. This must be how it is for all of us who lose someone. People are dying all the time.
It's almost not the death, it the dying. It's the why? It's the disbelief. Is death ' it was her... time'.
Is dying a passport; How did you go? ...Oh I was given a disease, how about you?... Oh I got stabbed by a bunch of racists; you? Oh I died in a car crash, it was all the family bar our little baby brother.......Really? I died of I heart attack He gave me so much time down there I was 98 human years old when I left that mortal coil, he made me lose my marbles first i was completely unaware of who I was by the end, having my nappy changed like a baby...but hey I am here now. Funny how he has such different plans for each of us.
It just doesn't add up.  
If there was a heaven, if dying is a passport; the way out that fits in with the bizarre sequence of events in human life (I.E we can't all don our angel wings and fly to heaven on a cloud singing 'goodbye I will see you when it's your turn, I love you.....).
Why the choice of ways to go?
Why the messy ways to die? Why the pain sadness and suffering of the dying and then the living?
I try to put the spectrum of my religious 'knowlege' and spiritual understanding on to the case for dying. I try to put a spin on dying. I imagine myself dying in some random way and then leaving my dead body behind with scores of grief stricken, confused, devastated family while I just hop off to this other dimension and catch up with all the people who have died. I see my sister; everyone who has died has done so in some weird way.
Why the suffering?
Then I think of the weird symbolic story of Easter; the story of Jesus- born to a unmarried mum; murdered by a cruel society; degraded and put in pain; placed in a tomb; then walking out with his friends a few days later to tell them he has not died. Then the bit i can never recall... getting back to heaven. How does he? I must check it out- I am sure he sits on a cloud with God or something and up up and away he goes.
I mean, the whole Jesus story is actually very interesting. The gospel from my sister's funeral was about Jesus' disciples saying -How do we know where you've gone....How will we get there? Anyway i digress with brain diarrhoea.
But having just read through this and spell checked etc, i remember that Jesus says 'I am the way to get there'. I like his disciples am at this moment still confused; is this Jesus guy full of riddles or what. But I forget his words, but he does explain how.
Some days I wonder if the bible and Jesus etc is an elaborate grief self help book that some bereaved people created long ago to convince themselves that there is a heaven- they put all their energy into creating a belief system based around their remarkable, kind, caring, loving friend- his ordinary life; his semi ordinary birth (to a single -virgin- mum). they made it all add up in religious/spiritual terms and worked on it as a testament to their love for him, to keep him alive in memory forever for ever. but then i imagine it's all true and this is really the Way of loving and dying and it is like looking into a remarkable painting and suddenly finding the meaning; seeing the hidden picture; communicating with the divine and really understanding.

happy birthday son

this time 14 years ago i was just turned twenty and ready to burst with my first son. time has passed and it so strange how it has. the days and days of different ways; of concrete and blossom intermingled.
i was so young in so may ways when i had my child i almost imagine that i was wearing my school uniform but i was in fact twenty; i became twenty earlier in the month that my son was born.
it has been a tough and beautiful 14 years and he is a most remarkable and lovely boy.
Happy birthday son xxxxxxx

early morning

kids woke up too early for me before 7. and i am heavy and tired and want to sleep.

should sleep can't sleep

i want to go to bed but i don't feel ready to sleep. i have had a few glasses of red wine and the kids are all asleep upstairs, camped out. i read the lorax to them or some of it till they were off in dream world and little nephew gave me pointers of how to read it just like his mum.
i just only feel OK when i have a glass of wine on the go. i am listening to 'i sip red wine' by my sister. after passion  it ends 'let me be'. i don't want to. her music is everything i would ever want to have as an artist- it is beautiful and soulful and raw with living and love and pain. arpeggio guitar; country mixed with blues and crying rivers. how can i go to sleep how can i?
she was never pretending- never trying to be someone else, she was full of integrity and truth and light her-ness. today we visited my daughter's old nursery which she left about 9 months ago.  when she was there i met a mother of a five month old girl who was receiving chemotherapy for the same disease as my sister- leukaemia. i heard today the little child about a year now, is doing well for now. my sister was so sad to hear of this tiny little thing; she'd be happy to know she's well.  it is such a cruel disease. i find it so heart breaking that my little nephew has to just carry on, not seeing his mum. he thought he'd be seeing her and she went away never to return. how can life be so damn cruel?
i also bumped into another mum of three young ones at the nursery, she is young and beautiful and very positive and sunny. she has a debilitating spinal disease and the prognosis is bad. it brought tears to my eyes to see her. bent over with a zimmer frame going on and on for life. for her children. why does this happen? but we agreed to meet soon for a book club that has never got off the ground. fuck books right now i have no interest; so we agreed to a 'no book' club, maybe a poetry club; even better a haiku poetry club, no books, just a collection of mainly women gathering in empathy; love and fucking sadness at the sorry state of affairs. it is strange- i have felt so isolated, so closed off, but returning to my daughter's nursery where they knew of my sister's plight (her son went there) was a mixture of pain and tears and also like seeing an old friend. i may go there for playgroup for my littlest one. i maybe do need people; the experience of others to help me through this misery. 

long dreary day

now it is night and i have my little nephew over to stay for the night with his cousins minus my eldest who is with his dad.
they are quite peacefully playing right now and he is just such a small child (6) playing with toys. sometimes he seems so grown up then i see what a little baby he really is how only six years ago he was a podgy little new born and how he is a stretched out baby with strawberry blonde hair. i can't bear that his mummy is not here too and i can't share my love for her son with her, but it is at times like this that i must believe she is close by somehow though this can be difficult.
we listened to some of her songs on my space and he sang along, along with my daughter who adores her aunty's music. it is so hard to accept that this is all happening. soon i will get them into their nightclothes and try and get them off to sleep reading his favourite doctor Zeus books  and tomorrow i will take them to the park and try and come up with some ideas of how to make my eldest son's birthday on Sunday special, despite feeling so damn miserable and feeling the financial squeeze so acutely.

