Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Mum – Part 9

Already the morning routine has changed with June’s early pre-dawn departure and John arrival yesterday afternoon.

Four-wheel drive magazines clutter our girls toilet.

The Three Tenors - mum’s three magpies – have sung the sun up, dragging its lazy arse across the gum treed tops of Mt Archer. Life is returning to a new normal; a different routine we soon adjust to.

Carolyn quietly cuts another onion in half, and I awake to a small brown slice - sacrificed to soak up my ‘cold germs’ – sitting on top of the computer. The scouts could hold a jamboree!

John sleeps in my old green bedroom, the wallpaper tatty from years of teenagers and toddlers camping in the small cramped room over the decades. June dits to say she is at Childers, so I begin to work out her departure time.

***

As adults, gradually we reconnect; sitting in the night's cool darkness, feet up on the bench, sipping our red wine. Gradually we knock off the sharp edges of our relationships, and once again become the smooth cog of our family.

Last night we sang up a storm with old Henry – Seaman Dan – and the Mills Sisters. Turn it up! Turn it up! And we twist the old knob and crank the music.


Are you from T.I.?
Well I’m from T.I. tooooo
, we bay.





We stomp and clap (I enthusiastically break a huge blood vessel on my left palm) and June shrills and Carolyn yelps: we howl like wild things at our lives, we howl to our mother, and we embrace; arms encircling each other, heads bowed in reverence of the beautiful joy of being part of this loving family.

As siblings, our family life experience is a progressive patchwork quilt, some edges are worn and smooth, other patches need stitching to heal, but together we children throw our homemade blanket around the shoulders of our beloved mother.

It keeps her warm.

***

A call from Carolyn, with a longish list of Things Mum Wants. Her classical music (of course) her crosswords, her mobile phone charger, so she can send out her dits to the world of grandchildren, updating her progress. In the war she was a Signals Officer, teaching Morse Code:

dit dit dit,
did dar dar dar.


We send dits to each other daily. Telstra love us.

***

To be continued…

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for explaining the "dits" ... I'm glad I didn't have to ask. Another lovely post. x