“Go and give Mama some gentle touches,” said Arthur to Callum. “She’s feeling sad.” Callum came over to me. “I know why you’re sad, Mama,” he said. “It’s Auntie Red Twin.” Well, it was and it wasn’t. Actually, I was sad because I’d just received the news that some friends […]
I say to Callum as we leave our weekly family dinner, “Say good bye to Pop,” and he hides his face in my leg. It’s too hard. A day later, his craft cat mask is ruined thanks to a brotherly dispute, and he agrees it’s time for it to go […]
We knew our sense of not belonging in Australia would increase with each home assignment, and after almost 7 years in Tanzania, we are definitely feeling it. One big change is that people in Adelaide don’t see us as “one of them” anymore. We are outsiders. We no longer have […]
The second-to-last working track of an RPM (stationary cycling) class is the speed track. The resistance level on the bike is lowered a bit so you can go fast, and then faster. Red Twin always made fun of me for how I close my eyes when I brush my teeth, […]
Here we are at Easter Sunday. Resurrection Day animates the Christian hope, without which our faith is meaningless. Red Twin loved Easter Sunday. My feelings are complicated. I’m not so numb this year. When I think of the resurrection, there is a stirring in me; a feeling wells up, but […]
When Red Twin died, my world collapsed. It wasn’t that she was my whole world, but that grief was so encompassing, it touched everything in my world. You know how in Inside Out there are the ‘personality islands’, the things that make up who Riley is and energise her personality? […]
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 […]
