Sometimes even the things we wish for the hardest, no matter how much we burst our heart hoping, praying and willing for things to change, get better, heal or right themselves there is just no fixing them. When the world learned of F1 legend Michael Schumacher’s accident on a ski field, a fierce fear swept through the air. He had hit his head, the most fragile, breakable and often unfixable part of the human body.

He was put into an induced medical coma where, with his family still by his side, he lays today. Unchanged. On his website, his wife says ‘he’s a fighter’. She is keeping vigil beside his bed. Praying for his condition to change. They want him to wake up. They want him to get up and walk out. They want their husband, brother, son, father to open his eyes, smile at them perhaps. For things to go back to how they were a month ago. They want it to be undone, to unravel time back to that day on the mountain and for it to somehow change.

Maybe she is daily telling him, whispering in his ear to keep fighting. To try and wake up. Maybe she is looking for a miracle, in her deepest depths of despair. Maybe she thinks that if she stays beside him so he can hear her, feel her, smell her even, that it will help. Familiarity. Surroundings. Love. Hope. They are all you’re left to offer.

I don’t know him or his wife. I’m just another fan like millions of others around the world. But I know some of his wife’s pain. It is all too familiar. There is nothing greater than a grief that rips control from your very grip, that sees you faced with decisions that are so far beyond you, the fear of loss the fear of never. When all you can do is sit and watch as the constant whir of electronic machines tell you what you don’t want to know. Remind you that they, not you are in control. The ugliest reality of all is the unknown. Like his family, his friends and his fans, I will keep on hoping they can find a way out of this tragedy. Love n’hugs, LadyMamaGxox

 

The Lucky One…three hundred and sixty five days of happy.

This time last year I was waking up in a hotel room in Brisbane with my three best friends in the whole world. Nervous giggles and light butterflies floating around in my belly, I looked out the window to see a bright and shiny morning unfolding. Today, I would get my happy back. It was my very own rainbow breaking through the clouds of grey.

A couple of hours later when there was a knock at the door, behind it stood my eight-year-old son. But he wasn’t the baby-faced little imp I’d last seen three days ago. It was a young man dressed in a dapper black suit who I swear had grown a foot in that three days and was beaming with a smile bigger than a dental commercial. Pride and happiness had transformed my little baby boy into a soul far beyond his years. He grabbed hold of my hand when panic set in because our cars never turned up to collect us and assured me everything was going to be okay.

It would take us an hour to get to a church that was only a 10-minute drive through the city but nothing was going to keep me from getting to the man who had healed my heart, taught me to love again and was about to make me the happiest girl on the planet.

I couldn’t look at a single soul gathered in the church that day. I knew if one caught my eye that I might not keep it together but when I lifted my head towards the end of the aisle and saw him standing there, nervous, anxious and probably slightly impatient having had to wait over forty-five minutes for me to arrive, it felt as though sunshine itself was bursting out from my soul. He is and will always be my happiness.

It was the day three became one…the day everything in our life, in my life changed and the day I knew I was The Lucky One…

As floods of messages come in from our friends, our family – all who remember this day as being the most special it could ever be, I feel blessed to be sitting here writing this with so much love.

Over this year I’ve learned there isn’t a single word that could describe how incredibly happy The Vet has made me, has made Us because nothing else matters when we have each other. Our journeys will always be ones carried out together and our burdens shared.

My heart is filled with pride when I see the incredible father he has become, even though he was thrust full force into the deep end, without a learner’s guide. And his humble and gentle nature that has seen him grow his practice to soaring heights by the clients who see the same passion, beauty and depth to his soul that I do.

So thank you my darling husband on this three hundred and sixty fifth day of making me the happiest, and the luckiest girl in the world…you make my every day brighter…

Oh, and one more thing…there is someone else in this world who you made the happiest person on the planet a year ago today and never would these words be more true than now…

My hero…

by the eight-year-old

anybody can be a father, this is surely true

but it takes someone real special to be a man like you.

because you’re there with open arms and a big proud smile

taking me under your wing like i was your own all this while.

always looking out for me, you teach me right from wrong

to me, you’re my hero, and are so much more than strong.

you’re there to kick the ball, the fun games that we play

and you make the sun shine brighter every single day.

you help me learn the hard stuff and believe in all my dreams

even though sometimes super crazy they might seem.

with each day as i grow big, i know that there is you

always making sure i grow up good, strong and true

and all i hope is one day, i’ll be every bit as good a man

for it will only be with your love and helping hand.

you always give me courage and help put behind the past

cheer me on and make me number one even if i’m last

there’s a special place inside my heart that i give to you

and every single day i know that you so love me too.

you’re there to pick me up at times when i may fall

even though daddy might not be the name you hear me call.

for all the times in my life when i might be sad…

i know that you are, and will always be, my other dad.

