This has been a very difficult week in many ways. Following the missed access last Sunday we had a suicide attempt on Monday. Apparently my husband thinks that swimming is a good way to end his life at the moment. The police picked him up and took him to the local mental health unit, who sent him home again with a referral to the CAT team. This naturally unsettled the children.
Wednesday was my birthday and the dear friend my husband is staying with woke me up at 9:15 to give me a birthday present from my husband, thanks so much. We had a very enjoyable day ending with Guides and Scouts and replacing our security door lock as the old one (only a year old) literally fell apart in my hand.
Thursday we spent with a friend on the other side of town, visited my brother-in-law and his family and finished the night with a ride on the Melbourne Star. Amazing views and Mowgli made me really proud as he is afraid of heights and still went on with us and even started walking around our cabin and taking photos. Thursday was amazing, possibly the best birthday celebration I’ve ever had.
This weekend is the Geelong Agricultural and Pastoral Society Show. When I was a child, I practically lived at the Geelong Show Grounds. My father was a member of the Vintage Machinery section and spent every night of the show “babysitting” the boiler. We usually were at the show grounds for the Saturday night fireworks but if we weren’t we watched them from our home some miles away, actually but the view was amazing. No sound just lights. Up until last year we nearly always took the children, this year Casper and I both felt it was too hard to go. Too many memories, too sad, just too hard. My husband went yesterday and apparently bought us all show bags, which is nice I guess.
Today I went to a fete at our old church and it was an emotional rollercoaster. The first person I saw was an old friend I haven’t seen for about nine years. She had seen my husband last weekend, before the whole suicide attempt, and had guessed that there was something a bit more than he’d told her and had been thinking about me all week. It was really good to reconnect and we’ve made plans for coffee and trying to get her son into scouts with mine but it was a very emotional conversation as I shared the full story with her. Then I ran into an old friend from the church and shared some of the story with him. I guess I didn’t really have to but he and his wife were a big part of our lives before my husband started pulling us away from the church.
Casper has been emotional the last couple of days and I joined her today. Just feeling down I think largely because my friend was so supportive and said I’d done the right thing even though I only gave her a bare bones account of what had been going on. Why can’t my mother, who knows more than my friend, support us more than she supports my husband. He calls her, God only knows how many times a day. He’s staying with her as I type this. I’m not the bad guy in all of this, so why does my mother make me feel like I am?
So, there we were, watching the Smurfs and feeling kind of down, when suddenly we hear … FIREWORKS!!!! I have no idea why someone was letting off fireworks near our house, I do know that they must have been official fireworks because the illegal ones are always only a couple and this was a proper display. What I found in the coincidence of watching fireworks from my front lawn, on the Saturday of Geelong Show was the reminder that God is in everything. I found peace. My daughter found God’s hand too. As she said the only things she would have missed were provided for her when her father bought her a show bag and God provided the fireworks.