When a parent is taken away from your life, your world is incomplete and turned upside down. We had the funeral last Wednesday for Dad and the days have been speeding by, with each day working away through all the paperwork, pictures and memories of our life in our family. It is pretty difficult and emotionally exhausting to dig through photos but then on the bright side we discover some gems and reminisce about our memories together. My sister and I have been busy at work going through all the closets and clearing out anything that is not useful and donating to local charities in the neighbourhood. The recycling bin is chocca block with papers and I have found so many photos that my sister and I have sent our parents over the years hidden in bags in different areas of the house. Really who has so many walls to hang all theses photos and pictures – I had to apologise to Mum for sending her so much stuff over the years!!
Still going through the many pictures of our family life and travelling through time. At the moment it is so strange where I contemplate my life at the moment – where am I is this the right place where I should be in time? I have been living at an Air Bnb where I grew up in Queensland and after living in the USA for so long everything in our life overseas is like a distant memory. With all this time by myself I am reevaluating my journey through life with the memories fleeting in and out of my mind as I am wandering along the beach at sunset.
My sister and my mum are looking through the many albums documenting our times together growing up in this beautiful part of the world in the sunshine – where we were so free! Of course we did not appreciate it at the time and called our town Deadcliffe! Our lives focussed around celebrations and food and looking back I can see how my parents entertaining had a huge influence on my life. The other funny thing is going through the cupboards and drawers at my parents place is how my cupboards and drawers looked like before I applied the magic of Marie Kondo in my house 😀 Admittedly there are still a couple of drawers or spaces in my house that connect to my parents, and my kids think it is hilarious as we have a space with bread tags and rubber bands too!
Witnessing beauty in nature is something I wrote in the memories for the service of my Dad. On the day of the funeral I saw this massive bug fly by and it happened to be a stink bug that lived on the yellow flowered bush when we were younger. I currently have an incredible feeling of being hyperconnected to nature, where many serendipitous moments hold some meaning. Over the years we enjoyed family time together and back in the day there was this amazing retro restaurant in Redcliffe called the Fish Bowl and here we are enjoying a feed in amongst the vintage finds! Yeti the cat in the centre was Dads fave and there he is amongst the bushes under the stairs with so many beautiful tropical plants in the yard that Dad planted – it would be so nice to get some cuttings but I cannot take any plants over the border.
This was the sunset on the day we said farewell to Dad, the colour in the skies was lit up in so many shades. Every day I have enjoyed a walk in amongst the waters of these beaches and the feeling of the water and sand grounding me to the earth creates incredible memories that will hold dear to my heart. I know that every time I visit my mum in the future, I will have to come back to these beaches and spend time with my Dad and hear him say “Bye sweetie”.
poppypeach 