The day starts with the sacred caffeinated ritual of the
two enormous mugs. But the orange one with cows on it has one of those thin
lines on the inside. Which means it’ll crack pretty soon and I will have to go
to Clicks and get two new sacred enormous mugs because maybe it’s not about the
bike but for me it is totally about the mug.
Teeth brushed juice bottles packed ‘bye Dad!’ seatbelts clicked
reverse. The lawns in our street are green mowed geometry and there’s recycling
on the driveways and the world seems so fixed. Except that last week there was
a gunshot in a room behind walls a stone’s throw from our jungle gym because a
neighbour just couldn’t do life anymore. And I think, behind serene suburban
doors everyone has coffee-mug cracks.
It is Cam’s last day at Heavenly Tots. I ask him what
he’ll miss the most: Teacher Hendriette and the hotdogs. The front seat of my
car balances a bright pile of teachery presents and the traffic gets blurry because
we’re sliding the bookmark out of this four-year chapter of Maltabella porridge
and painting and playing. It’s been a weighty chunk of Cam’s miraculous
so-far-so-good story.
I get to St Alban’s with much less mascara. And then even
less because there’s another letter from a College boy I’ve loved. I have
redone my report comments, which were eaten by the system. I’ve transferred my
life from old laptop to new. There’s seven years of stuff stored now on a hard
drive hidden in my – well I guess I shouldn’t say where it’s hidden – and I
think about how much of my hope is in devices with screens and the confidence that
surely our house – or wherever the hard drive is hidden – won’t burn down but
how if it does I’m kind of screwed in terms of tangible memories.
Yesterday I started packing up my corner of the English
office. I blew dust off the good times and tried to shove my sadness into the
plastic sleeves of past papers. Next year tugs hard at my sleeve. The changes
are rolling in fast and frightening like the thrill of a summer storm.
Our last exam comes in. We’re marking like zombies and
decide to carry on tomorrow. So I fetch the boys from Nanna and we’re home at
last. It’s hot and it’s Friday and I’m too tired to be responsible so I agree
to Scott’s ecstatic request for Monsters,
Inc.
I get dressed for my last carol service at the St Alban’s
Cathedral. Murray gets home to take over supper-bath-Bible-pillow-fighting. I drive
with John, Bruce and Yol and I think how much I’ll miss these people. The cathedral
hums and swelters with incense and staff in academic gowns and peace-on-earth
parents and boys exam-free and expectant. I sit with the Kean and Kim and the
nine lessons begin punctuated by the choir and the carols that build and swell and
it’s all rather glorious. We get to O
come all ye faithful and I think of my Gran and I’m homesick for the
Christmases of my childhood. I glance around to take it all in and lose the war
on my mascara for good.
It’s been a wonderful day, really. I’m grateful that God
is the great Fixer of broken things. I’m grateful for God in my past bringing
life in the now from seeds planted then. I’m grateful for God in my future
holding steady.
‘Where is another
God like you?’ – Micah 7:18
Last swimming lesson with Tannie Lette
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