Tracey Brown 2014 Newsletter.

I have felt unable to write lately but took great pleasure in receiving Alf Wood's NZ Newsletter so here goes.

2014 started off rather slowly as we all waited impatiently for our much anticipated Disney World (Orlando Florida) holiday. In April and accompanied by Rob's mom, we spent two fabulous weeks at Disney's Port Orleans Resort. The package Rob purchased for us (with a very generous gift from his mom) included meals and snacks as well as park tickets to all the parks.

We enjoyed meals out at Disney themed restaurants and RIDES! RIDES! RIDES. We loved each and every park but kept returning time and again to Disney's Hollywood Studios. I learned that Kieran is an adrenalin junkie who insisted both Rob and I try many roller coasters and although once fearless I now have little appreciation for my mortality.

We waited in queues, queues and more queues but these were few and far between thanks to Rob's meticulous planning of everyday and his little blue itinerary book. My overall synopsis of our Disney Holiday is that IT WAS THE BEST HOLIDAY I HAVE EVER HAD and it was amazing to see Rob totally relaxed and enjoying being a kid with the rest of us.

July Was another very busy month with Cheyenne dancing in the PAD dance extravaganza, a visit by Rob's dad which left me without a husband and the kids without a father for almost a week as Father and Son spent good quality time travelling throughout the South of England. It was lovely to see Ian again after so long. I know Rob thoroughly enjoyed having his dad here.

August saw the kids and I off to Lyme Regis (besides Disney World) my all time favourite place and where I would like to retire one day. It was also a place my Mom enjoyed and I have fond memories of trying to hold onto her wheelchair as we descended the very steep hill towards the beach. We could at least see the funny of what could possibly happen if I accidently let go!! Let's just say laughs all around.

September started with a wave of activity as Kieran entered his final year of junior school and Shiny hot on his hills. October saw us visiting Bohunt our local secondary school and completing an application for his admittance next year.

Until the 2nd of November, bar a few personal clashes, 2014 was looking to be the best year of my entire life and then I got a call on Sunday evening 2nd November. Jaime called me to say my mom had had a funny turn and they thought she was gone. Early on the 3rd of November 2014 we were told that the emergency doctor had pronounced her dead.

Thanks again to the generosity of Rob's mom I was able to fly back to SA. I arrived to find my big brother and Marilyn at the airport to fetch me. My amazing niece had taken my dad and sister to arrange mom's funeral, the eats had been sorted thanks to Avie and Kelly and although under such sad circumstances, spending time with my brother Ryan, Dad, Lolly, Jaime, Nash, Jordyn and Maya was fabulous. I was also very strongly reminded how important family is and how the blood that runs through our veins should mean more than anything else. Alas some other's don't!

Mom's funeral was well attended and it drove home to me that although unwell and unable to move around much, Mom was a loyal and trustworthy friend and many of them arrived to "share in her journey to the spirit in the sky"

I felt extremely blessed that my two best friends from High School both made an effort to come and pay their respects, they both remembered her fondly and although we had not seen each other for over 30 years we were able to pick-up as though no time at all had passed.

My mother loved Christmas it was her all time favourite time of the year, and even though I haven't spent Christmas with MY family in 8 years, I knew that on Christmas Day I could get hold of the whole family with one call/ Skype because they would all be with mom. This year we will all be feeling the magnitude of her loss. We will all be celebrating Christmas knowing that nothing and no-one can fill the gaping hole our wonderful wife, mother and Nana has left within us.

So on that rather dreary note (allowed to wallow in self pity every now and then I think), allow me to extend Season's Greetings and Very Happy Holidays to you and your families with the very best of wishes for a 2015 full of family, friends and all the good things money can't buy.

