You have to treat yourself gently when you’re grieving, which can make it hard to find entertainment. I looked for things that were absorbing (to distract from me from my pain for a little while) but not too dark or complex or highbrow, or that had twins or cancer or […]
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
This was a new kind of story I tried with our Elliot on the way to school one morning. I stopped at various points and asked him to make a decision and made up the next part of the story based on that. Once upon a time, there was a […]
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
Some years ago my friend Emily gave us the book ‘Owl At Home’. It’s an early reader collection of short stories, and it’s become something of a classic in our family. In one of the stories, Owl makes himself ‘tear-water tea’ by thinking of sad things and crying until he […]
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
“Maybe we should just go home next year,” Arthur said to me. It was a question of how we can best use our resources. The money we raise for our family’s living expenses is maybe 90% of the entire national staff budget for TAFES. Nationally, there are about 20 staff. […]
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
This day last year, 14th March, we got the call: get to the airport, this is the end. There was a strong possibility Red Twin would die that night while we were making the 30 hour journey. Our family sat at her bedside saying in between her Cheyne Stokes breaths, […]
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Kufa kwa wengi ni harusi means ‘For many, (a) death is a wedding,’ where wedding is representative of a big party. When I first heard this proverb, I assumed it was about people who die, that for them death is a happy thing or a release. It’s not that. The […]
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Once upon a time there was a little dragon called Elliot. He lived in a lovely cave with his Mama Dragon, Dadda Dragon and toddler brother Callum dragon. Their cave had a wonderful big yard that the little dragons loved to play in. Before they lived in this cave with […]
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes