Touching

Aged 11

As parents, we always wonder how we’ve raised our children, have they become the people we had hoped, are they the people they had hoped to be.

My son Hillary is a wonderful father and husband, very loving, a dedicated doctor, I can see he is the person I hoped he would be. I can see it in the loving face of his wife, the adoring expressions of his children, the grateful thank yous of his patients. Sophie is still too young I do not believe she has yet become the person she wants to be, but I think she is on the right path.

With Grayson it’s so difficult to know, he’s so private, and he’s been away for the last 3 and a half years, I used to think he was a person I could be proud of, but now I know he is. The overwhelming response the flood of emails, asking about him, while he has been ill has touched me very deeply. He has always been popular with the ladies, young and old, he has that certain je nais ce quis, a charisma, that attracts them, and he is down right too handsome for his own good!

But I have received communications from people who have only known him for a few months, from people who have never met him, and while the words are different and the expressions used variable, there is one underlining theme. That he is a compassionate, caring, person, that he is a great friend, and would do anything for his friends, in the real world or the cyber one, that he is funny, a good listener, gives sound advice, passionate, and some what of a rebel ( that part I already knew ).

From L-R, Greg, Grayson, Donnie

It feels my heart with joy to know that, people love my son, that they care for him, he has always said he wants to do something great , something to be remembered for, and I think he has accomplished that, true he has  solved no conflicts, nor has he discovered a cure for deadly diseases, he has not unmasked the mysteries of the universe, but he has touched lives in a way some never do, he has left his hand print  ob this world in the way that his friends, love and care for him, and when all is said and done,  when the books are opened and the judgment begins, I think that is the most important accomplishment he has achieved.

Just a few exerts from emails I have received :

Ash, NYC: “I must confess to you something, tears are rolling down my face right now..tears of joy and gratefulness. Im so overwhelmed with emotion that if Gray were here he would try to crack a joke just about now to change the mood. I miss him as he and I share a strong bond.”

Janna, Tasmania: “He saved my life, I almost drowned and he gave me CPR and brought me back, a world with no Gray would be a terrible placed to live’

Stephanie, Australia: “I’ve only known him a short while, but he is a wonderful person, he makes me smile, when I am sad, he’s not afraid to show his tender side, and be silly, make faces or crack jokes, even at his own expense”

Alejandro, Spain: ” I ‘ve never met him in person, but the dedication he has shown our cause, is overwhelming‘

Michael,England: ” All i can say is you must be very proud to call him your son”

Jean-Paul, France: “An amazing man, a caring nurse, a devoted friend, I do not take to people so quickly but after a few moments I felt as if I had known him all my life”

Helle, South Africa: ” We chose him to be our volley ref, not just cuz he’s so gorgeous, but cuz he treats us with so much respect”

Jenny, South Africa: ” he made me a better nurse”

Phil, Namibia: “he puts others first, his selflessness is unparalleled”

Cara, Los Angeles: ‘ the first time I saw him he was drunk as a skunk, with a beer can stuck to the bottom of his shoe, and a mustache and goatee, he’s drawn on himself with an indelible marker “

Shannon, Dublin: ” he comes up to me and says, “Crikey and I thought I was good looking, lol, how could I resist?”

Bryan, Chicago: ‘ lol he gave  me this scowling look and said, “Bru, she’s someone’s sister, knock it off! I have admired him ever since”

Donnie, South Africa: ” so i says to him, bru you trying to look like me or what, and he says yea I’m trying to be ugly, lol but he shaved the beard off anyway”

"Don’t vote me off the island just yet"

