While the world turned

It’s been five years since I left you in the fading summer of 2006.

The clocks stopped for me on that day.  And for you, I guess, it must have felt the same, at least for a little while.  We had lived as if this love would last forever.  In the days before my fiftieth birthday, it was made clear that we were wrong.

While the world continued to turn, I slept; finally at peace and free of pain.  I liked it here.  The garden is so quiet and my rest so rarely interrupted.  Time stands frozen and only the days when you come to leave me flowers stand out. 

Of course, I wish that you, my precious daughter, could have been spared these visits, these flowers, and the river of tears that flow with such consistency; and that I could have seen my daughter’s children run and play on another patch of grass.  But here is not a place where dreams come true.  There is no more story, lurking in the shadows, waiting to be told.

Sometimes you came around and told your children stories about me, huddled close together on a nearby bench.  But the echo of your voice and their laughter would always quickly fade and find itself replaced by the long silence of half lived lives. 

Today, you see, everything is yesterday for me and never holds the promise of a tomorrow – always memories and never hope.  

Still, it’s good to see you here again; once more reminded of a life that lies outside these garden walls.

I can see my sisters also in the distance.  How they make me smile.  It’s been hard for them too, I guess.  But, in the end, it’s you that has always and will always make the difference to who I was and the story that was mine to live.  In the end, my end, it was you that made my life complete.

I can hardly believe it has been five years already.  Has it really been that long?  

There is a sadness in your eyes that wasn’t there before.  But it is time to take a long look at yourself.  Don’t you see?  Is it not clear to you yet?  As the world has turned, you have grown, almost without noticing, into the mother that I always dreamed the best of me could be.

Today, we are called upon to say another goodbye, as one hundred million fragments of who I was are scattered on the ground.

And just in case you say that nothing now could come to any good, do remember this!  You are my good and the very best of who I was lives on.

Lovingly,

Maman.

When I hold your hand

We now walk to school, except when it is raining or we happen to be feeling lazy.

After a frantic hour of getting up, getting dressed and getting fed, we say our sweet goodbyes and plod our way up the hill towards the school that is just five minutes away.

The last words before the door slams shut are always the same - 'Mummy, you smell of strawberries!' (don't ask why) - but no sooner have my little girls begun their journey, their attention turns to the walk in hand: the dog that always barks at number 52, the car with painted polar bears at number 34, and the 'secret passage' we recently discovered that cuts through onto the main road which runs past the entrance to the school.  They continue to insist that this route should never be revealed to anyone - particularly their older brother, who tends to walk too fast anyway.

My youngest daughter is also the slowest when it comes to walking.  If you ask her, she'll explain that this is simply the natural order of things. 'In fact,' she once explained, 'I have the smallest name - just three letters - because I am the smallest in my family.'

To help her along, I offer her my hand.

And this is when I start to think, every day.... every single day.

It's a gift to have these moments in time that are not at all about being anywhere or doing anything, but simply enjoying the 'middle distance', the in-between-ness, and the pleasure of the journey.  No to-do lists.  No phone calls to make or bills to pay - just time to travel together and smile at the weird and wonderful worlds of our neighbours.

And in holding these still small, sometimes sweaty, hands, I take a moment to think about every one of my children - the hands that are not always next to me and those that are already too old to hold without a significant degree of awkwardness.

That's the tricky part - the sense of loss that never quite goes away.

Somewhere on the horizon of my story, I know that there will come a day when I get myself up, get dressed, get fed, shut the door behind me and walk to work.  And how I will miss those sometimes sweaty, sometimes cold, sometimes sticky, often grubby little hands.  No more will we stop to stroke neighbour's cat or explore secret paths.  It'll simply be a case of going from A to B.

And if the story unfolds in such a way that a noble prince one day asks for my daughter's hand in marriage, I'll only have one thing to say.

Look after it with all the strength you possess.  Hold it tightly every day.  And always remember to enjoy the journey together, keeping a watchful eye out for secret passages.

A daughter’s view on motherhood

Every interview tells a story and this is no exception.

As parts of the world prepare to celebrate Mother’s Day this weekend, it is my pleasure to share the fragments of understanding that one of my 6-year old daughters revealed during a recent interview at school.

This short interview teaches me one, important thing:  Despite the apparent complexity of modern family life, there is a simplicity to it all that perhaps only our children can reveal to us.

The rest needs no more explanation.  

1. Why did God make mothers?
Because he wanted everyone to have a mummy.  One baby grew into a mummy and that mummy had a baby.  Then that baby grew into a mummy and had a baby.

2. What ingredients are mothers made of?
Babies, bones and skin.

3. Why did you get your mother and not some other mother?
Because I was in my mummy’s tummy.

4. What kind of little girl was your mother?
She liked Barbies.  She played in her bedroom a lot.

5. What did your mother need to know about your father before she married him?
She needed to know my dad’s name first.

6. Why did your mother marry your father?
She talked a lot with my dad and got in love with my dad.

7. Who’s the boss of your house?
My dad.

8. What the different between mums and dads?
Mums like to hug and kiss a lot.  Dads like to work a lot.

9. What does your mother do while you are at school?
She goes to work and sometimes she eats lunch at home to be with the dog.  At work I think she writes e-mails to people like my dad.

10.  If you could change one thing about your mother, what would it be?
Nothing.

What's on your list?

At this time of year, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this is a question of your Christmas wish-list.  But you’d be wrong.