gutted

we missed the coach. i went to bed too late and my boy didn't get his things ready properly but really i think it is my fault as i didn't wake up for my alarm and we were never going to get to his school for 5am. i am too all over the place and i feel like a mess. he was so looking forward to the trip. it is very gutted. a wake up call?

sisters best friend

this evening my sister's best friend came over and was so lovely to see her. it is like somehow having a tiny bit of my sister here with me; rachel loves her so much and shared so many beautiful times with her- by choice! not by family! that to see her is just good. i see why my sis loved her she is real and sweet and funny and beautiful. she says my sister was such a lovely friend who always made her feel good about herself in a way that turned bad situations to good. my sister could do this; she was very unselfish with her  genuine love and compassion which is something we miss so much. her love and friendship.J's coming to see us is really special. she has gone now via cab home. bless her.  i have at some point got to get to bed but my brother is coming first to print some stuff off. two of my sisters are going to Norway tomorrow and my son is going to Belgium for the whole day. i am still listening to my sis's iPod now Beyonce is playing. My brother is buying me some dry white wine which i am afraid, dear doctor, i need till i can sleep soundly without it.

have spent the entire day so far cleaning up the mess of my home and not finished yet but can do no more for now and kids must be bored rigid. daughter is watching Alice in wonderland with johnny depp (not literally or I'd be watching it with him too!)and baby playing with Lego. i am listening to my sisters i pod- she has all the best songs only. Annie lennox i saved the world today is on now.
at some point i must bath and wash my hair as i look like a drowned rat. i haven't really eaten today but smoked and drunk coke and earl grey tea. not very healthy.
i still must go to sainsbury's and buy son some lunch for his trip tomorrow to Belgium and get some euros from the post office. he wants chilli con carne in a flask and crisps and sweets.
i want the day to hurry up and not much into the sun at the moment, i prefer the moody rain.
going to have a bath now.

i think i drink too much

i mean that is stupid. i think i know i drink too much. my doctor said to cut down. she advised me to literally draw a line on the bottle and drink no more than half in one sitting. mmmm. i think the line can easily become invisible to the eye f one who wishes to complete the bottle.
however this morning i felt very sick having consumed a bottle of white last night as i worked late sieving clutter- years of children's pictures, diary's, birthday cards, school books, my stuff etc etc. i haven't done the best job but it is semi sorted and in boxes and quite neat.
but waking this morning i felt so ill and somehow each morning my house looks like there has been a bomb explosion specifically targeted at the kitchen and living room.
my son missed his train and so since my daughter is still off school sick i gave him a lift. he is going to Belgium tomorrow leaving school at 5 30 am and back at midnight 30 on Saturday morning- no drinking for me tomorrow then! good. i need reasons not to drink.
when i dropped him off at school which is in dulwich- a big comprehensive with security guards, he said he hates school- not in a really bad way but a general way the way kids do. 'i mean look at it' he said. i remember when he was about seven and suddenly felt that school with its high perimeter fences blocking him away form freedom was like a prison. him and his little Somalian friend would even try to scale the fences imagining they could escape. i wish schools were better and freer.he is fourteen on Sunday and i need to try and make it special - i need to try even though i am so sad my sister who saw the light in him and all of us is not here to wish him well. i have to be able to carry on and see the joy of life even though she is not here.

so strange and weird you are not here

today we went to my darling sister's flat to get some things to take away. her personal things; her writings and stuff. i fell out briefly with my sister when i said not to organise them there; but to keep them as she left them; i made the dominating decision that my home was the place for all these things to live for now until we all decide what to do with them.
some years ago maybe three, my sister who is now departed came to my house to help me organise and de clutter. i have this weird retrospective memory that even though she was well in that she was not diagnosed, i think she may have  been ill. i remember being so honoured to have her help me. she helped me shift a load of shit. clothes, books shit shit shit and the only stuff which still remains unsorted to this day is the paper memory stuff which we put upstairs on the landing on shelves in boxes and in a cupboard; piles and piles of pictures, c d s, memories; diary's ; kids stuff. this evening i have returned to that de cluttering experience i had in my house with my sister and i have followed her advice; i have put each thing in each persons box and i have thrown away things to be thrown away; i have made space for her beautiful things that will be there until others come to sort them more. because, she is not coming back.
today on bringing back her things i have had to return to that place. even recently i told her that i had still not sorted this stuff after all this time. little did i know when she came round that day that it would be after her sweet demise that i would return there. my sister was a writer through and through. she did not stop. she is funny, hilarious and true and i love her so much. i am sad that i sort of fell out with my other sister. i mean who the fuck am i to take her things. but i don't know why. what can i say? i am afraid we will fall out forever.

leopards spots

and the law of attraction.
at these moments in time i am in a bad place. a depressed place. a sad place. a hurt place and all of that. unlike my usual misery there is a very good reason for this and it has been already mentioned. strange then that is is now that weird things should happen. like for example- finding a condom outside my back window in my garden. now, i cannot bring myself to move it yet as is is degrading and the neighbour's window curtain is open.
i have no idea if it is used- i don't know. now, either someone in my family is going insane and is having some kind of melt down and doing this, or otherwise someone in my neighbours household is up to their old tricks.
what i do know is, if my family are not to blame, and i think it highly unlikely- is that we do not need this right now and i have a five year old girl; a baby and a fourteen year old who is damn good boy. do we need condoms thrown into our garden? no we don't.
at some point i am gonna remove it ( this is the second one the last was around my birthday) and not tell anyone that i have found it and then i am gonna have to let it go just now. we had hell from our neighbours which ended some 3 years ago. is it starting up again? or shall i not jump to conclusions yet?

