What happens when everyone goes back to school, back to work and you are planning a funeral for 200 attendees ? Well you start drinking a lot of caffeine and join a musical to keep you sane.
I’ve signed up for ‘Blitz’ with my mum’s theatre group so I can be a bit closer to her. Every Wednesday I dump all the children on my long suffering husband and pretend I’m a 20 something refugee in war torn Britain. (It’s going to take a lot of make up, good lighting and stretching the audiences imagination for that)
My husband has taken on two shows as his stress relief. In one he is having a baby with my sister in law (he plays Hugo to my sister in law’s Alice in Vicar of Dibley) and in the other he’s prancing along to many awful tunes in Dick Whittington. My two foster sons and my daughter are joining him in panto. A first for my lovely boys so ridiculously proud of them.
The oldest boy is a little perturbed that the principal boy is a girl and the dame is a boy but hey that’s panto.
My first foster carer recruitment evening in Swanage happened this month. 90% of the people attending were close friends of mine so hopefully the assessment process will go well or I may be knocked off Christmas card lists.
The celebration of our foster children’s achievements also happened this month. My first time to one of these events. My boys won an award for coping with change and I gave myself an award for not eating two cakes out of the hundreds that were on offer. The best bit was listening to two young ladies talk about their time in care and how much they’ve achieved despite a traumatic childhood.
I’d been procrastinating over whether I could offer a home to a third child but after this I would like six more. Unfortunately my husband might stand in the way of that or have me committed so sticking with one more.
So back to the funeral. I bought 120 cans of Guinness (mums favourite) and stored in my porch (good job I didn’t have an unannounced visit ) and instead of black we wore lots of colour and glitter. We all went back to a big party at her favourite theatre and remised about the greatest, craziest foster nan ever.
Am I back to normal ? Nope but I never was normal. My main support system,other than my husband, is gone and our life has had to adapt to that. My children both borrowed and birth have suffered a big loss and for borrowed children that is a loss on top of many others in their young lives. But the show will go on and mum will go on in our hearts , yes I still cry and yes I don’t hide it all from my children because to be sad is normal, to talk about how you’re feeling is normal and healthy and for your children to see that you can take the safe path when something difficult happens is invaluable.
