Expressions of Love

Easter holidays - wow, didn't that come around fast!

Happy Easter to everyone out there who celebrates it (or just uses it as an excuse for eating chocolate ... hey, I'm not here to judge!).

This past week has been a memorable one for us, with a wedding AND a funeral to attend ... and they were both as beautiful and touching as they possibly could have been.

The wedding we attended was a surprise - for the bride! She is a member of my family, and I couldn't have been more thrilled for her. What made it even better is that she has always been a bit of a prankster, playing practical jokes and springing surprises on other people. She believed the wedding would be very small and private; just her, the groom and a handful of other people, in her adult daughter's back yard ... but in reality a larger wedding had been organised behind her back.

There were actually over 70 guests, including some family members she hadn't seen for a few years. She was blindfolded (I believe there was an excuse made about not wanting her to see the decorations until she was in position to walk down the aisle) and somehow, amazingly, we were all silent as she was led in. Imagine when the blindfold was removed - her reaction made all the secrecy worthwhile! I have never seen a happier bride, and I'm sure the tears flowed freely from everyone who was there.

Of course, the rest of the ceremony was beautiful and emotional too. She has been with the groom for over a decade; he has helped to raise her children into the lovely young adults they are. He said years ago that he would marry her, but I'm sure she'd just about given up hope of it ever actually happening! So, for him to go to this effort to make it so special for her just made the whole event even more incredible. We were very excited to be there for their big day.

Going from a happy occasion to a not-so-happy one, we attended the funeral yesterday of a dear friend who passed away after a very long battle with cancer. This amazing lady was actually the mother of my husband's best friend ... someone he grew up living next door to, a truly beautiful woman who embodied the term 'Earth Mother'. She was the kind of woman who could make anything grow and thrive - plants, animals, family and friends included. She was a chatterbox, with a constant smile, who loved to keep up with all her neighbours and nurture everyone around her. We used to see her regularly when our children were younger, as she would ride her horses around the neighbourhood and always stop for a chat if we were in the front yard.

I'm sure she never said a bad word about anyone and no one seems to have ever had a bad word to say about her. She really was loved by all. She cherished her husband, children and grandchildren, and they all adored her in return. There were many tears, but her funeral was a beautiful tribute to her life and the get-together afterwards was a true celebration of everything about her, with her family supplying plentiful food, plants, hugs, laughter and printed booklets of her favourite recipes as keepsakes. We will always treasure her memory and be grateful that we were lucky enough to have known her.

When I think about it, both events this week were all about love. The happiness of a wedding is obvious, there is so much joy in celebrating love and declaring it for the world. But there is also so much love on display when someone passes away and we celebrate the person they were and acknowledge the deep sense of loss for their family - which is only so heartbreaking because of the love they feel.

Easter seems like as good a time as any to reflect on life, love and death, and to be grateful for what we have. Have a happy one and eat as much chocolate as you like x

Red as a Tomato

Our youngest child, our 8 year old son, has been in the wars recently.

Earlier this month, he had an entire week off school because of a particularly bad sunburn. It was embarrassing, for me more than him ... one of those 'I'm such a bad mother' moments.

He'd been playing outside and had ignored my reminder about putting on sunscreen. He was out in the sunshine for much longer than I'd realised, in a concrete area - reflective surfaces! - and had taken his shirt off. When I noticed he was still outside, I called him in and noticed his back was pink. 'Oh no, mate,' I said, 'You look like you might be a bit sunburnt.'

A bit? Try a lot! My boy is very pale, so if he gets a sunburn it's quite obvious. It tends to start off pink and the colour darkens over time. By an hour or so after coming into the house, he was red! It was obvious he'd been quite badly burned - and not just his back, but his arms and chest as well. He had a cool shower and we applied the Aloe Vera After Sun gel we always keep in the fridge but, by that evening, it was obvious that this was worse than the average sunburn. To add to his humiliation, his big brother decided that 'Tomato' would be a great nickname for him.

Over the next few days, we tried everything to soothe his discomfort - all the sunburn remedies you can think of. Tea bags, Aloe Vera gel, Burn Aid gel, apple cider vinegar, a ginger compress, tomato slices, papaw ointment, coconut oil, lavender oil. At night, he slept on the lounge with the softest sheet we could find, with two pedestal fans blowing cool air around him. He didn't wear a shirt the entire time, and he walked like C3PO, holding his arms out from his body because it hurt all over. After about three days, blisters appeared. My poor little boy; he was in so much pain and I couldn't even comfort him with a cuddle ... touch was out of the question.

In the end, the only thing that really helped was Soov, an after-sun treatment that I bought at the chemist for $10. It's a spray, so I didn't actually have to touch him, much to his relief! After a week of being confined to the house, not being able to wear a shirt, and putting up with being called Tomato by his siblings, his skin had finally calmed down enough for him to get back to normal.

The funny part came yesterday, two weeks after the sunburn settled down. Our older son, who also knows better, spent the day at the beach with friends and came home ... you guessed it ... sunburnt.

I asked my younger boy if he could think of a nickname for his big brother. His face lit up with joy (or revenge?) and he announced, 'Tomato number two!'