In Love and Light
Tracey (Please enjoy some photos of our Disney experience)

 

The Importance of Siblings

I know it's been a while since I've written anything but there is something I feel the need to share.
On Sunday evening (2 November 2014) or Monday morning (3 November 2014) my darling mother passed away. Living 11,000 miles away from my family I felt it only right to travel home. I had not been in South Africa since 2011 and have not lived there since 2007. Although my parents managed to visit me last year, my mom was very poorly and in my heart I knew that I would not see her alive again. My mother was a marvellous woman who worked hard everyday of her life and suffered severely because she spent all her time and effort looking after everyone else. My mother never drank and was always a lady. My mother sacrificed everything for her kids including her health, but my mother also loved her mom, dad and sisters (those who are passed on Beryl, Ray Avis and Sandy who's still alive).
I must admit that I found my mother's loyalty to her sisters strange, that is until I moved away from my siblings. I had always been close to my younger brother, but circumstances change and for a long time we have not been close. My older brother is a strange one, happy to help out wherever possible (except emotionally) but I refuse to ask him for help because I was unable to help him when he needed me most. My sister on the other hand is the kind of woman who also sacrifices everything for her family and through many tough times has always been there for everyone in any way she can (except financially).
Spending this last few days with my siblings has taught me one thing, my brothers and sister are the best friends I will ever have. There is nothing so bad or distance so far that will ever change that. Do we fight? Sure. Have we always been close? No. Are we going to remain close? Who Knows. BUT we are united by one of the most sincere emotions - GRIEF!

Today I publicly declare that I love and will miss my mom (and dad who thank God remains healthy and well at 78 years), her death however has brought home to me just how important my siblings are. Gavin, Lolly and Ryan are my best friends and we share the blood of great woman.
Thank you Mommy for not only giving me a great life, making sure I did not go without. Thank you for teaching me the importance of independence and earning my own living by working hard. Thank you for never being manipulative or playing us off against each other, but thank you most of all for bringing me my best friends.
I love you guys and miss you all already. Be safe!

In love and light Tracey
(Although this message focuss' on siblings, I must mention that my mother loved her nieces and nephews just much as her sisters, just as I love my nieces as much as my siblings. Let's face it BLOOD IS BLOOD!!.)

Daily affirmations - why we need them

   

It's repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. & once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen. -Muhammad Ali

 

Hello, those who know me, know that I am a firm believer in being able to manifest your desires. Those of you who know me better that I am great at starting things but really  shit at actually completing them and that is why I am the first to tell you that I am not a failure at anything, I am a quitter. I am so afraid of failing that I will deliberately not finish anything, and then I see this quote and I love quote Muhammad Ali, all his quotes for me are about putting in the effort.

 

I am great at affirmations, occasionally, when I need them, and therein lies the problem. Belief comes from the repetition of affirmations on days when you don't need them as well as days when you do.

 

I am not sure if I mentioned my vision board. Anyway I made a mission board last year, my most common mantra is "happy, healthy, wealthy, loved" On my vision board where things like

 

"I enjoy living in my own home."

"I love going on fabulous holidays"

"I am happy healthy wealthy loved." Everyday these phrases hung on my door and scattered around each phrase was a picture, not of the holiday, not of a dream home, but pictures of my loved ones. A photo at my wedding that had my mom and dad in it, pictures that Lolly sent me of her with Jaime, Jordy and Nash. Pictures of my darling children in smiling happy poses and with very limited financial resources, barely a year later, we have bought a four bedroom duplex flat in a really nice village, and we are heading out in less than 2 months to Disney World Florida for 2 whole weeks. I am happy, I am healthy, I am loved and YES with limited financial resources I am wealthy.

I am wealthy because wealth doesn't come with the things money can buy, true wealth comes from the things that money can't buy.

Like having home where we are safe and warm (whether we own it or not)

Like true friends who are there for you no matter what, people you don't have to talk to for ages and ages and then start a conversation exactly where you left off months or even years ago.

Like love, the love of a good man, not just a husband and provider, but my best friend and the best father any kids could wish for. The love of my children, two gorgeous, intelligent and talented children.

Like family, we will never know where we would end up without the people who have helped define us over the years. Mother, Father, Sister, Brothers, each one of them adding value and helping to create who we are.

