Tuesday 17 March 2009

Labour and Love





It has been quite an ongoing time of supporting my children to overcome challenges. The biggest one - being over here!! At least I can draw on the pain I felt when I was homesick in Paris at 18 and China at 23. And that pain was always at it's worst when I was struggling with specific issues. And for all I desperately wanted to come home, I didn't, and I look back on those experiences with warmth at the good times and pride that I managed to sit out the bad times. And those experiences helped me to cope with new experiences with more confidence. So although Spook and I go through the torture of wondering if we did the right thing by tearing our children away from their close community and throwing them into a completely knew one, I know that with love and support, we will come through each difficult phase, and be stronger as a family for it. Because here, we have only ourselves to count on. At home, they have an extended circle of support - when one door closes, another opens.

Meg keeps a few mothers up her sleeve, and Finn had at least 3 other houses in the neighbourhood that he could take shelter in, when the going got tough.

But there's always a bit of hard labour over here. That has great healing properties, and gets the place tidied up. As they like to say over here, when they are trying to offer comfort............

"She'll be right".

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