The big things in life

I find myself thinking a lot of the past at the moment - in fact have done this a lot since having a baby. Suddenly my family history, the stories of what came before me and what happened when I was too young to remember are becoming important. When in this mode, I'll just be standing there waiting for the kettle to boil, and faces from my past flash before me - people I haven't seen in years. The memories aren't tinged with longing or upset or undue happiness - they just are. It's been a necessary and helpful time of review, but even so, I think I need to do more thinking of the present, and have just decided to work on that.

But first, there are two things looming that are forcing particular memories of my Father and my Nanna (Mum's Mum) to bounce around in my head:

The first looming thing is my Dad's 60th, and that I decided to write a speech for my brother and I to read out at his party later on in the year. Was chatting to my bro yesterday, and having lived overseas for over 12 years now, I was interested to find he partitions a lot of his memories of growing up as ancient history. I have had an almost equivalent moving out and moving away, but have a continuum of memories of my dad, starting off as a caring and fun Dad as a young child, evolving to a slightly dorky alien during teenagerhood, to a good friend from my late teens until now. I suppose the difference is that living in the same city or country allows weekly contact, whereas moving overseas in the mid-90's was a big barrier to communication when we weren't emailing, phoning, or skyping as much as we do now.

The other thing that has loomed rapidly over the weekend is that my Nanna had a fall, and they found out when she went to hospital that she has serious liver problems, and septicaemia (all-over infection in blood). She's now in an induced coma, and having surgery this afternoon to remove a large cyst on her liver. Mum has flown interstate to be with her Dad, and everyone is "on standby", as she may not survive surgery. My thoughts are mostly with my Mum, and my Pop who has lived a symbiotic relationship with Nanna for 58 years, one of the few truly long and happy marriages I have known. All the things Mum told me about her upbringing are floating about in vacant moments...

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In a similar vein to above - I'm someone with a long memory, and a good memory for faces. There are some people I've met and re-met, with me remembering each time, and me apparently being new to them each time! Young people, not people with alzheimers either! I often used to think that I must have made such a small impression on them that they forgot me each time. Now I can give my battered self esteem a rest, and tell myself it is more than likely just that they suffer from face blindness.