Time to build an ark

A few minutes ago I was feeding Badger Cub in bed, still in pyjamas after a particularly bad night's sleep, when the doorbell rang. I left a rather disgruntled baby behind to answer the door.

It was a middle aged man offering me religious pamphlets, I assume a Jehovah's Witness. I politely declined and he left.

As an aside, I wonder how long it is since they actually "turned" someone at the doorstep. I do acknowledge that part of their faith is to attempt to convert/save but surely it's time to evolve away from cold calling? Maybe evolution is the problem here...

Minutes after he left I kicked myself for not saying what I wanted to say.

Thousands are dying in Syria because they have the wrong bloodline; men, women and children coldly executed. Young girls are raped with bayonets in Africa. In our own country children are groomed and prostituted, and others are starved and malnourished either through poverty or in extreme cases intentionally by their own parents. At the same time we are destroying the planet in our relentless quest for resources.

Don't tell me it's part of the grand design. If there is a god and he (or she) allows this suffering then I want nothing to do with him. The human race seems to be out of control so he either needs to sort out the mess or wipe us all out and start again. Until that happens I'll carry on trying to raise my family with respect and do what I can for the rest of the world.

Image courtesy of Michelle Meiklejohn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Goodbye

When I was young, perhaps three or four years old, my grandad died of a heart attack. I don't remember much about it other than suddenly spending a lot of time at my grandma's house. I now know that it was because my Mum had to sort out everything for my grandma - everything had been in his name and she hadn't a clue what to do, obviously compounded by the grief over his sudden death. Once everything had been sorted, the funeral done, she moved from their home in Essex to a cottage in Oxfordshire, in the village where I lived with my parents.

Soon after that I started primary school and my Mum retrained as a teacher. My grandma collected me from school every day and looked after me until my Mum got home (my Dad was often working abroad and then later did shift work). She became almost a second mother, in my life on almost a daily basis, always around to talk to, never judgmental, always proud of me.

A few years ago we realised she was becoming more forgetful and it was confirmed that she was showing the early stages of dementia. Conversations became repeated, and she became less interested in making decisions for herself, but the essence of who she was, her sense of humour and her kindness, remained. From what I know of the disease, we were very fortunate - many sufferers become disoriented and confused, sometimes even violent. We kept her in her own home for as long as we could but a couple of years ago, shortly after her ninetieth birthday, we moved her into a residential home for her own safety - it's impossible to teach someone with no short term memory how to cope with new situations around their own increasing physical frailty.

We celebrated her 92nd birthday a few weeks ago. She enjoyed having lunch out with us, and met Badger Cub. I noticed that she wasn't engaging in conversation as much as previously but still seemed happy.

I had a call from my parents this morning. They had been called to the residential home at 3am. Grandma was having difficulty breathing. My parents were at her side, talking to her. Her breathing became more laboured, but she continued to acknowledge them and the staff, smiling. She slipped away peacefully at 6am.

I am grateful that she died in her own bed. I am grateful that she died peacefully, without pain. I am grateful that she believed, even though I do not, that she was passing to a better place and would have comfort from it. I am grateful that she died with her daughter at her side, and more importantly that dementia had not taken away her ability to recognise her daughter. I am truly grateful that her body failed, gracefully, before her mind did.

Goodbye Grandma. I love you very much and will miss you.

Image: Graeme Weatherston / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Merry Christmas, etc.

Last night (or technically the early hours of this morning, Boxing Day) I went all Bah Humbug on Twitter...

Is it wrong/unfestive to say I've not had an amazing day?

Christmas Eve: somehow my Mother and I were roped into running the church crib service (Nativity story with carols and puppets) even though neither of us wanted to. I consoled myself that at least it wasn't a proper church service (I'm a closet agnostic, bordering on atheist: To believe or not to believe) only to find that Mum had inserted a prayer and blessing for me to read out, making me feel like a hypocrite. Add to that the stress emanating from her during our morning preparations for the service (she tends to go into meltdown when she feels overloaded) and it was not the most relaxing start to my Christmas.

Once the crib service was over, all the family came back to the Badger residence for supper (sandwiches and easy finger food), which was much more relaxing, but my evening was neatly rounded off by Baby Badger chundering a mixture of booby milk, snot and food over my shoulder and chest. Nice!

Christmas Day: Father Badger's Mum moved down to the next village about 18 months ago, which is lovely: we get on well, respect each others' space, and Baby Badger gets to grow up knowing all her grandparents. It also means that we have stopped alternating Christmas Day between families and this year was our second Christmas bringing both families together for Christmas. For Father Badger's family it's much more relaxed than in times gone by (arguments and family feuds), but my parents don't seem to settle when out of their house at Christmas. Once again, my evening was rounded off by being coated in booby milk, snot and partially digested food. Merry Christmas Mummy!

That's when I tweeted.

Boxing Day: today has at least been more relaxed. A walk around the village followed by soup, baked ham and brownies with ice cream at my parents' house. And no vomit. Hurrah!

