My neck is cold

I picked up the yarn at a bargain shop. I chose the colour for it's defiance to the rain that day.

Che used to love all things yellow, but he's branched out to all sorts. 

I didn't mean for it to be a scarf. It wasn't anything but me showing myself that i could do something i always said i couldn't do.

When he saw me knitting, he asked me what i was making. 

Maybe a scarf for you, for when your neck is cold. 

It's for me mum?

Yes Che, this one can be for you.

The 'scarf' if you can call it that at all, is wider than it should be- because i practiced just doing as much as i could fit onto a needle. 

The lines are crooked, and there are parts where there are holes and lumps because i've attempted to read or watch movies while knitting.

He always checked on it every few days. He'd say 'My neck is cold mum, is my scarf ready?'

Hehe... i finally cast off. Just thought okay that will do and released it from the ball.

I told him we would put buttons on it, to clasp it up so that it stays.

He says yes! 3! A green one, a pink one. And one with rainbow colours.

Hehe... the things i make are never perfect. I've always been erratic at best in all things that i do.... haha the kids are even an example of that. 

Che loves whatever i make for him. Because they are for him. 

I wrap the crooked lines and holes and bits where i have tied knots to stop things from unravelling, i wrap it around his neck and it is wide where it should be thin and short where it should be long... and i realise this is me as a mother. I sometimes am not what a mother should look like. Not the things a mother should be.

He looks at it and it is perfect.

Everyday, i am thankful for their lessons. Che is always my reminder to be gentle on myself, all the flaws i pull at-  mean nothing, he doesn't even see. 

He'll grow up one day, and look back on it and realise- and laugh at how easily pleased he was. For now though, for this time...  it is nice to be perfect.

Tivi loves that i have packed the clothes neatly, and they are organised and ironed and she can see her choices clearly. 

Someone should tell her that it is winter now though.

In all the unpacking of winter clothes - the 'change over of the seasons'- i found the Pj's Janice had made for them.

Tivi pulled them out and wanted everyone to wear them.

I remember when she made them - all those years ago - they didn't fit. They were so big that i had packed them away.

Hehe... Che's is still too big. Jacies, his is too small. But they like the thought of Nanna making them their Pj's.

For Jacie, it's just things he's been told. "I don't have a Nanna, he died!'

Tivi remembers. Che's memory is vague. 

In Tivi sometimes i can see that small space where death leaves a void that neither she nor i can explain. Are you sure Nanna is in the sky mum? She asks me. Tell me the truth.

I tell her only that no one really knows the truth, but if Nanna is not in the sky, a very real part of her is in you. You are made of a little bit of Nanna. Like Dad is.

She says - and of Ba Ngoai mum, your mummy. I didn't know her.

Yep, she's in you too. In even your name. She would have loved you so. 

She grins at me. 

In these moments I am filled with all the things i wish they could have seen, all the things they should have known about these extraordinary lives they helped to create.

Time moves on, and we move with it- grief becomes the thief of smiles on random thoughts and random days- but i let it take what it needs, for these days smiles are soon replaced.