Being A Mother

On Mothers' Day every year, mothers are remembered with pride and love, spoiled with gifts and treated with breakfasts and lunches and generally made to feel that there is no one in the world that compares in the eyes of her children.  It is a day like no other for many and how ever big or small the effort made, she can be sure of the love and appreciation her family bestow on her.

For me, Mothers' Day rolls around every year the Sunday after my birthday.  I remember when Matthew was born I just skidded in by the skin of my teeth.  He was born in the very early hours of the Saturday morning and the following day was Mothers' Day.  I was 23 years old and quite unprepared for the state of motherhood.  I remember well though thinking after 8 1/2 hours of labour that if the result of what I held in my arms was anything to go by I would do it all over again tomorrow.  Matthew was a model baby, sleeping and eating his days and nights away and the love I had for him then was miniscual compared to the love I have for him today.  At 31 years of age, I have so much pride in him and all he has been through and survived in his life, as well as all he has achieved.  He was the beginning of my journey into motherhood, a journey I have eased into and grown with over the years.

Twenty two and a half months later, I became a mother for the second time, to Mark.  Second time round and motherhood hit me with a bang.  My pregnancy was different, labour very short but very intense and suddenly I was thrown into the world of sickness and illness almost every day.  Thank goodness Matthew was still so very placid and easy going and getting him 'involved' in helping with his little brother, evolved a relationship that was bound for eternity.  They were like chalk and cheese in personality...Matthew, introverted, quiet, methodical, caring and so very soft hearted...Mark, extroverted, intense, ready for a challenge, giving and loving.  They complimented each other and stuck together through thick and thin.

Third time round, motherhood was sudden...no pregnancy, no nausea, no swelling, no weight gain, no labour pains and NiQi arrived in our lives at 6 months of age.  A sister for two boys - Matthew 6 1/2 years old and Mark 4 1/2.  At first Matthew was unsure of having a little girl around, but seeing her every day in hospital and watching her, he changed his mind and decided that if we were happy then he would be happy.  Mark on the other hand was keen to have a sister, especially one who had something in common with him....cystic fibrosis...

I tried so hard to be the best I could be to 3 very different children.  Giving equal time and attention was tricky at times, especially when Mark needed so much more than either Matthew or NiQi did.  I have to admit that having a supportive husband in Johan who worked and provided  for our family, afforded me the opportunity of being able to be a stay at home mum.  Mark's short life affected us all in different ways.  It made me stronger.  I became a fighter, standing up for my children and striving for the absolute best for each of them.  I learned to hide my emotions and be brave and strong for them, even though at times I was aching and hurting so badly I felt I would die for them if need be.  I wanted them to know they were loved and be able to feel it too.  We baked together, where Matthew proved that beating dough to a pulp with his tiny little hand, produced scones that were tall and light and fluffy.  We built puzzles together, where Mark showed us that he had hours of patience in looking for the pieces to fit in and complete the puzzle.  We read story books before bed...The Ugly duckling, that made Matthew cry every time we read it because he felt so sorry for the duckling that no one loved.  Hansel and Gretel that  Mark knew the words to so well that if I skipped a page, he would tell me so and recite the next part of the story word for word.  The animal story books that NiQi would always choose and started her on the path to loving everything that breathes today.  We set up shops and would go 'shopping' and buy our goods from each other, using monopoly money to pay.  We 'built' tents in the lounge with all the bedding and cushions and then would lie together inside, giggling and nudging each other.  Most of all I loved it when they all were safely tucked up in bed and I could watch them breathing so peacefully.  That was when I re-packed their toys, counting puzzle pieces and meccano pieces.  My favourite of all was to pack away NiQi's dolls, dressing them and putting them to bed, or combing her Barbies hair till it frizzed and shone.

Yes I love Motherhood and I wouldn't swop it for the world, it has been the best part of my life and I will enjoy it until the day I die.  Thank you to my children...Matthew, Mark and NiQi...you are and were each unique and in your uniqueness you have given me more than I could ever hope for, more than I deserve...

May this be my last move...

Another week has passed and it's been another week of cleaning, packing, washing, emptying cupboards and painting.

I am so glad that we still have two months to sort things out before we move but our idea of doing as little as possible to the place has changed to making it as liveable as possible.

I am sure that the new owners will move in and want to change wall colours and/or renovate but at least I know that when I leave here we are leaving them with something they can easily move into and not feel they might need to make changes right away.

The roofs are painted as are the gutters and the down pipes. Johan fixed the front verandah roof of the flat which was damaged when I drove into one of the poles with the bakkie some years ago....don't ask...it happens quicker and easier than you think. All the windows have been re-puttied, glass panes replaced where needed and window frames painted. The patch on the main house front verandah ceiling where rain came through from the roof gulley during a torrential storm earlier last summer has been cleaned, given undercoat and the whole ceiling repainted. The toilet is painted and I'm busy with the bathroom at the moment.

