sam i sisifo

…haven’t slept very well this week. Yesterday was Ange’s birthday and I tried to treat it as just another day, but it’s not just another day. It’s another milestone that she doesn’t get to celebrate and we don’t get to share with her.
I am lucky though. She lives on in her sisters and in her daughter. They each display traits that are reminders of her and in that way she will never really be gone.
Love you Ange, miss you bigtime xox

Mandi forewarned me when I sat down to watch it. I’d already figured there would be EQ footage as I knew it was in Chch because of the rebuild etc., but it’s funny how even when you’re prepared for it, it can still smack you in the face and stop you in your tracks.
1st shot I saw, was the Iconic Bar crumbling and me scrambling away from the rubble. When I explain that moment in time to people; they get the seriousness of the situation; they understand the danger of the moment. I don’t think they realise that moments earlier I was desperately trying to free my friends body from under that rubble. That moment in time and the few minutes that precede it will remain with me forever. I won’t say they haunt me but they certainly don’t comfort me.

The very next shot was my car, crushed and flattened by a concrete parapet. Shocking enough in itself but on the tail of the previous image I find it almost comforting.
Mandi doesn’t like that image. It takes her back to that day and the turmoil that surrounded it. It reminds her of the disbelief she had when I told her the car had been crushed. She couldn’t comprehend that it was just gone. When I pointed it out to her on the TV news clips she couldn’t even recognise it. When she finally came to terms with it, it just hammered home to her how close I came to being crushed to death. If that had happened she probably would not have known for days as I had not originally intended to be in town that day.

I was lucky that day, …didn’t feel lucky at the time though.

I think it’s official (or at least it should be) I must be the most infrequent user of this blogsite there is.
…but I still love it
For anyone who cares, I will continue to post (infrequently or otherwise) on this site. Some of those posts will be spontaneous and some will be the result of ongoing (if somewhat sporadic) forays in to creative and/or biographical recording. Potluck I guess

“…you meet thousands of people and none of them really touch you. And then you meet one person and your life is changed forever. “

Funny how everything can change ~ SNAP! ~ just like that as if at the click of someones fingers. This last week has taken me from one extreme to the other.
One week ago today was my 46th birthday, I awoke to a cooked breakfast and my family sharing with me the gifts they had bought for the occassion. I had to go to work but the day went smoothly and I was out the door and headed home by 6.30pm. And after a beautiful day we capped things off with a bottle of champagne and some strawberries, which I followed up with Jamesons and Miller chasers. The day was bliss and all was perfect. A couple of days later I walked in to my optometrist to enquire about contact lenses, an hour or so later I walked out with contacts in my eyes and I spent the next 2 days marvelling at the new world I had discovered and wondering why I hadn’t done this 30 yrs earlier.

THEN…

I get a message that my sister has been hospitalised. An ectopic pregnancy which resulted in her having a fallopian tube removed and spending 2 days in hospital before going home to more rest and recovery. I was a little conflicted as the situation had potentially tragic consequences, but her recovery was good and she was genuinely excited about my optical transformation. It had almost been a kick in the guts to what started as a good week, but life was still a blessing and I felt blessed to be enjoying it as such.

THEN…

Friday night, after a dinner to celebrate my granddaughters 6th birthday, I’m sitting at home winding down and the phone rings. It’s my oldest sister. She tells me she has bad news. Everything stops.

Sam from Kitchens will soon be no more. He will be replaced by Nightfill Sam and Merch. Sam