my beautiful little boy

aged just one is sitting in his high chair trying very hard to feed himself from a spoon banana and yoghurt.  my cats are prowling for food and meowing loudly- they will not eat sainsbury's own make of dried food, and my five year old daughter is upstairs getting herself dressed. i am boiling some eggs for us all- i am eating breakfast today as i feel sick and my stomach is protesting at being starved. little boy has to have injections today and then we will go to visit my daughter's nursery. she is off school with a contagious infection which is nearly better and probably not contagious anymore but i think she can stay off anyway.
i have not worked for a long time since my sister did go and i am really in need of that extra income.
i have just given baby a bit of egg yolk hard boiled which he has curiously eaten and now he has swept the rest of his egg off his table and onto the floor with a twinkling smile whilst cooing at the cats.
i am eating my egg with a mixture of revulsion -i often feel this way with eggs but sometimes can suspend my horror in order to enjoy one (horror at the little white things which cling to the yolk when you crack it raw...among other varied horrors......)-, and pleasure- due to the copious helping of sea salt flakes followed by huge gulps of hot earl grey tea. i can only manage the yolk today with a bit of white- if i close my eyes. my daughter refuses to eat the yolk, liking only the white.

i do wonder sometimes what lead me down this path of motherhood.
it chose me i think.
when i see young aspirational women passing me in the street i wonder if they look at me and pity my choice to devote my creative energy to demanding children.
i wonder whether i have ever actually had ambition. real tangible ambition, or if i just drifted from day dreams to mother hood. when i think of ambition i see huge canvasses smothered in bright paint; and things like that. there may be more time when these littles have got big to fulfil that ambition. or maybe by then i will want a proper job that pays money. or maybe will just do what can do to get by. maybe ambition will fall by the way side and be replaced by reality and necessity.
it is something i will have to think about.
i have given them both an ice lolly to finish off breakfast as it buys me 10 minutes more of not being demanded and needed. these things were invented for a reason.
the next things i need to do is get the littlest one dressed and then myself and do a clear up in the kitchen before we leave to get the tiny boy some injections.

WHO IS READING THIS SOMETIMES?

Really curious; the referring sights are dodgy ones- this blogshite is actually incredibly depressing. I write with pure selfishness that is true, this is not a poxy blog about sights, sounds , travel, food or the joys of New Poxy Cross. It is not designed to pull in poxy fake readers. It is a blog of a real person in this sodding world on this sodding planet in a dump called New Cross with a load of selfish self interested miserable materialistic people. A mix of aspirational middle class oat jumper baggy trouser tofu chomping types; and a load of people I will never speak to cos they don't wanna communicate, and a load of proper sarf London people. me of which is one. a mix that doesn't become a mixture.
I write because I like to and I write because this is a great way to keep a catalogue, a diary of my own thoughts and feelings. Yes, a selfish blog which does not seek to seduce the reader with charm, wit or intelligent and articulate observations. And yes, it may have a potato on it's shoulder- i am not hugely in favour of anything right now. Nothing much at all.  Life sucks as far as I am concerned right now. The good people get taken away and we get left behind.
But curious to me is who reads this. Some do, but are they invisible internet weirdos? or interested sometimes folk. as far as I can make out sometimes the internet is a strange and convoluted place like a filthy river of a junk infested stream.
It's weird the way this blog finds it way to other's eyes those I will never know and as far as I am concerned people mistakenly falling on my page.
Well unless you are good and nice and of honourable intent then here is a a message for you. Fuck Off there are no pervy pictures here :). otherwise hello and welcome to my sometimes miserable  world.

vampire

I feel like a vampire like one not of this world. i creep through the streets only able to acknowledge pain and suffering unable to comprehend cheer and light.
I got my two youngest children to sleep- as they were entirely reluctant, by driving them from New Cross to Lewisham to visit my mum.
They are now asleep proper, camped out in my room, and my eldest has also gone to bed.
My relationship is not faring too well. Will it be a casualty of this sad situation? It is almost like without my sister nothing seems valid any more.
At last I have taken off the black hat that I have been wearing through bright sunshine today.
Underneath my hair is unwashed and thin and reflects my state of mind and me.
Money is tight and I feel it. I have paid the bills and that leaves not a lot to play with.
But I hardly care as long as I can get through each day.
I passed, on the way back from the shop, a teenage boy who one year and more lost his dad to some strain of cancer; he looks up at me and says hello. I welcome his hello and murmur the same. I can only understand this world of loss I cannot see the other one.
Bitter beer goes down my throat; I have one can of Becks and a glass of wine left which I am saving for after to help me sleep.
I like being alone when everyone has gone to bed. I cannot bear awakeness of others and their needs. My doctor told me it was best that my sister went in a flurry and with hope on her side; at least she was not in despair; she would not have been aware of the end....... I only hope that this is so. I only hope she is in some golden heaven where the pain of fucking cunting leukaemia can fuck itself. Murderous Bastard leukaemia.
And I hate officious people who need you to carry on and continue with routine. I wish they would fuck off somewhere to a place as sympathetic as themselves.
This is just hateful and cruel. And if there is a damned heaven and a god I think it a mighty strange way of being supposedly a good thing that leaves us confused, regretful and bereft with no tangible idea of where our beloved sister has gone and if she is okay. All I have is the remnants of her illness the remnants of her desire to be well. How can I marry that with death and heaven....??? 
People say this well get better. They say 'trust me, it will get better'. Well. I guess it will. The passing of time will become sediment and my sister will be further and further away. I am sad, a very sad vampire of grief and I drink what I can find.

