23rd October 2007

I have come across an old Blog post of mine that I have not read since we found out you were coming. Now you know it took us a while of trying and it was not an easy time. But I always had this in my mind, have a read and see what you think of it -:

There has been some history of contact with my mother since she passed away. Not for a while and it has mostly been getting together in dreams and having long conversations. One time she was pregnant, the next time there was a woman in the same room as her and she got up and walked past without looking once at me. I got this understanding then that this was her but a different person, not one im likely to meet.
My feeling is that we can be inexorably led to things when we invest our thought processes on that subject. I came across this site http://www.worlditc.org/ about contacting people after they die via radio, TV etc. Fascinating experiments and one that cannot be dismissed so easily. Anyway, while working i had my headphones on as usual but nothing actually playing. Suddenly i became aware of the background noise because of a few spikes in the sound. Now i am not trying to tell you that i was being contacted or anything like that. It just brought me back to thinking about the subject. I got up and went to heat up my lunch. Whilst standing there I started to think about Mum and was experiencing some of the physical sensations i got after she died in hospital. Im a take things as they come kind of guy, i also keep a balanced head whilst not taking anything as a given. I said hello to her and i then asked her to help me with a particular issue i wont bring up here. I suddenly got this nearly overwhelming sense of hapiness and started to smile and laugh. Nothing in my rational brain could determine why i was laughing, i had no particular thought to trigger it. I shook my head and told her "Ok, ill take that" and got my food and started writing this. I cant shake the feeling that this was all kind of too easy and too coincidental. The most interesting part of all this is the physical aspect. I have not had this feeling in my heart and gut area since the night she died. I wont try to intellectualise this incident. As i told Mum, ill just take it as it is and move on. I had a sense that the answer to my question was yes, so i guess its just a matter or waiting and seeing.

Well here we are now and im sure you have worked out what the question was. So thanks Mum, you rock.

Thinking about big moments also made me think about how people focus on the grand statements instead of the everyday. My Dad is like that, he thinks that as long as he makes the required gestures such as calling on birthdays and coming over enough so he can say he does visit that this is enough. This is not enough, not by a long shot. The same applies to my aunties with Sadie. They occasionally invite her over or take her out to dinner and this is supposed to be enough? Time is the true measure of love and support. If you are not available for a person, if you are not seeing them as often as is possible and taking an active interest in their life, then the birthday card means nothing, the occasional visit will be pleasant but devoid of anything meaningful and deep between you. I am a little hard line about this and I don’t exclude myself. I have been a little brutal at times in culling friendships that don’t measure up to these standards, either because I don’t put in the effort or the other person doesn’t. You have to be a little careful with this because sometimes your lives just aren’t in sync at particular phases of your life. Jan is a perfect case. Its been 10 years or more since I have properly hung out with her but now that we are both in the family way, we have things in common. Before that I found that even when we socialised she was always distracted and looking for someone more interesting to talk to. This annoyed me because I consider myself to be an interesting conversationalist but I do require people to put in a little effort themselves and to keep their wits about them. I also don’t like small talk which is probably why I make certain people uncomfortable. So I have often been accused of being distracted. I think Jan was probably doing the same, it makes me think that I need to give people a little more time, some more small talk until they are comfortable. Then again some people never move past small talk. Boring.