There is still lots to do.....the rest of the ceilings must be painted and all the rooms walls painted too....no more colour, just a neutral off white. Lastly the burglar guards must all be scraped down and painted. The days are filled and progress is slow but as I said we still have time.

Thank goodness winter is on it's way and the grass doesn't need cutting. The horses are keeping the grass nice and short so at least there is little that needs to be done around the house. During the summer months as I saw weeds popping up I pulled them out.  Just the vegetable garden will need to be tidied...that is if the rabbits don't quite get their job done before they go to a new home. Before we leave we will fill in the holes the dogs have dug and fix up the fences from the horses, but that is one days work and can be done last minute.

It's not like we have moved a lot in our 33 years...that is compared to some people but this will be our third. The first was from Curran Street on the outskirts of town to Winterskloof up the hill and down in the valley. In the 12 and a half years we lived there Johan rebuilt the whole house on the inside, other than the bathroom. The house was old...built around the time of the first world war. The bathroom was the last room to do but it wasn't done before we put the house on the market.  We moved to a much bigger house with a huge garden so Johan's parents could move in with us. Johan's mum's health was failing and his dad couldn't manage on his own...anyway that's another story. Curran street was awesome and I was very sad to leave but at the time it was the best move under the circumstances. 
Willow Lane on the other hand was built by the Italian prisoners of war during the second world war. The original house was small and compact and over the years it was added on to. When we bought it, Johan loved the character that the building gave but now it annoys him. The narrow passage leading to the bedrooms with it's wonky walls and sloping floor are no longer character but something that has to be changed. After living there for ten and a half years we discovered that the sloping floor of the passage left the bedrooms on the inside below the floor level on the outside causing damp and mildew...not good for anyone's  health at all. Anyway that too is amother story...lol
Our second move was much further away...all the way across two provincial borders from KwaZulu/Natal to Gauteng. The house is small...too small for me but the land is awesome. Oh how we have loved having so much space around us. There is much I have loved about living here and much that has annoyed me... most especially the dryness and the dust that never quite settles but is always swimming in the air.

Now we are moving back home...another 10 and a bit years of our lives together and in all that time we have spent most of our efforts fixing up outside...housing the pigs and the rabbits and the chickens and the horses and the dogs and the birds...everything has had a home, a space of their own and in all this time we have spent little time working on our home...lol.  Till now there hasn't been a great need and even now it is all cosmetic. The foundation is solid, the rooms are fine. A lick of paint is all it really needs to give it a facelift and at least the walls are straight.

We had another buyer come to look at the plot just over a week ago...I hope they noticed our efforts because moving is hard work and I have decided in amongst all this packing up that this move will be our final move...well I certainly hope so, otherwise I may just be living out of boxes...

Lovebirds be Gone...

Sigh....very big sigh....

After having my lovebirds for some years now and recently made the decision to get rid of them, I never imagined that I would feel this way when they were finally no longer around.  I knew that it had to be a quick clean break because the longer they lingered around the more heartbreaking it would be for me to see them go.

The first few pairs went to a friend and I was okay with that because they were only a few birds and I was still left with almost a hundred.

The end of last week I said goodbye to the rest and as they were being caught out of their flights and cages and packed up to go I felt a lump in my throat and tears well in my eyes. Even as I write this my vision is blurred with the memory  of seeing them disappear for ever.

A part of my life has been packed up and gone and this was only the beginning....

Never Think You Are Alone

A couple of days ago  I read a post on Facebook that brought a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye.  You know that feeling when you can actually see yourself walking in their shoes, either because you have already walked that road before or because you know you still have to walk it.  For me it was because I know I still have to walk it and the unknown can at times be pretty scary.

This was the post that I read, and to protect the family involved for their own privacy I have blocked any names mentioned...

This is an exceptional case where convalescence is taking longer than the norm, but as NiQi's doctor has told us, each patient presents as an individual and no two are the same.  The transplant team are learning with each transplant operation and nothing is predictable.  Some bounce back only days after such a major operation and others take so much longer.  No patient can compare themselves with someone else because they are not that person and it is not their body.

Since NiQi's year of exclusion from claiming on her medical aid ended at the end of June last year, we are following the processes and living from day to day.  She has been blessed with the way her health improved for a time, but we know that she cannot continue as she is forever.  In recent months we have noted the use of oxygen more frequently, the loss of energy, the coughing fits, the shortness of breath, the tiredness creeping on and we know that if she wants the life she desires, then a transplant is her only option.  