in which time stops for no one

in my house life goes on the arguments continue; the teenage ness goes on and i can't find a pause in which to stay a while and mourn my sister.
it's horrible.

trapped

it is 42 days since my sister died and i am none the wiser and none the happier i am still trying to make sense of the tsunami of leukaemia; the positivity we felt a week before she died with the doctors happiness with her progress. i am still trying to make sense of the last moments she was conscious and i wish i could have been with her, i wish i'd known how ill she was; that i would never see her again. i feel like a broken record and essentially that is just what i am, i am  broken and don't think i will mend.

these dark days

today has been 'one of those days' so far.my son left on time for school- through the window because I couldn't find the door key to unlock it. he returned 15 minutes later having discovered at the station that he'd no money on his oyster card. at 8 30 we left for school for my daughter-waiting also on a phone-call from her dad who was going to phone the doctor's at 8 45 to make an appointment for her impetigo.
I parked in a legitimate place and then got a call from her dad with a doctors appointment. so we got back in the car to leave her school and take my son- now very late - to school. an oncoming bus facing me was stuck in the road. cars  were piling up on my left waiting for the bus to pass so they could drive through the road. it became apparent that it was my car blocking the bus. so with an audience of proud walkers-to-school, and general onlookers, i was made to take the punishment for daring to drive to school and reverse- with a bus man holding up the traffic, backwards onto a mini roundabout. red faced, i sped away from the scene cursing man in general.

next scene- i have written son a note to explain yet another lateness to what seem like very drone like unempathetic individual teachers.. we are driving him to school- tank empty- pull into garage, fill up the car- a bit, chipping into rent money, go inside do small shop for daughter's breakfast (further chipping into the rent)- fuit and some bits for supper later (not much enthusiasm for cooking or shopping). I go to pay. my card is declined. it dawns on me after a second try that i have the wrong bank card- this one is my old bank card- i know where the right one is. it is in the jacket i left on the sofa and chose at the last minute this morning, as i started the engine, not to go back and get as we set off on this darned journey, but i search my chaotic bag anyway in the hope i put my card back in it's proper place as my husband and old ladies always remind me to. i search for my card under the scrutiny of the fastly-becoming -unsympathetic checkout lady's patient unmoving watch and a teem of po face lady faces queuing behind me tapping their watches with unsmiling faces. i want to make a public announcement that my sister has died and i can't be blamed for this, that i am a veritable walking mess and so low i need to be scraped off the floor, and then i find myself saying to the now present manager standing , arms by sides, next to check out lady: sorry my sister has died and i am all over the place and  i left my proper card in my jacket which is at home. i want to sit down and talk to her with a cup of tea and plenty of sympathy right there at the check out. i want to talk about my sister and how painful and unfair this all is. she relaxes slightly and her eyes soften a bit. -sorry sister  i am not using your name in vain but this is just what you've done to me since you've gone, i am a mess i can't be normal without you in the world. after being told the police may be called if i don't return soon to settle the cost, i leave my driver's licence and take my increasingly miserable son to school where he looks forward to a day of classes he dislikes, like P E, with boys who are repeatedly chosen to pick teams; never pick him; swear at him and become aggressive and  demeaning if he misses a shot, and a teacher who talks in street slang.

 all the time the sun beats down on this spring morning as i drive through forest hill to dulwich and back again to new cross to the doctors, and it beats down through the filthy car windows into my face and it beats down into my head and keeps telling me that my sister is gone.my dream from last night patterrs through my mind; the one which goes back in time to an old flat i used to live in and in which we carry our dead sister around for days until she opens her eyes and tells me to get on with what ever it is we are doing. but sometimes in my dream her lifeless body won't be carried around and collapses. my other sister cuddles and kisses her and her eyes open, we are not even shocked but in my dream i cry in case this is why we should never bury our loved ones, what if she wakes up in the grave i scream to my other sister...and a dream where my grandpa with alzhimers  has a horse made of metal and he falls off it and cosies up to me in a foggy place and demands i take him on an exciting journey. i have nowhere to take him, he is old and also mixed with his young man self. he leaps on his horse to show off and then falls off. he is dependent on me and yet i am not capable of being depended on in my dream.

back in my car i wear my sisters black hat pulled over my hair and forehead and i stare sullenly through the window at oncoming traffic and all the faces that i see seem to be distorted into mean grimaces and unsmiling expressions.

i have never felt more kind to people than now; and any sensitivity in shops for example, works well on me. the need for human empathy and compassion over the smallest thing- like what's in stock-or a smile from the till girl, can make or break my emotional make up.
i spy a mean mum of a kid who has always resisted friendship with my son and excluded him from conversations and who runs away like a baby if my son ever comes near or waves his hand past his nose and such like things and i see nothing but a mean whippet ahead of me, a face of unsmiling eyes and witchy intent with organic trousers on and a black ominous cape. i used to say hello, now i mostly see straight through her. i used to vaguely care about her organic vegetarian anti american open dislike of first my son- for threatening her son years ago, following yet another provocative comment from her little but very fasty child,and then her open disdain for me- and total blanking to us- friendly- both.
now i see the error of my ways, of my concern for these insignificant small things.