As some of you know my son has been in a coma for the last three weeks, due to complications of his heart condition and a bout of malaria he suffered from while abroad. His numerous afflictions at times seemed too many for one single person to suffer from, apart from the obvious that comes with having DCM, he was on the brink of renal failure, he was suffering from pulmonary edema, he couldn’t breathe on his own, he had lost 30 lbs in weight. He was put on a ventilator and a hole was cut in his chest to drain the fluid build up from his lungs, the doctors then put him into a controlled coma so not to put any more stress on him.
Three Sundays ago, we were told to prepare for the worst, we had Father Ptrick on speed dial incase we needed him to perform the Last Rites on Grayson before he passed away, Leo retrieved Grayson’s will and list of requests from the safe, so we could follow his wishes as to his funeral.
For three weeks I sat by my son’s bed, holding his hand, knowing what we were doing was against his wishes, he has always asked to be let go, not to be kept alive on machines, several times the doctors tried to see if he could breathe alone and he could not. but he was functional on all other levels, and it is that which covinced us to go against his wishes and have him treated according to what his doctors wanted.
Once during the 3 weeks, he woke to scribble on a pad that he wanted to donate his corneas, as all of his other organs were failing and were no good for donating.
There were times that I gave up hope, that I lost faith and believed we would lose him, I was so angry, the anger I first felt when he was 19 and we discovered his condition, the “Why my child, and not someone elses child” rage, the unfairness of it all.
But he never gave up, despite his weakened state, he held on, and tonight I held his hand as the doctors removed the tubes, as they injected him with the medicine that would wake him up, they removed the tape that had held his eyes closed for three weeks, and my beautiful son opened his eyes he smiled at me, and I cried, tears of happiness, of relief, of exhaustion, he motioned for his pad and pen, and wrote,” stop crying mother, i’am not going down with out a fight :-P” and then he wrote ” i missed you”.
I thought I would pass out I was so overwhelmed. I was shaking so hard, Leo had to almost carry me down to the car.
He has a long way to go, he’s not out of the proverbial woods yet, but he is awake and I know how stubborn he is, as he always jokes, when he has one of his episodes ” Don’t vote me off the island just yet”. I know he will walk away from this.

I am back!

It seems eons since I have posted anything on here, and that’s because it has been quite a while. A series of unfortunate events have seemed to plague me and those closest to me in the last few weeks. I am sure I will be ranting about them in detail in the next few days. but for now let me leave you wiuth a photo Grayson took in brazil that I think is divine, it’s a waterfall in the Amazon, do click on it for a better look.

Errant Son is off again

One of the things I admire about my middle child is his sense of adventure, he has always been fearless and a roaming soul. He is the only one of the children who would go down to the bottom of the garden where all the thick vegetation grows and and he’d play out his little fantasies of discovering new worlds and battling monsters.
When he became unwell and decided to leave medical school, to travel the world my heart stopped, what he can’t travel the world alone, my baby ( my 6″2 baby ) is going to go to strange countries alone, NEVER!
He didn’t let my panic attacks stop him, 3 and a half years he was gone, emails photographs descriptions of the places he’d been and the things he’d seen. I would wake up every morning and open my emails first thing to hear something new from my child. I loved the fact that he was doing something he had always dreamed of, working his way across the world. He picked grapes in a vineyard in Tuscany, worked in a pastry kitchen in Paris, rice paddies in China, taught English in India and Pakistan, worked at a surf school on the Red Sea, did head shots for a fashion house in NYC. Things some people only ever dream of. But it didn’t make me miss him any less, my middle child , my Baby Gray is also my best friend. I’m not usually a clingy over protective mother, but when it comes to him, I am fierce, I know mother’s shouldn’t have favourites and I always say I love all my children the same, but if I am completely and utterly honest Grayson is very special to me for reasons I have mentioned in previous blogs and the idea that he will be gone for 3 months, while not a great length of time, is still too long for me to be without him.
He’s not even been home 10 months, and there is so much I have missed about him I can’t believe that he’s going wandering off again.
I’ve been feeling down these last couple of days and I think it is his impending departure more than anything else,that has me feeling so low.
I didn’t cry when Little Miss went off to university in Johannesburg, but the thought of Errant Son leaving tomorrow has me in tears.