I have read many posts and blogs and media stories of transplant patients and realize I may think that I know what NiQi is going to go through, but in reality we won't know until it happens.  So reading the post above made me aware more than ever that we have to be emotionally prepared for anything.   The one thing I know that we will able to count on is the love and support of family and friends...just knowing that they stand behind NiQi makes what she goes through on a daily basis all the more bearable.

Sacrifice Is Not Easy....But Necessary

I imagine that only those families who have gone through the process of waiting for a transplant will understand this post but I hope that if you read this you may try to understand.

As you know by now, NiQi, who was born with cystic fibrosis has reached the stage of lung transplant. Having watched her health progress over the years to how she is today, it has been a continuous roller coaster. She stays well for a while, gets sick, goes to hospital, feels better, gets sick and so it goes on. The years of 'wellness' with time became shortened to months in recent years until now we are talking literally a week or two before she starts up again, riding it out until she can have IV's again.

When Mark was still alive we watched the progression come upon us so much quicker until there was a time that his paediatrician told us there was no more they could do for him. Back in 1994/5 lung transplants were still very new and the success rate was very slim so it was that Johan and I decided we did not want him to suffer  any more than he had or was already and the disease took his frail little body at age 9 years.

It is now 20 years later and some years back when NiQi was still a minor and we had very little knowledge of the progression made in the medical field of lung transplants, we would possibly have made the same decision for her as we did for Mark. The decision now though is not ours to make, as NiQi is an adult and well capable of deciding for herself.

I understand fully her desire to have a transplant as she imagines and envisions a life so much better than she has now. Quite selfishly too I picture my life with her being around for so many more years and if she can gain from a transplant then we are 100% behind her.

What we, and I am sure you didn't know is that to get there we have to make certain lifestyle changes. There is a list of 'NO's' that have to be adhered to post transplant, all of which affect NiQi herself  and a few which affect us. For example NiQi may not eat sushi nor biltong, both of which are raw foods and totally forbidden because of it. She may also not eat grapefruit....and she may not be around chickens nor other birds...although birds in the wild do not count I believe and even though we were told this as far back as September it does have an impact on our family. Johan emailed a doctor friend of his to get his opinion and he did confirm this as fact but when birds have been a part of your life as long as they have been a part of Johan's, it is a hard pill to swallow. Questions come to mind in argument of the logistics of keeping them or of being in the vicinity of them. It is understandable that you should not keep them as pets in your home or visit friends or family with the same, BUT, if you live in a town house and a neighbour moves in next door and builds an aviary for homing pigeons or budgies or parrots of some type...would that require you to move home? Say it should happen again some time in the future, would you once more be on the move?  What do those who live in Australia do when flocks of cockatoos reside in your garden and make themselves at home?  This is the enquiring mind of a bird keeper and full time bird lover.  When we visited the transplant team psychologist, this was a question posed to her. Her answer before hearing Johan out, was to get rid of the birds but a further question of whether there may be a suitable distance between the birds and our home was quite complex for her to answer. Living in a semi rural area where the birds can be housed some 800m from the house could in effect be construed as having 'birds in the wild'....we await her answer in anticipation as she promised to ask the surgeon and pulmonologist who is NiQi's case doctor.

In the meantime, we have made a huge decision already while we wait....with our imminent move back 'home', we are going to get rid of all the birds except the budgies. For now we will hold on to them and Johan will build a new bird room at the furthest section of the smallholding, which will be totally enclosed and fitted with extractor fans, air con etc.  When the transplant takes place, if push comes to shove, and it is a definite 'no' then Johan will get rid of the budgies too. No sacrifice is too big or small to preserve the life of our daughter....our precious gift from God.

Packing Up

So now we have established that we are moving on, there is so much packing we need to do.  Boxes are to be collected and filled with a life's accumulation.  I don't need to mention that under the carport we have 15 tubs filled with things that have never had a space to be unpacked into since moving here 10 years ago.  I know at this point some would say that if they have never been unpacked then we may as get rid of whatever is in them, but we can't.  There have been occasions that I have needed something in one of them and have sought out the labelled tub to find what it is I need.  One good thing is that everything in the tubs is already packed up which will save me some time....

I am going room by room and already find I have empty shelves and cupboards, boxes packed and nowhere to go with them.  Space has always been a problem for us here....our home is average size, smaller than we were used to, but things are definitely cramped with furniture and bits and pieces.  Needless to say, we left Matthew with enough furniture to keep him comfortable when we left, the flat is fully furnished for NiQi and both the garage in Willow Lane and the shed here is filled with more furniture.  On the upside, I have been able to move things around and in and out at will, just for a change of scenery!!!

