Friday, January 14, 2011

Today

I called it a funeral but it's not. It will be a celebration....but when I woke this morning I realised I was far too close to the edge. Will I even make it through? Just a few more hours.

We are having 2 send offs Amy because - well we can't find a place big enough to hold everyone. There are so many people I long to see and hold, no one will be wearing black. People are coming from all over the world, interstate and around the corner.

I can feel the overwhelming need from so many people wanting to pay tribute and to show her family how much they loved her. The circus and film friends have been so so sweet with their gentle enquiries - will the service be in a church? (hell no) Is it ok if we don't wear black? (hell yeah).

The circus has offered their tent to hold the second service. I am going to be the ringmaster, and we will gather in the tent so I can blow the whistle for one minute of wild ruckus in respect. There will be drums, juggling, hoops, firetwirling. We will all go mad. We will sing songs, swap stories laugh and cry.

But I'm just distracting myself from today.

Holding on just a little bit longer, just a bit longer for my family

Monday, January 10, 2011

I'm okayish

Right now I am cushioned by serapax, so the constant feeling of hysteria is contained temporarily.

I think writing my last post was wrong somehow. How shocking for you all to read that...of course I had to somehow vomit it all out, and this is the blog I started to keep track of my life.....but I forget people read it, and are used to laughing when they come here.




Just now I have to cushion you all too, and try to make it better. My sister lived the fullest, most full ON life. There were no empty spaces and Amy did things most of us couldn't even dream about.

I can't tell you everything now, so I will just cut and paste something I wrote on my home community forum so you can take something positive and say to yourselves "there is so much more I can do with my life" and by that I mean taking joy out of every single thing like Amy did.




Amy was elastic girl, it's a family trait. She started gymnastics rather young....and was headed for the Olympics. But her team just burnt out. It really was too much. But Amy kept it up. We always thought she should be a clown. As a child she would spend hours pulling faces in the bathroom mirror. She literally ran off to join the circus...but in the coolest way possible. She did puppetry (and was on FARSCAPE!), she did Tissu, she trained the Flying Fruit Bats, she worked with Circus Monoxide and Circus Oz. She took Belle to her first Gay Pride march. She was kinda gay but couldn't decide (yanno, its kinda convenient ). She was the first graduate of NICA (National Institute of Circus Arts), were she got her degree in Clowning and Trapeze. Mum and Dad came to her performances but could never watch her fly in case she fell. She never did.

Thanks why I don't want "fly free with the angels' - because Amy already was one. I will never forget watching her grace as she flew over the top of us all, dressed as an angel, with white feathers floating gently from her wings to the ground.

When Belle was just learning to stand Uncle Amy used to balance her on ONE HAND. Nearly had a heart attack when I walked in on them in the lounge room. I hope I can find the pics of her balancing Belle on her feet - oh I have to show you to believe it.

She loved my children so much she wanted her own model. She made one and he is beautiful.

I was there when Fin was born. It was the most fantabulous birth. We had a DJ...well a laptop and 2 awesome friends. We bopped, we danced and we watched Fin emerge, we cracked up laughing when Amy decided she must be a man because the gas made her voice so low and dammit we even got her to pretend she was Barry White.

The bestest thing was that I told her how amazing I thought she was. With family you assume they know how much you love them, but it needs to be said out loud. She looked after my dad when I couldn't. And she did a better job.

Everyone needs a sister like her.



Flying high over the stadium in Dubai, see the structure at the bottom? That's the roof of the MASSIVE stadium...and yes she is upside down.



So proud to have a tummy full of her very own baby.


Thank you for the message, I hope this makes you feel a little better.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Half Life

For the rest of it, I will be only half. Half an Unperfect Life is the way it is then? Oh ok.

No, hang on a minute - I'm really supposed to live the rest of my life without my sister? Really?

Mum calls, her voice was wierd. Where is Amy, someone called someone who called someone else and said she collapsed.
I call other sister whose voice is shaking and gives me the number of someone who is with Amy.....she has stopped breathing.