My six-year old daughter was in a far more philosophical mood yesterday as we sat talking over lunch.

‘Dad,’ she said, whilst reaching for another slice of cheese, ‘I still have loads of stuff I cannot do.  I can’t tie my shoelaces; I can’t juggle; and I have no idea how to drive a car.’

And before I could even begin to reassure her, she continued:

‘However, I do know how to draw a dinosaur; I can certainly make a model of Buzz Lightyear out of boxes; and I think I even know how to make a cup cake machine.’

I was momentarily stuck by the thought of what a cup cake machine might actually look like, but it sounded delicious nevertheless.

More seriously, though, it got me thinking about how much of our lives we spend making lists.  Sooner or later, of course, ‘learning to tie our shoelaces’ begins to feature less heavily.  However, as we build our Résumés (lists of professional achievements) and refine our Top-10 places to visit before we die, it’s clear that we never quite kick the habit.  It’s as if we need somehow to locate our place in the story by constantly looking back on how far we’ve come and looking forward to what still lies further down the path.

And our love of list-making doesn’t stop there.  Today, we can enjoy everything from the David Letterman Show, to iTunes’ playlists and Facebook’s 25 Random Things About Me, not to mention more run of the mill long-lists, short-lists, grocery lists, laundry lists, and Christmas wish-lists that fill up our day-to-day lives.

So, what’s going on?  Why the modern obsession with putting everything into a series of bullet points?

David Wallechinsky, co-author of the Book of Lists, first published in 1977, tries to explain:

"People are attracted to lists because we live in an era of overstimulation, especially in terms of information and lists help us in organizing what is otherwise overwhelming."

I used to think that, when faced with life’s limits, our natural default was to tell stories.  I now realize that this is not entirely true and that there is always the option to start a list.

Back, though, to the lunchtime discussion with my daughter. 

I’m guessing that, if he were with us now, Wallechinsky would say that, faced with the limitations of her age, she was simply trying to organize and make sense of a world that is quickly becoming complex and difficult to predict; falling back and drawing comfort from her proven ability to draw a dinosaur and design a cup cake machine.

And as my little girl continues her afternoon play routine, I can only conclude that she and I, in the end, are exactly the same.  Without our lists, we will soon forget how far we’ve come.  Without our lists, we will soon find ourselves overwhelmed by how short life is and how much there is left to do.

One step away from effective parenting

It's taken ten years for me to face up to the fact that I'm a step-dad.

Ever since Cinderella's dysfunctional family shot into the public eye, I'm afraid that step-parents have had a bad press. And unlike the 'real thing', it seems that the story just keeps on repeating itself.  Feelings of jealousy and resentment abound and no one can quite find their place.

Ten years that I've been playing this supporting role to one of our children and, to be honest, I don't think I've done much to alter the reputation of our breed.  Looking back, in fact, I only seem to be able to remember the days when we sat looking at each other from across the dinner table, as if existing in different worlds.

Of course, I never refer to myself as a 'step-dad'.  That feels far too Dickensian and, unlike poor Cinderella, her 'real' dad still lives just around the corner.  At the same time, though, I have begun to think that this whole business of step-parenting is appropriately summed up in the name.

Let me explain with four simple, connected ideas.

1. Step in parenting

It all starts when we step into the gap left by a parent that's no longer around.  Rarely is it our primary motivation for sitting around the family table.  It just comes with the territory of this new relationship. 

And within a matter of days we find ourselves making the packed lunches, doing the school run, and reading bedtime stories in a language that is not our own.  We want to make this work - so for the love of another, we roll up our sleeves and rush right in.

2. Step back parenting

To the outsider - those who naively observe us in the local supermarket - we'll soon resemble any other 'normal' family as we discuss the merits of still and sparkling water in isle 17.  Truthfully, though, if you had interrupted and interrogated me at any time during the past ten years, I'd have probably said that I was nothing more than an 'extra' in this particular episode of family life.  I'd have taken you to one side and told you in no uncertain terms that I was still waiting for the permanent contract.

What I wouldn't have told you was how difficult I was finding being a 'pretend' dad to a young child whose 'real' dad would regularly knock on the door unannounced.  As she ran into his arms, all I could do was  step back into the shadows and reflect on how fake I felt.

3. One step away parenting

Have you ever tried to build a house of cards. Despite what you see on the tv, it's hard to get beyond three cards.  And rather than being an enjoyable pastime, you tend to spend most of your time picking up the pieces and arranging back them in their proper order.

I don't know about you, but I have a growing feeling that the same is true with step-parenting.  No matter how carefully, how sensitively, we build the relationship, we face an almost impossible construction task. We dream that one day we'll build the Eiffel Tower, but in truth we're only ever one tiny step away from collapse and those dreadful, menacing, show-stopping words. 

You're not my real dad, anyway!

Even if I've been a step parent since forever - at least as far as my children are concerned - the absence of those blood ties appears to be a chronic, destabilising factor in the story of our family that constantly leads us straight back to square one. 

4. Step by step parenting

So how does this story end?  It's clear to me now that the odds are stacked against the likes of us; and, equally, that I'm not going to be voted 'Step-Dad of the Year' any time soon.

And yet I haven't given up hope.  I haven't lost sight of the goal that, when we both look back on the family life we had, we'll consider ourselves fortunate to have shared the same table, been part of the same story, and written our futures together.

And for now, I'll simply focus on being a one-step-at-a-time parent, waiting for my big break.