 

So do affirmations really work, I am still going to say yes, yes yes! And if nothing else when you wake up feeling lousy, look in the mirror and smile, because at least you have your eyes to see, your ears to hear and your arms to wrap around those you love, and just in case anyone reading this doesn't have those things, at least you have another day to fight on.

So I ask myself how much of a quitter can I really be when like the rest of you I get up, get dressed and face another day, and another day and another?

Perhaps it just boils down to living my life, day to day, doing the very best I can for the people I love and maybe I will finally quit wondering what's wrong with me and I will quit worrying about the things I can't control.

 

In love and light

Tracey

Our first "big" break.

Let me tell you about the last 24 hours and a bit...

Monday, enough already I hear you say but it gets better. A normal day by any accounts until about 3.45pm when I collect Kiki and Shiny from school. Kiki gets into the car and shows me his right index finger, it's blue and very swollen, I say "ouch, how'd that happen?" He proceeds to tell me that during PE in the last hour of the day, a netball bounced onto his finger. I say "Okay is it sore?" He says "no". So I start driving home, I look down to change gear and his hand is sitting on his lap, I say "S$%t, that doesn't look right!" So I turn the car around and head back into Petersfield because they have a minor injuries department at the hospital.
We arrive at the hospital and they have a triage system going, so we fill in the form and see a nurse, she draws a picture, takes all the info and straps his finger up giving me a form that I need to take to a doctor next door for an x-ray referral. No problem so we wait, we get the form and head back into the hospital to the radiography department. It's closed about 4.30pm.
Kiki is still not in any pain so we'll come back tomorrow.
Tuesday, the ice on the car is about as thick as a pound coin, so the day starts with me putting in some major PT as I try to scrape the ice off the windscreen and side windows, then an uneventful drive to drop Shiny at school and on to the hospital, we get there at 8.37am (I have the car park ticket to prove it). Radiography doesn't open till 9am so we wait, eventually Kiki is taken in and x-rayed and we wait.
Did you know that x-rays are digital (how modern), we head back to minor injuries and we wait to see the doctor. He's a pretty cool bloke, tattoo, earing, he says "Hey mom, take a look at this." Clearly I am looking at Kiki's hand, looks OK to me, and then he clicks over to an image of the finger and it's broken. Damn!!! A teeny tiny break in the middle bone of finger just above the joint.
Our first broken bone!

In love and light ( and plaster and a sling:) )

What's really important?

I often feel like there is so much crap sitting on my shoulders and it gets harder and harder to shrug off. All the self-help stuff I am addicted to says "let go of the past" for some of us it is much easier said than done.
I have gotten better at releasing the day to day stuff that annoys me, like the moron who cut me off in the traffic, but please don't tell me I am the only one who seethes for hours afterwards!
Surely who we are is a blend of the things that make up our past. We all have good things and bad things that have happened which have defined us, but why does it seem that the bad stuff which happened defined us more?
For days now I have been smelling cigarette smoke and not whiffs but full on puffs of smoke, I always associate the smell of cigarette smoke with my Aunties. Especially Aunty A. So I keep wondering what she is trying to tell me? I haven't had any intuition of what it is she wants me to do.
I'll tell you a little story...
One year, Bee drove Avis, my mom and I down to Durban from Johannesburg. I think it was for uncle Alf's funeral. Not a holiday, but they all smoked. So I sat in the back complaining about the smoke, not because they smoked, but because they never smoked at the same time, there was not a minute in the whole 8 hour drive down to the coast that I was not breathing in second-hand smoke! Jesus how that irked me! For years it bothered me, I moaned and complained about every opportunity I got but thinking about it now I am filled with longing and nostalgia for the women they were, Aunty Bee and Aunty A always full of love, caring and warm, my mom quick to laugh, vibrant and loving.
I spoke to my mom today and she is doing well, considering she is on oxygen 24 hours a day. I miss her very much.
However there is a part of me that would kill for another 8 hours with them, all together taking much joy out of my misery!
So really, honestly what is REALLY important??
In love and light.