at home the washing plunders on,  the piles of filthy plates pile higher and wait precariously for a burst of sane enthusiasm which may see them washed up and put away. my daughter spits out the vile tasting medicine form the doctors that should destroy the impetigo if she completes the entire course, and my tiny son chews felt tip pens and cries with a cold.
i write on here to try and expel it all.
and i wonder if these dreadful days will end.
my comfort has gone.
'we must let them go'- a kind lady i know and who has heard of my loss and hugs me hard on the way home says.
'we must try  not to be forever sad, we must send our love to them' she says- her sister in law died recently too. she does know of the thing we speak of.
it makes sense in another person's mind, but it is no good, i can't let her go. how can i let her go?

both of my at home children are asleep and it is nearly time to return to the garage with their money for the petrol i took but could not pay for. the sun still blares through he window onto the dirty kitchen floor and onto the table strewn with clutter and things and the birds tweet incessantly outside.
soon this silence this time alone just typing out this all must come to an end. i must wake them both up, tired and groggy and miserable with waking, and carry them to the car and go to get my son.
who knows what the day will still bring and whether my mind will stop aching and my heart stop thumping with this sadness.

hatred

hatred. such a strong word denoting hostility; there is unexploded brisance within me and it permeates from me. i could blame it on the pile of flowers on the muddy earth above where my sister lies as life goes on and we gather to tidy the flowers and remove rotten roses and plumes from the funeral wreaths and bouquets.
or I could blame it on the continuing arguments of my small family the day to day bull shit of NO'S and Hurry ups and general domestic misery that no young romantic would ever cloud their pretty heads with; or i could blame it on the endless laundry needed doing for a family of five; or on other halves who continually complain of how hard their lives are failing to recognise or see the mud which surrounds me, or of running traffic pounding past the place where her sweet body lies; or of hard to read faces or irritating comments; or of children approaching fourteen swearing at me and desperate to be anywhere but home and dragging their heels.
i could blame it on my first child's father blowing out his arrangement to take his son for a meal and then threatening to block my number when i protest. I could blame it on lack of money to cover costs comfortably. I could blame it on my child of five whining; or on my partner who forever seems to have a problem with my first son not his son; or i could blame it on the fact the very person who would understand my anger not being here to get it.

there were five of us sisters now there are four of which of course i am one. the one i grew up with and was closest to in age and generation of upbringing aint here no more. i always felt the outsider, even when she was alive. now i feel it more. i am lonely. the voice who understands me and reads form the same hymn sheet and laughs at the same complexities is six feet under. maybe more.it's a grave for three. who said that she could go? i am angry. it permeates me. i am angry and it is hard being a mun to children who will not stop bickering; stop being grumpy;  a 'wife' to a man who flys off the handle at the merest whiff of a teenage sulk; to an ancient by more than ten years ex who still berates me and hates me and can't even be a good dad to his kid, and to a world that lets a ruby jewel go.

How Strange Life Is

The complete unexpected ending to our sister's life here with us has sent my reality into a spin. I spend half the time in deep contemplation of a heaven and excited by its hope- and it is so real to me this possibility.
 then i am catapulted back to a heavenless mind. meanwhile I long for the nearness of my sister and what could have been-on hazy spring days and family nights, then am forced to be in the present by a crying child or a wash of clothes that needs to be done.
the matter of life and death has become so forefront in our minds. tomorrow- mothers day- we will go to the place where her body went, and it is this that is so peculiar. that still silence that lies there so apart from the busy mind resilient against death; so far away from the loveliness of being that is the presence of my sister. so silent. so final. it is not a horrible thing but it is not really nice either. it is peaceful but so silent and unanswering.

what is this life? this life of broken things and broken hearts. of tears cried and pain felt inside the chest; of agony and loss. of all to few moments of happiness. of strange desires and attempts to fit in and join the herd.
the lonely, the regretful, the hungry, the sad, the hurt. the footloose, the happy, the ambitious, the joyful.
i can't understand ambition right now. i can only understand the end.

and yet i also know my sister was ambitious; she did never show desire for the end; and yet i secretly look forward to it seeing it as a distant reunion after our goodbyes on that sad sad night.

i invited my parents over tonight for a potato, spinach and  chickpea curry and they came and it was very nice.
i bought a bottle of dry rose to have and some sour cream that my big son bought from sainsburys. they stayed a while and it was really nice to feed them. that may sound strange, but in light of the general day to day misery of not really wanting to eat, to feed ones parents is a pleasure. no one really has an appetite at the moment so eating with others or even better, cooking for others brings some sense to the act of eating.

i walked to get daughter 5yrs from school today as it was warm and i could not face driving such a short way. plus i needed to go shopping and thought she'd like a scoot on her new scooter.
on the way down the hill from her school i saw some floor tiles b and q basic ones left outside a house against a wall clearly left for me i guess; i took them as my bathroom floor tiles are the white plastic ones from b and q and they are forever filthy.

then Amelie expressed a desire to find rubber bands. suddenly it seemed there were rubber bands at every glance and she collected them up one by one and tethered them to her scooter as is the current fashion. i told Amelie that as her aunty is now an angel in heaven that she could make rubber bands come for us. and come they did.

then at the bottom of the hill i saw on a wall a beautiful clock with the shop tag still on, a clock shaped like an orange elephant, made of metal and really quite beautiful. i knocked on the door of the house and in the window i saw a little girl and i showed her the elephant clock- can i take this?- i mouthed. she gestured she'd come to the door and moments later a i heard a voice down a side alley. then i saw the little girl and behind her a mum i know of a little boy who is now about 9. i took the clock and me and the woman i know hugged as i told her of my sisters passing. she was sad. but my sister's favourite animal recently was an elephant.
i then went on to get the ingredients for the curry.

