I have been thinking a bit about people that I used to know this week.  People who have died.  I always do, I suppose I’m  a bit of a dweller, but perhaps a bit more lately as I’ve been writing some stuff about cancer.  All my dead people except one had the big C.  So that’s a fair bit of C.  A fair bit of watching people you love being eaten from the inside out, until everything collapses in on itself.

I watched a movie in the late 80s called Less Than Zero, and the chick in it said she had a creepy feeling that her dead loved one (Possibly her Grandfather? My memory is a bit sketchy, it was the 80s after all) were watching her doing stuff.  She was a bit weirded out by it, mainly because she was having lots of sex.

I too think of the people I know who have died, and I imagine that they too are sometimes watching me, but I have made some rules up of what they do and what they don’t see.  Even dead dudes need boundaries.

They don’t watch me in intimate moments, like, going to the toilet or yelling at my kids.  They give my some privacy.

They don’t follow me around when I’m doing boring stuff like waiting for the car to get serviced, or doing the food shopping, although, apparently they do hover when I’m clothes shopping.  Particularly when I NEED those jeans on sale in a size 8.  (They find them and then pour me into them.)

They do sit nearby when I’m upset about them dying, especially when I’m in a secure little place like the car or the shower and think I might have a little cry.  I feel their warm breath in my ear telling me it’s okay to miss them, but that it’s okay to be happy if I want.

The hang out with me when I play the music they like, and I think I can hear them singing along, faintly, just faintly, at the blurry edges of my hearing.

They come and visit when I need a hand with something, especially if it’s a protection-type thing, or something that mortals can’t really help with.  They have superpowers to bend things a little if required.

I have given them some other powers too: they can read minds, so I don’t have to seem like a nutter, having my conversations out loud.  They can also organise things for me if I ask, like shuffle my appointment book around, or to help with the kids.  They can get my kid good blood on transfusion day, as well as a competent doctor who will hit the vein up first go. They keep an eye on my kids when they are out in the world, and help them to be safe.

They help me with; the plot twists of life, being graceful in defeat and they give me a nudge when I need some help to step onto a stage and be unafraid to share my heart. They help me to keep on going when I want to stop, to remember to dream, to let the sun shine on my face before rushing off to the next thing, and to take the time to simply be present for a moment. Most of all, they remind me that no matter what happens, life is a gift and the present is something that must be held gently and sweetly as it’s the only thing I truly have.

Noosa River- My thinking place

The evil geniuses copped it a bit today… I might have been up singing Sing Star until around 1am.  And I might have been a little bit tired today.  So I might have been a little bit hasty in imposing a house-wide technology ban, given that a free-for-all-technology-a-rama would have been like having a virtual aspirin.

Anyway, we reap what we sow, and once a thing is banned in this joint there can be no going back.  I know what you’re thinking: just ‘unban’ it.  No.  Consistent follow-through is what is needed people.  Even at the expense of my brain cells clanging against each other with every small head movement.

So after the banning, they had to play.  Together.  Which, of course can go either way.

During Witching Hour (aka Wine Hour) I was preparing dinner and they decided to play some newly invented game: Mousey Jumpy or something.  Basically it involved them jumping over cushions in the lounge room, which is tiled.  Unit One set up the cushions and Unit Two (the least co-ordinated of the two) had to jump over them.  Onto tiles.  From the vantage point of my advanced age, wisdom and clingclangcrashing head, I just knew what was going to transpire, and I was faced with the parent dilemma: Let ’em do it and sort out the broken teeth later, or stop them for the sake of peace, and stifle their learning just a little bit.

I left them to it.  (Cringe)

Can you guess what happened?  Something extraordinary, that’s what.

As Unit Two was saying she couldn’t make one of the jumps, her big brother, who is mostly snide and often bossy toward her, said, “It’s okay Mousey, it doesn’t matter if you don’t make it the first time, just keep on trying.  Don’t say you can’t do it, you have to believe in yourself Mousey.  Come on, give it a go, and visualise your success.”

What?

Who said that?

Did a commentator from The Superbowl sneak in, and broadcast through my son’s mouth?  Did aliens abduct my children and place themselves here in their place, waiting to suck out my dehydrated corpus callousum as I sleep this evening?  What just happened?

          Dear Aliens,    

          I want my children back.  Now please.  This is freaking me out.  

          Love