We. Are. Bound.

Hi :)

 For real i wanna know...

how many of these are there...!?

These uncomfortable... yet familiar...

 bitter-sweet milestones...these raw mothering moments...

Quite a few it seems...

I have 3 children...

It seems easier...just by a fraction though...moving through seasons...

 with the big kids who are 20 and 17 now...

But not with my Bradley...
He is... my baby still...

It's been coming over me for a while now...

this bruised heart still beating feeling...
 as this season's end draws together the untidy somewhat frayed edges of this year...

I've been sensing it's arrival with trepidation... for weeks now...

Like watching a storm roll in from a great distance...

The clouds... building on the horizon

The dust... being kicked up

The distant rumble of... thunder
and then...

The lightning flash... white hot  

It's all too deja vu now...

I've felt it all before...

Being someone who...
 marks time well in this motherhood journey...

I'm not one who is afraid of going 'deep' where my loves are concerned...

These seasons...they mean too much for me to treat them so callously...

As this year 2015 draws to a close...

My feeling of loss has grown stronger...

Change is coming once more...

Junior Primary with it's time for...

being little...

sounding little...

acting little...

has reached it's end...

At the start of this...
  a very specific amount of days was measured out to us...
 in which to live out our lives...

Where teaching happens if you are lucky...we were lucky...
where friends are made and lost daily...
where 'the rules' are... followed-broken-followed every hour...

where bells ring long and breaks are way short...
school life... on repeat.

Bradley is fast running out of days to run around the 'little kid side' of the school...

The 'moving on to bigger things storm' is fast approaching...

The clap of thunder is loud in my ears...

I feel the relentless winds... tugging my heart open...

The white hot lightning strikes... light up our sky...

Today when i stood in our quiet kitchen...flooded with sunlight...
a place that has seen many hours of homework... 

the storm broke...over me...and in me...and it broke me.

I held this years workbooks in my hands...

paging slowly through each one...remembering...

And i saw all the words written in pencil...awkwardly at first...then neater... 

words on every line...

Like precious etchings they are to me...for they tell a story...his story...

A story of when he was but 8 and 9
 and little for only a while longer...

Those books actually felt heavy in my hands...weighted...
 because i know of the frustrated struggle woven into each sentence...

the torturous triumph behind each maths sum...

I am... as always the sentinel to the integrity of his story...

I am the record keeper...

Their stories are engraved on my heart
like a tattoo... 

And my heart bled just a bit...
for this year's sands slipping away like silk...

The winds of time are snatching and scattering the sands of this year far and wide...
and there is nothing i can do... but to watch in fascination...
 the 'way' they blow from here to there...
and i'll see where they fall...


These grains that are always hurrying on their way... never slowing...
never resting... catch a little bit of sunlight every so often...then sparkle back at me...

Other times beautiful patterns in the sands i see...

Sometimes they sting my skin...like a windy day walk on the beach...

It wasn't the best year...
but it was ours...
his and mine...

 There were times of...
stress
worry
anxiety
joy
 happiness
success

We had them all and probably more...

This year among the usual things... he learned to try, try, try

Today [before i held those books] as we drove that well known road home...
 i called out to him

"Well Bradley we survived grade 3"

 and i was proud...

Because that's life hey...a mixed bag...

Ps

What an unspeakable privilege it is to be... a mom
To be 'there for them' and 'there with them' through... all of it...
every step of the way...

Because yes it must be nice to live a charmed life...
Well i can only imagine at that...

But... in the trenches together...
That the real deal my dear

Those are the ties that bind...
and

 we.
 are.
bound.


 Me and my very cohesive little family


Pps

One thing that has grown me more...

 as a woman
as a wife
as a mother

Is 'the struggle'...
because there you are...

 actively learning...

engaged in...

...becoming.

The prayer circle I am drawing around Bradley for 2016 is Bold