I call the number, hear another shaking voice that gives me the address and I write it in broken blue pencil, then feel a part of myself leave my body when she says She Is Gone. No, no I'll be there in a minute and fix it up in no time and tell her off for scaring me.

I scream for The Batchelor to come home, I scream at the children for fighting and make them go to their rooms, I scream at the teenager to look after them I have to go.

Do I call mum and tell her? She is interstate on holiday and I think I shouldn't until I get there and know what is really going on, so I keep driving and screaming. Mum calls and she knows because the police tell her, another part of me leaves my body when I hear the anguish in her voice. I scream at her to please come home mummy come home. Mum screams at me to stop driving, call a cab or get someone to drive me but it will take too long so I put on control voice, tell her I'll be fine.

I call Cailin and scream at her. I don't know where I'm going, I'm not sure where I am so she directs me over the phone while I scream out the window.

There are police cars everywhere, I tell them I need to see her. Did they take her away yet, they tell me yes or so I thought. They ask me 100 million questions. A beautiful girl rides up with a bunch of flowers in her basket. I watch her face and hope she isn't here for Amy. I turn away when I hear her scream too but then I sink to the concrete.

She died on the floor of the kitchen in the middle of making dinner for her son. I want to go lie on the floor where she was.

She is still lying there.

More pieces leave my body and I think I'm going to pass out from shock but decide to get a blanket to cover her because I don't want her to get cold. Even though it's 32 degrees. Then decide not to do that and look for a nice shrub in the garden to throw up into.

Blur, blur questions, crying, phone calls blur.

After a while I am 'officially' given permission to say good bye. The Bike Girl and I hold hands and take a deep breath and cross the threshold. We soak her in tears. I look around for signs to make sure and know in my heart that she didn't hurt. She hadn't felt any pain. I don't think she knew what happened and either do we.

Her little boy is upstairs with the neighbour. He is fast asleep on the couch and I gather him up, his head falls against my shoulder and his golden curls tickle my face. I take him home and contemplate being a mother of four.

The little children don't know yet. We don't how to tell little Finush his mummy has gone and we are waiting for someone to help us.





I am terrified of telling Cyclone.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Getting Passive Agressive with the Xmas tree.

Got your Christmas tree all packed away yet? I bloody hope so, it's MONTHS till Xmas ha de ha haar.

I usually have mine down by the 28th, the 31st at the very latest. I have to wait until the children are out of the house because I can't stand the wailing, but there was no wailing last year because the tree still stands proudly even though it's the January 6. Cos I'm playing Tree Games. Oooh yeah I am.

So I am sharing this house with The Batchelor and I know I've mentioned what a clean freak he is. I can live with that, it's his house after all but there is only so much I can take when he gets whiny about the size of the Xmas tree. It's not huge by any standards, but he wants me to use his Xmas tree. The puny crappy 2 foot high thing just won't do when you have children in the house. He sulks and says - and I quote - "but it won't fit".

It's a fucking 4 bedroom house, don't tell me there isn't room for a nice tree for the children for 2 flippin weeks.

So of course I put my lovely tree up and let the children decorate without ANY input from mummy. The more lopsided the better. HA! Old Grinch. I saw his eye twitch, I swear, and now I'm going to beat him over the head with his own grinchiness by leaving it for another few days yet.

I've made sure to mention every morning since Boxing Day that I will take the tree down that afternoon, but don't.

I've got a good tip for storage.....whenever I get sick of annoying grinchman.




See these boxes? I bought them - no shit - about 15 years ago at The Reject Shop for $2 each. They still have the price tags on the bottom. They are really robust cardboard boxes and I use them to store the decorations. Easy to stack, they protect the fragile things perfectly, you can stuff metres of tinsel in and the best bit is you can decorate the tree then stash the boxes straight under and they look like presents.

I hate a bare tree.