Skip to main content

I am Here

I am Here

I'm sitting on a wooden bench at a table in a large, family-sized cabin at McLaren Falls Park http://www.bayofplentynz.com/Tourism-Bay-Of-Plenty/McLaren-Falls-Park_IDL=3_IDT=1378_ID=9268_.html  I'm spending the night with 2 other widowed mums and 7 children. We've just celebrated Jared's 12th birthday with a chocolate cake decorated to look like a soccer field. Jared would later vomit his dinner and the cake. Poor birthday boy.

I played a game of flashlight (or "torch," in Kiwi) hide-and-seek with the kids. And I've downed 3/4's of a bottle of Gewurtztraminer I bought while in Hawke's Bay last weekend. A fire is burning in the stove – it's so warm I removed my souvenir "Australia" sweatshirt and sit here in a tank top and jeans.

Another mum, Janet, tells me the cabin's made of wood called Lockwood...it expands and contracts. She says it goes "bang" in the night (thanks for the tip – I would've freaked). Earlier, Janet told me her husband, Jeff, died 12 years ago of Motor Neuron Disease. While he was sick, he wrote a book with a special computer using his big toe. "Oh," I said. Janet described how Jeff had lost the ability to talk and swallow. "It sounds like ALS," I said. "Yes," Janet said. "It was Lou Gehrig's Disease. You call it ALS in the States." Oh my God.

You cling to the present. Hold onto the gift. Think about this moment...this moment.... I am here. I am here. I am here. I'm in New Zealand. I'm in New Zealand. I'm in New Zealand. Thank you, God. I am here.

Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 28, 2011 at 1:33 PM

    It was a great night. We HAVE to do it again without the rain!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Remove Before Flight

Remove Before Flight “The elevator’s trim, rudder’s trim, mixture’s rich, flaps are at ten degrees…” Pete, the PAHT-nah (partner), is talking through a pre-flight checklist as we wait to taxi from the Tauranga airport. In the nearly 12 months we’ve known each other, Pete’s talked about taking me flying. Now, with my departure from New Zealand less than ten days away, the weather, schedules, and aircraft maintenance have obliged so Pete can fulfill his promise. The sky is overcast, but the cloud ceiling will allow us to fly at 2,500 feet; it’s the weekend, so we’re not competing with flight school students for air time; and there’s a new-ish plane (called FCO, or Foxtrot Charlie Oscar) Pete has enough confidence in to haul what he calls “precious cargo,” which is me. Pete checks the Cessna 152 single-engine propeller aircraft as I watch. He walks the plane’s perimeter, inspecting flaps, wheels, the rudder… He gives me a couple wooden door-stopper-looking blocks (called chocks). “Remo
4 comments
Read more

Murder House

Murder House (MUH-dah House) The deed is done              “I don’t wanna go to the dentist. It’s gonna hurt,” says Fiona. I can hardly deny my eight-year-old the truth, but I can tiptoe around it.             “They’re going to rub medicine on your gums to numb them,” I tell her. “And they can put your tooth to sleep with a needle.”             Fiona gasps, “I don’t want a needle! No!” Oops. I shouldn’t have used the “n” word. Fiona starts her high-pitched screeching if she thinks a needle exists in the next room. When I got the kids immunized in preparation for dragging them round-the-world, Fiona cried as the nurse swabbed her upper arm with iodine. You would’ve thought someone was whacking off her limb with a rusty saw, yet the needle lay feet from Fiona’s body. New Zealand is not the place for dental work for a squeamish, sobbing little girl. I learned after bringing Fiona to a dental clinic during the Christmas school vacation (otherwise known as summer holidays) that sch
9 comments
Read more

The Affair

The Affair Ohope Beach, NZ I had an affair last week. I’m not ashamed to tell you, either. It was sweet and sad. It made me laugh, cry, sigh and dance in my chair to James Brown and Rupert Holmes. My Kiwi PAHT-nah, Pete, even facilitated the tryst, though neither of us knew what to expect beforehand. Pete watched the kids while I was gone for five nights. Five whole nights.  No kids. No TV. No partner.  I enjoyed a dalliance with my late husband, Sean (though I should write instead, ‘dead husband,’ because Sean hated being late). It happened in a wood-paneled house across the street from the ocean, in Ohope Beach, New Zealand. I attended a writer’s retreat to work on the memoir. I revised six sections totaling more than 40,000 words. In the course of revising- subtracting old text and adding entries from letters Sean had written me when we first started dating, plus journal entries he wrote around the time Fiona was born - I fell in love again. With Sean’s openn
2 comments
Read more