Love, as always, Lady MamaG xox

It’s my birthday in a couple of days…(don’t say I didn’t warn you) and as a Scorpian it is in my nature to remind you all of this fact. I like to warn those close to me at least once a day in the lead up to the anniversary of my birth you know, just in case they forget. There will be no ‘oh shit, sorry I forgot’ being uttered from the mouths of the Mama G household. None. At. All. Although my son – who I’d like to point out has been in my life for some eight years now, did say to me the other day ‘is it the 10th or the 11th?’ Excellent. What made it even better was when I asked him his OD’s (other dad’s) birthday he answered without hesitation. And it was the correct date. Anyway, I like to take at least a week to celebrate…after all it comes around but once a year. So this year I’ve decided to be a very good girl because the one thing – besides a new pair of bamboo Gucci sunnies – that I want most is to have a little person growing inside my belly.

Aside from things I want and the fact that having a baby is COMPLETELY CONSUMING MY EVERY MINUTE I would also like to go all soppy chick movie on you and be thankful for the stuff I have.

The World’s Best Husband. The World’s Best 8 Y O. The world’s best friends, for these things I am so lucky it hurts like a running stitch.

Without my friends I don’t know where I’d be. Because friendship is leaving your 10-month-old baby behind so you can cross the Tasman and be with your bestie on her wedding day. It’s working the late shift for 10 days straight just so you can go and be with her on her hen’s night. It’s spending your family’s holiday money on an air ticket to her wedding when you feel guilty about leaving your own kids behind. It’s making sure everything works out even when your friend is screaming and crying at the same time. It’s pulling an overnighter at the airport just so you can catch a standby flight the next morning. It’s naming your firstborn son after your friend’s late husband. It’s answering late night phone calls but not getting the shits when she doesn’t answer yours for the fiftieth time.

It’s telling her she looks hot even when she has a two-inch greasy regrowth and teenage acne sprouting from her chin, but it’s also telling your friend when she has a huge hunk of green plantlife submerged in her nashers. It’s never saying things that will hurt later.

Friendship is crying happy tears at the thought of her new beginnings. It’s knowing they’ll be there and have been there for all the endings too. It’s about offering an ear of advice not a beady eye of judgement. It’s listening when you know you’ve heard the same story a million times but still laughing like you’d never heard it before. It’s sending flowers on anniversaries when words are all that’s needed. It’s taking your kid for the night when you can’t get off the couch because you’re vomiting so much.

Friendship is picking up the pieces when you know they won’t fit back together again.

So as another year passes, no matter how many candles get added to my cake, how many more wrinkles turn up on my face and how many more kilo’s get added to my hips…I know I’ll always be the richest girl in the world because the greatest gift doesn’t come in a box, can’t be driven fast and can never be worn out…it is friendship.

PS: Thought I’d share today’s school run convo:
Mummy am I a miracle child? Came the voice of my 8 y o from the back seat. ‘Well, that depends what you term miracle, love. If it’s that you weren’t born with a film of brown around you because your mother consumed so much chocolate, then yes, you are quite the miracle. But what sort of miracle do you mean?’ ‘Well Joseph was a miracle. He could see into the future. He could predict things. He’s in the bible.’ ‘Yes, well in that case I’m not sure there are too many Flynns mentioned in the bible, so aside from you being my little miracle, no you are not a Miracle Child, no’. But I could be a miracle child. I might be able to see things in the future. ‘Yes, well let’s just see if you can miraculously finish your homework tonight then shall we, future boy’. Guessing that wasn’t really the miracle gift he was after.

Helloooooo universe, did I mention I’m lucky…?

Love n hugs, Lady Mama Gxox

Ever since he was a wee babe, my 8 y o has never been much of an eater. He prefers to snack and mostly on sweet stuff at that (pregnancy-related cravings can NOT be blamed for everything). He was never much of a feeder as a newborn, just a happy little vegemite…would get his little fill and be done with it. As a toddler, he was always in the lowest percentile in terms of weight…which believe me, becomes the bane of a mum’s life when all you want is for your kid to be healthy. I would have given my left tit – nipple included – for a bonny chubby little munchkin. But he is what he is.

