Do you know what’s harder than being in the soul crushing fog of grief? Coming out of it. Overall in life, things are starting to normalise a little more. You know that thing where your kid’s been sick and he’s not well enough to go to school yet but he’s […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
When we are not telling Elliot the Dragon stories on the way to school, I tell Elliot stories from my childhood. It’s a way of me being known by him, and he frequently requests them. They always start the same way, “Once upon a time, there were four little girls. […]
I knew I had to make a plan for my 36th birthday, or else I would just end up doing nothing, which didn’t feel right. I thought I’d like to do something celebratory, to take what Red Twin taught me and apply it. And my mentor Moyra had written to […]
It’s my 36th birthday this month. See how I used ‘my’ there? 35 birthdays have been ‘ours’, but this one is only mine. I think some people have this idea that twins limit and squash one another, that if they could disentangle themselves from one another, they would be more […]
Meet Jesus at uni 