Image: Michal Marcol / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Reasons to be Cheerful: crawling, ivy and doors

I've been sitting at my laptop for going on an hour this evening, trying to think of what to write. Truth be known, I've been feeling a bit bit depressed about the state of the world recently. I've been trying to avoid writing about it, finding something fun and light-hearted, but I simply need to say this.

First of all we have the natural disaster, the supposed Act of God that is the drought and famine in East Africa (and therein lies one of the many reasons that I don't believe any more). I saw a tweet that suggested that mothers were having to choose to let their weakest child die in order for the strongest to live. Before I was a mother that would have sounded awful; an impossible choice to make. Now that I have a daughter my innermost being screams out for them. How can the developed world strain under the weight of so much wastage while the forgotten millions perish. If I think about it I want to cry, so I don't think about it; I've donated to the DEC and that will have to do for now, but perhaps that's the root cause of the problem: it's too horrific for most people to think of and we choose to carry on in our happy existences.

Next we have the man-made disasters: the senseless bombing and shootings in Norway; and now I see that the Syrian authorities have killed 130 of their own people. Lastly we have the ignorantly damaging... one example is where The Analytical Armadillo recently highlighted the potentially fatal advice on sleeping arrangements for baby. Ridiculously high numbers of blankets to make them sleep through the night, as if that's the most important thing?! It makes me so sad to think that babies could be suffering or even dying due to bad advice.

Now... I do realise this post should be about reasons to be cheerful. I'm coming on to that! All of the badness in the world highlights to me that I really should be grateful for what I have, and I am truly grateful: I have a lovely husband, a comfortable life and a daughter I really would give everything for. And that's when I remembered Mich's reasons to be cheerful and realised that's exactly what I need today!

1. Baby Badger is crawling! She worked it out last month at a little over a year old, presumably because when she started at nursery she saw lots of other crawlers. There's just no stopping her now - it's given her the ability to get to the furniture she has been surfing along for months. We're going to have to be on our toes, but it's wonderful to watch!

2. Ivy. Father Badger attacked trimmed the ivy on the back wall today. I hate the ivy: it cuts out the light, it's probably doing bad things to the wall and (probably the main reason) it's full of spiders. This makes me cheerful for two reasons: I can hope that he trimmed so hard that it dies (!); and Baby Badger spent the afternoon outside in the play pen, under a tree, happily playing and chatting away.

3. I've finished the wardrobe doors. More accurately, I've finished the base colour. I've been planning these doors since I was pregnant and, almost 18 months later, I'm close to finishing them! I'll leave the details for another time, but suffice to say I'm proud of them.

To believe or not to believe

A few days ago I came across a post by Bethan (no Y) regarding religion and her journey to find religion. Did she find it? Go read her post and find out... It got me thinking about my own struggles with faith.

I was brought up in a Christian family. My father's family are Catholic, with several priests in the family. My mother's family are Methodist. I chose to be baptised in the Church of England, presumably because it was familiar: both my primary and the local church are C of E. I went to sunday school and later church student group, and sang in the chapel choir at University.

Father Badger is firmly atheist. Not agnostic (i.e. not bothered, no firm beliefs) but militantly atheist: he firmly believes in no higher power, and he thinks that organised religion is a cause of evil in humanity. To an extent I sympathise with him: there have been many atrocities committed in the name of one faith or another; tribes and peoples are at war because of conflicting faiths. I do however think that if religion was not available to justify these actions, another basis would be chosen: race, colour or similar.

We were married in church, in the village where I grew up. This may seem hypocritical, especially when I say that my faith was already wavering. The vicar was fully aware that Father Badger was not religious, but said he did not see it as a problem as long as the vows were taken with the right intentions and that he was comfortable saying them in church. It was important to me to marry there, mainly because I see that church and its congregation as the centre of my community and upbringing and full of many people that mean a lot to me.

Over the last few years I have become gradually more aware, and recently consciously admitted to myself, that I don't believe in god. I can't pinpoint when it happened, and I'm not even sure if I ever did - I can't think of a moment in the past where I passionately believed, although I must have at some point. I can't see how a god could allow wars, famine, disease. There is no grand plan, no reason for everything. I do however think that church can be a great strength in the community, and provides a good set of morals for bringing up children.

The agreement I have with Father Badger is that Baby Badger must be brought up respecting other people's beliefs, be that in a god or in nothing. I want her to go to church occasionally so she understands her family background, but it's her choice when she's older as to whether she becomes involved or not.

My biggest problem with the lack of faith is guilt. My father is definitely not a believer any more, a result of deployment to war zones with the RAF, but my mother is still firmly Christian. I know she will be devastated if she finds out that I have no faith, and I really don't want to hurt her in this way, but I also don't want to live a lie. My way of dealing with this is to turn up to church on important occasions by way of it being a family event, but I don't read the prayers aloud and I abstain from communion. One day, though, she's going to ask me a question that I can't sidestep and the emotional car crash will occur.

Do you struggle with a similar dilemma? How do you deal with having different beliefs to your family? Have you had the conversation I dread, and how did it go?

Image: nuchylee / FreeDigitalPhotos.net