i am alone

right now. my baby is asleep. i have just eaten cheese on toast and am having a cup of tea. this forum is pretty depressing.ever so quiet universe. my blog is only a comfort to me and me and some curious Russians and other far off people from far off places who are probably falling on my blog by mistake as they look for naked woman pictures or something.
 i am listening to radio 2 and having a weird on-line chat with a yahoo advisor because my yahoo mail keeps crashing.
i am feeling quite anti social and want to be alone for a long time.
with my thoughts and the moment.
i have years worth of things to look through and sort out.
letters, diary's, poems memories.
i am moving quite slowly.
my daughter was late into school this morning as i overslept having got to bed late and sleeping badly.
the headmistress made me cry by asking why i was late to which i responded 'sorry], i over slept'
to which she said drumming her nails on the surface 'shall we write that you overslept?'
to which i said 'you can write what you want, that i overslept, that i am a bad mother. i am grieving. it's good that i got my daughter here at all'
to which she responded with sympathy and apologised and talked with me for some moments and ended nearly crying and telling me i was doing a great job. she lost her mum. i guess everyone loses someone or everyone until someone loses you.

i just find it difficult to care right now about lateness. i have got her to school on time all week and everyone can suck eggs.

loss

is when someone you have been talking to, maybe someone you know well or even love,
 gets off the train.
they are gone and you are there still in the carriage which echoes with the time you just shared.
the conversation still ringing in the air.
you are there still but they are not with you any more.
the transition was them leaving the train and it only took a moment.
then they were just gone.

some comfort in this is that while they seem to be gone
they have only got off the train and they are going somewhere else.
you still love each other
you are just not in the same space any more.

could that be like loss?

years ago rachel and i were on the train talking to our cousin
then he got off the train.
death is like that my sister said.
when someone gets off the train
and the moment you shared is finished for now.

DAILY BUSINESS

it is so strange losing such an integral part of me- my sister. it is difficult to imagine life going on.
i am still living in an altered reality where the day itself is an obstacle. i feel it almost impossible to dust myself off and carry on with plans and dreams when my sister has been laid to rest.
i could tell her anything. anything at all. everything and i don't really have another person like that who i knew so well. we shared the same upbringing; a bedroom; our parents. we understood one another's language. if i was having a bad time i could turn to her. and visa versa.
i keep on picturing her kitchen and us chatting animatedly about things. stuff. us singing together; laughing together. to accept really that that is over is like a bullet in part of my brain. a part of me has also died with my sister.

so stressed

this is the most slow moving horribleness i have ever known and it is very stressful.
i am in constant mourning for my sister and yet the carrying on bit is so difficult.
the kids needs do not mix well with this and i feel i am constantly snatching time for long drags on cigarettes and gulps of wine before i can so much as help with homework or read a bedtime story which i now must do.

even if there is a heaven

i still have to just not see my sister ever again.
i have to get on with my life without her in it.

i have to say good bye.
i have to accept that she is not coming back.
i have to accept she is a memory that i can't touch
the memories i have can never be repeated again.

she didn't beat the dreadful illness.
it consumed her in the end.
despite our hope and hope and hope

despite her plans and hope for the future

despite her achievements
despite her child

she still had to go

brick wall

now at 9 40 pm my glimpse of heaven has turned into a brick wall.
who knows what tomorrow will be like.
each day is elation or despair.

a glimpse of heaven?

This time last week i kept my daughter at home. i woke up late and could barely drag myself out of bed and have no recollection of how we spent the day.
this morning was different. despite my over reliance on alcohol in the evening i was up bright and early at 6 30 to get my big son up for school. our nephew sweet D had stayed over and he got up bright as a button with a smiling face to snuggle on the sofa for some tv cosyness with his fave cousin- my boy- and eating 'choclate sandwiches and hot choclate'.
my daughter and baby 5 and 1 yrs were up next and somehow we all got out the door and to school one way or another- my daughter to hers in new cross and my nephew to his in Greenwich- a bit late but fine i think.

the weekend just gone was very bleak and felt like i was walking blind through a fog of distress and despair.

yesterday i visited my sister's grave and later offered to have her son- my first and only nephew - to sleep over. i knew this would help me have the motivation to get up in the morning.

it worked. i had this tiny slither of sunshine in my home; this part of my sister in my home where the love i had for him was new and as though somehow i was seeing him through his mothers eyes.

on the way to taking him to his school in Greenwich i had a glimpse of a possible heaven.

i suddenly felt it as a real and very possible place.

the passport sadly for us, is death, but this glimpse- which is fast escaping from my mind like a dream-
suggested that we are all born to die and yet it is in the dieing that we really live. and i know this is weird and would make a great movie if i could just get my head round it, but this really worked for me. imagining this place where we exist in the perfect form with no human concerns and.....

anyway its kind of slipped away i know i will see it clearly another day when i am more receptive.

falling apart

i am so frayed my nervous system is all over the place. i have strange ache in my ankle and my temper is fragile. i am fragile. my kids seem to need me more than ever and yet i feel slightly aspergic when surrounded by them.

i have been overdoing it all weekend. enduring the days and then drinking the nights away and drowning myself in my sorrows. grief is so strange. it is a bit like banging your head against a brick wall.
you want sometimes to kick and scream at the universe and feel so angry that the sky remains blue and unchanged and walls and doors sit as they always have and people wander around excited by the spring and the hope of summer, wearing t shirts and looking happy.