My children

It is a little over cast, my precious Koi are out for the day, some of them anyway, I don’t expect to win any prizes for them, I still adore them with or without a rosette. But my Koi aren’t the only thing missing this week. Grayson is away, and his absence takes me back to the 3 years he spent traveling when I had no idea where he was or what he was doing. It is true I know exactly where he is today, but I still feel incomplete. I have often been accused or having favourites with my children, which is entirely untrue I love all my babies in different ways and for different reasons.
Hillary is my first born, I became a mother for the first time with him, I got to experience all the wonders of motherhood, all the “firsts”, he is a miniature Leopold, a ‘chip off the old block’. Although he is more like his father then he will ever be like me, I love him beyond doubt.He was never an affectionate boy from age 3 he no longer wanted to be cuddled or kissed or sit on my knee.
As a boy Hillary would complain that I loved Rosalynne more then him, and after she left us, he still complained. It was in due part to the fact that all I had of my baby girl were memories, and a couple of photos. I had to keep talking about her, because, I was scared that with time I would forget her, forget her little dimples, her giggle her sweet smell.
A part of me died when Rosa did, and I became empty I never thought I would ever fill the void again.
And as I apprehensively looked forward to Hillary going to university, feeling lost and useless, as if my time was up, I had Grayson. He was always a challenge, so stubborn, but such a delight.
I remember when he was about 18 months old, he would try to climb the stair case, one by one, and it didn’t matter how long it took him, or how many times he fell or how often Nanny would scoop him up and stop him, he would always go back and try again.
Hillary was away at school, Leopold was working as usual, and all I had was my Grayson, Baby Gray we called him, such a beautiful baby. We were soon joined by Sophie, Gray was 4 by then, and already quite the little artist, of course my paranoia played a huge part in his life, for it was at four that we had lost Rosa, and as if we were cursed, Baby Gray ( we called him that until he was about 10! and implored us to stop ) almost drowned in a swimming pool while playing with his older cousins.
Half an hour after the ambulance had left, he wanted to get back into the pool! He is fearless!
He shares my love of literature, poetry, art, photography and gardening, he is not my favourite son, he is my best friend, we share so many common interests, I don’t love him as a child more then Hillary or Sophie, but I love him for the wonderful artistic person that he is, for the good friend he has always been to me.
When he is away I feel like a part of me is missing, if anything were to happen to him, I don’t think I could survive losing another child. Rosa’s loss devastated me, and we had only shared 4 years I never really got to know her.I have shared a quarter of a century with Baby Gray, he is a huge part of my life.
Sophie as all girls are, is bubbly and carefree, as a child we were very close, but somehow there is the time in a mother/daughter relationship, where something happens a split of some kind, and suddenly everything she wears is inappropriate, everything you say is tyrannical, and you grow apart.
Sophie was the easiest to handle, she wasn’t stubborn like Gray or standoffish like Hillary, she was adorable and clingy, we did everything together, and I dreamed of the day we would go shopping , plan parties, design her wedding gown. But we are so far way from each other now, and I don’t just mean the distance between CT and Joburg.
We are both to blame, it seems as if she makes decisions she knows will bother me , just to bother me, and I am always criticising those decisions. I wonder if we will ever have back the harmony we once had.
I am proud of all of my children and I love them all dearly more then I have words for.

Blog number Two

For some unfathomable reason, Blogger has starting to mess my blog around, which is rather annoying, so I have decided to start a new one. Same as the old, same rules apply it is open to all those curious cyber spacers who wish to partake in my cyber life.I don’t play favourites.

 

I suppose I should just say a few words of introduction, I’m Leticia, or Tish if you prefer, mother to three amazing children, Hillary, Grayson and Sophie, and grandmother to Jessalynne, Dylan and Natalie. I am a doting mother and grandmother so be prepared to be subjected to long winded ramblings about how wonderful my babies are, you have been warned.

I am prone to ranting, and some occasional humour. Expectlots of recipes, craft projects, and gardening. If these sort of things are not your cup of tea, stop reading this blog HERE.

The rather ingenius name for my new blog was created by Errant Son.