All through his early years he was never very tall and certainly never had many folds in his little arms. Which can work in a girl’s  favour when you only have to buy clothes every two years and shoes even less frequently. I like to think of it as investment shopping ‘you’ll grow into it’ I tell him when the sleeves of his shirts almost reach his knees. ‘Nothing wrong with a little room to move, love, that’s what all the cool kids wear’. Fortunately for me, I have a very pliable young son who just nods in agreeance and wears whatever I tell him to.

He’s pretty much weighed the same for the past two years and has only really begun growing upwards in the past year. One day he’ll catch up, I tell him…just so long as he keeps eating them greens. So, you can imagine my horror when my whippet of a child came home and told me a kid in his class – who has been bullying him most of the year – told him he was fat. He was just about to get in the bath and stood there, staring down at his belly asking me why he was so fat. ‘What?!’ I was like that kid in the Exorcist. ‘Who told you that?’ ‘This kid in my class told me I was fat at swimming today.’

It took all of my strength not to march down to the school the next morning, pick up that little Twerp by his ear and force feed him a plate full of brussel sprouts.

‘No love, you’re not fat and nor will you ever be’ I told him in my most reassuring of voices. Shitballs, I mean really? Twenty-three kgs is fat? For an eight-year-old? This kid needs a whole lot more than glasses…he needs a personality transplant, quick smart. I thought it was only women who picked on each other about body image. But today, there are almost as many young boys suffering from eating disorders as there are young girls. And this, people, is where it all starts…bullying.

Fortunately for Twerp brain, the school term is about to finish and hopefully he goes away on a long holiday and his parents decide to send their little sausage to another school…in another district…or better still, another state. I’m a great believer in standing up for yourself when someone’s yanking your chain but this one did go a little far. This kid has been taunting him for most of the year – and despite this child’s overachieving (that’s not mine, but the Twerp’s) he wins the school cross country, the girls love him and he takes out most of the school prizes, what a shame he hasn’t got a nice bone in his body to match that handsome little face.

If you see a suspicious looking woman lurking in the carpark with a bag full of brussel sprouts…it’s almost certainly definitely not me. Promise.

Love n hugs, Lady Mama G xox

Last night there was a death in the family. Well, not our actual family so much as the plover family who have taken up residency in my front yard (so much so I was going to shout out and ask them if they’d like to contribute to my rates bill they like it here that much). For the past two weeks those squalking yellow-beaked maniacs have stalked me in my own home to the point where, when I take the dog for a walk, I’m forced to carry a 6ft bloody pole over my shoulder and wave it vigorously at them just to make it down my driveway.

They are fierce protectors them plover birds. It’s unfortunate then that they’re not protective enough to teach their fluffy little babies a few common sense road rules. And the consequences are dire.

On arriving home from dinner last night, our rather devastated 8 y o discovered the squished corpse of one of the plover family’s tiny babies which had met a rather unfortunate fate under the wheel of the car. It must have been looking for little wormies under the wheel or something and mummy plover was too busy trying to take our heads off with its flying overhead swoop to get her baby over to the safety of the lawn. Too late. Baby squished.

‘Oh I didn’t do a very good job of looking after them,’ came 8 y o’s response to the dead chick. ‘Can’t we fix it?’ he asked his step-daddy who was by now holding the limp and lifeless baby in his hand. Such hope, such optimism and after all, his step-daddy is one of his greatest heroes – and a vet to boot – if there was anyone who could save this little fluffball…it would definitely be him. ‘Sorry mate, but he’s squished’ we told him, by now with tears welling up in his little blue eyes.

I was beginning to worry that we were going to have to hold a burial ceremony for little squishy chick but fortunately we managed to get away with disposing of little Squishy so it’s mummy and daddy didn’t find it the next morning (and then take it’s nasty vendetta out on the driver of the car) by giving him the very dignified send off of being placed in the big green wheelie bin.

This morning mummy and daddy plover are still staking out their claim on my front lawn but now it’s just with one little fluffy baby and not two. Rest in peace, Squishy.

At least that’s what I think until I see mummy and daddy back and they’ve got two chicks again – there must’ve been another chick hiding all this time. I tell 8 y o to come quick and look out the window, there are two chicks. ‘The mummy plover must’ve found it in the bin and bought it back to life,’ he says. Bless.
Hugs, Lady Mam G xo