having to carry on being a mum when all i can see in my minds eye is the burial plot covered with an abundance of flowers is so difficult. one minute we were talking i was doing my sisters feet on my parents sofa and we talked of our trip to ramsgate; the next i am standing at her graveside and cannot hear her voice in the breeze no matter how hard i try.

 the grave yard is beautiful and was sunny today. she is near a white blossom tree. is is like village of death with people tending to the graves and conversing silently with their loved ones instead of making them a cup of tea or talking about the weather it is quite strange how we go to these graves and lovingly wipe the crosses and breathe in the silent quietness of the present.. i know that really my sister is not there but that little piece of land has become the most precious place on the earth for me right now as it contains the 37 year old body that held the vibrant warm and loving spirit of my sweet sister who i grew up with and argued with and cried with and laughed with .

bathed in yesterdays excess

it was a birthday celebration yesterday i was 34 and drank copious wine. today it has been useful to be hung over it has been like a sedative that has stopped me seeing the cruel light of day.

yesterday i had a melt down in asda on the old kent road.
i might write about it another day but not feeling it right now.

it just involved me blubbering and having a panic attack.

THE IRONY

i started this blog some time ago to write stuff down because it was all to much in my head. i didn't know what i wanted to write so just wrote. my sister who has gone was a writer she wrote so much. she has novels and poetry in abundance which i am yet to read because they were going to be published and she was writing them and completing them. she was very encouraging about me writing and told me to just write.
the irony of this blog is that at first i wrote so much shit about how terrible my life was. about my domestic life. i never wrote about her illness because i didn't want o give it a voice to encourage it to exist. i denied in many ways that she even was ill so that it might go away.
in my whole year of counselling my sorrows were so strong but i only broke down about my sister when she entered 'critical care' after her bone marrow transplant and all i could see when i saw life was a tombstone.
then she recovered from that and hope sprung again.
then she really did go.
the hope slipped away with her. and now i write this blog and have so much to say. and its so cruelly ironic that my very sister is the subject of my blog. and yet she is not here with us right here next to me where i want her to be. i try to let warmth cover me imagining she's at my side and even think maybe she is.

it is my birthday

we are in my kitchen listening to our sister's music and drinking wine and I have made Shepard pie which i don't want to eat.
the reality seems wrong and everything is different.
I feel like god has kicked my family in the teeth with a large steel toe cap boot on. we have looked up gratefully and innocently with love in our hearts and crash shatter pain our teeth have been shattered.
why has god done this to us i say?
Amelie my poor daughter witnessing this sadness says 'mummy you are awake in heaven, you are alive in heaven'.
from the mouths of babes?

each hurdle brings her no closer

first it was coping with the drive home from the hospital with a feeling completely the opposite to leaving following a birth. that endless joy and promise of new life. driving to the hospital i had the radio on with the hope that music from our growing up days might revive the possibilities of her getting better, pulling through.
it was past midnight the streets were dark i was probably slightly over the limit. i stopped for red lights i drove fast over speed bumps. i hared up the road and fast parked to be there for her. running like a woman possesed up the deserted hospital stepped. i could save her if anyone could. that's what we all thought.
driving home some hours later with a sister for support i was shaky and shocked to put it lightly. it was  a new dawn a sad dawn. for us a tragic dawn. we were encased in a sense of unreality. we hugged on the steps of the hospital leaving our sister behind there with no more breath.
what a strange morning.
i had made tea for my brothers and sisters while we had waited in the intensive care waiting room at kings. we waited for hope to win out against despair and making tea had been a comfort, a way to settle frayed anxiety and sorrow.

the days that passed then were a haze; a daze. endless evening drinking and despair. anything to cloud the horrid truth that our big sister had gone away to return no more.
then the funeral; the preparations the strange dealing with strange people who trade in death and spaces for the dead to reside. the strange truth of grave diggers waiting to be paid so they can dig a hole.

the planning of her party; fairy lights flowers, photos...her music her singing..
kept me going.
then despair once more. no hope of seeing her again. time marching on.
and then i steeled myself to return to her empty flat once more to take apart the remnants of her life. to see the orphaned belongings and to make light work of a most distressing reality.
now i am cold. and driven by a impulse to be resilient.
just now.

i thought you'd always be around

and when i think of little things to do with you around my house it hits me on a certain level how i can never speak to you again and be in receipt of your attention which is so attentive and real. and i can never again show you how i cherish you and think you are so talented, gifted and beautiful with a heart of gold.
and it breaks my heart a little more and furrows my brow and makes me understand a little more of pain i have never known before, a pain which expounds the hopeless lack of control we have over death and how it takes us from each other and stops the bubbling vitality and leaves us bereft. and we are left to walk alone or more lonely until it is our time and we will maybe never know where you have gone.

monday nearly done

i plan to go to bed early tonight and get the kids up properly to school. i suppose i need to face up to doing this stuff eventually it's just difficult imagining doing the same normal things i did before although my reality has altered completely.
none of my family are coping very well at all without our eldest sister; first born daughter.
we are all falling apart. one sister describes it as feeling like she has been in a terrible car crash with no physical scars.
we are traumatised.

didn't get daughter to school

she turned five on Saturday and really should be at school. i have always been pretty good at getting kids to school even when things are really bad. today i woke up to late. my son got off alright. he's at secondary school. but not my daughter.
i think i need to pull myself together.