Things on walls that I don't want to leave behind are coming off and being packed in too.  Although we have no definite date as yet to move, I want to be ready.  This time I want to leave with the house properly cleaned...walls washed down, cupboards scrubbed out, floors and carpets cleaned.  Johan needs to fit a new stove in the house before then as the one that was here when we arrived didn't ever work properly and was given away as scrap some time ago.  The gas stove in the flat we will take with us.

When we moved here we were rather rudely pushed out with our tenants opting to move in at the same time as we moved out, instead of at the end of the month which had been agreed upon.  I have decided we will not be pushed around or bullied into leaving when it suits the new tenants...we will make the decision when the time is right and this time we will be sure they will be stuck to....in the meantime there is much to do....

A New Chapter Begins

The last 6 months have brought many challenges about in our lives, which have consumed my mind, my thinking and my energy.  This is the reason that I have not spent much time blogging, not because there is nothing to write about but rather I have not been inclined to.

The events leading up to the here and now, have made up our minds to close the chapter we are currently in and start afresh.

When we made the move here almost 10 years ago, we were both excited and sad.  Excited that we would be a family again, with Johan, NiQi and I together, but ever so sad that we left Matthew behind in KZN.

I confess that this chapter has not been as I had hoped and imagined, but we have made the best of it.  There have been both advantages and disadvantages to living where we are and at the same time I have to remind myself that much of where we are now is brought on by circumstance and the current situation in this country.

I love that we are away from the hub bub of town and the masses of people, the noise and the pollution.  The quiet mornings broken by the bird life waking at dawn and the cool winds that end a stifling hot summers day, have been some my favourites.  The short rain season, the dry winters, the dust storms, dirt and filth are the things that I have not enjoyed about living here.

We arrived with 3 dogs, the koi and a lot of budgies and have had a variety of animals join us over the years.  As with the change in season, some have stayed and some have moved on.  We had our pigs and our sheep, the rabbits, chickens and pea fowl, the koi - new ones from the ones that came with us, squirrels and the tortoises, the dogs and cats, and lastly, the horses and our collection of birds, which started out just being budgies and now is a wide variety of both smaller and bigger birds.  When we leave here we will be taking the birds, dogs, cats and horses....much less than we are used to, but it is time to cut back on the work now

Once settled, we were shocked to find out that our cell phones were our main form of communication as we were immediately plunged into a different life in South Africa where cable theft was and still is rife.  Telkom has long given up on replacing cables that have been repeatedly stolen, leaving inhabitants to the area little choice in telephonic means.

Added to that, comms. are bad here, no matter what cell phone provider is used.  Between the 3 of us we have MTN, Vodacom and Cell C, with each giving their own challenges.  When one network is down, another may be working, but fairly regularly we have battled with none of them at all.  This doesn't only affect use of our cell phones but the internet as well.  We have dongles, but for some reason unknown to us, it is easier to connect directly by turning on tethering and portable WiFi.  At one point in time when Mariana and Bryan were living in the flat, Bryan contacted Vodacom about their poor and slow network service and it transpired that we fell just beyond the boundary of the closest tower to us.  They had plans to, and did erect another tower leaving us falling within its' boundary and it did improve matters immensely for him, and NiQi who is also on their network.  Strangely, we have never had a problem with SABC reception, in fact it is very good and even E-TV has always given a pretty clear picture.

The roads have been a continual problem for us and driving the last 7km on the dirt road that first night we arrived here, the Astra shook until it could shake no more.  Yes, the roads have been unkind to our vehicles these last 10 years.  The engine of the Astra almost fell out with the continual shuddering each trip it made from home and back again.  We have replaced more tyres in the last ten years than we ever did in previous years... it is amazing the number of times we had a 'slow' leak, only to find a nail or some such thing embedded in the rubber.

We have been burgled five times over the years - two times in the main house and three times in the flat.  The worst being just a couple of days after NiQi's 21st birthday whilst she was in hospital having IV treatment. Sadly she had all her presents stolen - most of which were jewellery.

One morning we woke and both our vehicles had been broken into and vandalized.  All the door locks were broken, windows smashed, wiring cut and the batteries swiped.

Yes we have had more to cope with than most in a lifetime, but moving here was an end to a means.  We moved so that NiQi could receive better health care and so we could be together as a family...and that has happened.  She almost hit rock bottom but she bounced back in more ways than one.  She is at last listed for a lung transplant and she has been told that she can live anywhere in the country so long as they know where she is. , There has been good and there has been bad, but now is the time to move on.  Our plan is to go back home...home to KZN...and home to Matthew who too is starting a brand new chapter in his life.  Our prayers are that God will lead us in the right direction -  and we will follow wherever He wants us to be...