could not sleep

finished off some rum that i found and think of my sis rubi who is no longer.
got to get up and get kids to school in the morning.
she was so damn ill.
it was sick how ill she was.
we somehow believed she was getting better.
but one day she got this dreadful diagnosis then it descended into a mayhem of chemotherapy; bone marrow transplants and general misery.
she was so ill. it is so unfair.
i really thought she was gonna pull through, get better and we could start up where we left off.
but instead we have a mound of flowers and a huge bill.
i can't believe how life and death comes down to money.
it's sick the way it all ends.

maybe just for us left behind. i don't know.

sister back to uni

went to Brighton to see youngest sister off to university her first time back since our eldest sister left this mortal coil. Didn't get to the seafront but had lunch in a pub then saw her digs- very cosy, then a rainy sleepy drive back to London. Now back in rainy new cross.

this is a very odd time in which it is difficult to imagine feeling any enthusiasm for life what so ever.
i am hoping i can get simple things done like kids fed, washed and dressed and off to school on time.
then begins the very sad fact of needing to gather together things belonging to our sister and shifting them from her old flat.

i will have to steel myself to help with this and it will be very difficult. it makes my stomach turn just thinking of how we will do this and how it will ram home again, the fact i cannot bring myself to accept.

two of my sisters went to visit her final resting place - of sorts- and said that it was strange and felt wrong.
i too will go but am not really looking forward to it.
on the day she was left there i had to drink whisky to create a veil between me and the truth of the reality in front of me.

i don't feel i can get back to normal.

my daughters birthday tomorrow and i feel quite bleak. the days are so slack and with no elastic, no give. we got the phonecall and nothing will ever be the same. i have managed to get through this day on the adrenaline of preparing a last minute party for amelie and cousins/ extended family but i really feel quite miserable and sad and comfort-less.

i have not had enough wine to help this.
i don't think any more wine will help anyway.

i woke this morning at 4 and lay awake. i could not sleep so got up to tidy up a bit. i switched on the radio and a song called sister heroine was playing with words like - god took you away.... if you are looking down on me, i love you, i love you.....
 i felt momentarily warm and comforted and that stayed with me some of the day but now the sorrow has crept back in to my chest and the coldness of not having you permeates everywhere.

i am so sad.

time will not heal

i hate those words right now, i don't want time to heal this gaping wound.
i hate that time marches on and it's weeks since my sister went from me.

time is solid like thick invisible bricks
and i daydream about heaven.

'space is infinite' my sweet son tells me.

and i think time is something we don't understand.

the priest told us Rachel is at a massive jazz cafe type world influenced music banquet.

i like to think of that and imagine that she is at a banquet like he said, where there is no fear of hangovers; cancer; murder; addiction, death. i like to think she can see us here weeping and stony faced with grief and with her old Scottish auntie Mary and her grand ma Margaret (when she's not jamming with Bob Marley and Amy Winehouse or getting deep with Jesus or dancing with Mary(the virgin) or hanging out with Charles dickens and giving him writing advice, i like to think then that she sees us and smiles wanly. cause she knows that it will be just a minute until we see her because we don't understand time. i mean we see stars that have been dead for some time -i think- we don't know about time. she is sad for us but not a sadness that we understand it is a sadness that has no anxiety to it.

Rachel you are here with me while i write this, i think i feel your comforting loving arms on my shoulder you can see me and you are telling me do not be afraid. i think you are my Jesus.

it's just in the daytime rach when i drive through the streets i thought were mine and they are alien, and life feels like a weight around my neck; a sentence that i must endure until i die. and the injustice of us not having you is so unfair i want to stamp my feet and cry like a baby.

i think of maddie macann's parents how they live in a death since their baby disappeared.
i don't know why i think of them but i suppose i think of how they have to carry on even with their relationship. Stephen Lawrence - i know rachel will have met him (and Emily Dickinson and everyone all the victorian street urchins; everyone -

then i suddenly think of how will everyone fit in heaven. my heaven is clearly very eurocentric plus america.
then i imagine all the trillions of people from the beginning of time and the banquet would be really odd.

i have had some wine so this heaven has been easier to contemplate. but i know that in the day in the cruel light of day that i have to endure the opaque deafeningly silent and unanswerable skies. if i call out your name there is no answer just the silence after my cry. it reminds me of the depressing and miserable psalms in the bible. 'i am crying out in the wilderness lord, why won't you answer me' etc etc and i just think why won't you answer me god, rachel. just answer. but there is nothing.

i don't know.

this is too bad

i am caked in sludge. i am afraid i am consumed with dead grief.
spring was here today and i have never liked its approach less.
the misty air and people appearing more jaunty and clothed in fewer things are so at odds with the immense sorrow i have on my chest suffocating me.

i can hear neighbours in my adjacent garden scraping shovels  and welcoming the sunshine back.
while my garden contains the beauty of renewed life the depression within me cannot love it.

not while my sister lies far away and i only have images of her but not her.

how dear god will i manage to go on?
my sons first birthday was some days ago and i managed eventually to celebrate it. it was quite easy as he had no idea and by the evening i was able to bake a cake and blow up ballons.

my daughters birthday is on saturday.
i have alreasy abandoned my idea of hiring a local hall for a massive party.
how can i do this?
she will be five.
but i am afraid i won't be able to do it.
i pray for strength.

i have drunk copious wine and cried many tears tonight and now i am going to bed with heavy heart.

no school

i am wide awake and the kids are too except my girl who has finally fallen asleep on the sofa. my two boys and man are still awake. i went to the local shop for more wine. i am not ready to be clear minded and will not send the children to school tomorrow the grave is too fresh in my mind. i hate the way they look with a mound of mud on top. the grave diggers hover like vultures.  it is so cruel the mix of this with the lofty heaven of saying goodbye. so primitive are our customs.