New Life

Thanks for all your kindness on yesterday's Pine. It's very sweet when Blipfriends pop back with a heart once they have them back.

It's been many years now since I visited Tokyo with work, but I walked away with a little knowledge of a culture so pure, being born from a group of islands which remained cut off physically and politically from much of the rest of the world for so long. How that intrinsically Japanese spirit of collectiveness shines through the tragedy.

I have witnessed very many natural disasters first hand from the years of hurricane damage in Florida when Wilma, Katrina and Rita wrecked havoc and left cars spinning in tornados on our street and neighbours move out from flooded homes whilst we remained months without power, or powering up a generator at night when we had the energy to do so. I've watched apartment buildings seeming to liquify in LA during the Northridge quake, a wave running through them end to end. But how infinitesimal those woes and economic collapse which long haunted me seem now. How can we ever recover from the vision of people running and cars darting in opposing directions as the waters hit, knowing for certain that those people are no longer with us. The natural order for a wave is to ebb and flow, to rise and recede and when it just keeps coming, I am lost for words.

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Austin's birthday party today, the only kid on the block we know, bounce house for the kids (don't we call that a bouncy castle in the UK?), great food and envy over their vegetable patch. Beautifully hot and sunny, and I couldn't resist this little 3 weeker nestled quietly in a corner under the shade of a lemon tree. Would be lovely to get the opportunity to do a session with them beyond a few quick takes whilst holding Callum back from trying to stroke the baby's head.

Happy birthday to my very dear friend Sarah mog70. Our little men Reuben and Alfie were conceived after IVF within days of each other. We've shared a great deal of our journeys and she's been a star friend at every turn. Looking forward to seeing you next month in the UK! She'll now be on the pink fizz thus her lack of Blip today.

I hear Reuben coughing whilst his breathing treatments are still going and I run upstairs. I have the boys to myself for the next week and two night and dayshifts for me. It'll be tough. He's still recovering from the corona LN63 virus which went to pneumonia last week, but really, the coughing is nothing new. Incidents such as rushing to his bedside during the night waking from a startled sleep and immediately suctioning his then trach or now, emptying his stomach rapidly via the tube within seconds of wake up to prevent throw ups which happen anyway and then aspirations, all the while the pulsox monitor attached to his toe as it has every night for nearly 4 years getting in the way as I move his growing body, getting heavy. It has happened 100s of times now and it never gets any easier, the throw up now cleaned from the floor, his pajamas changed, his mouthed washed and him laid back down to sleep. Chronic reflux despite a surgery to prevent it, is one of the hardest things we cope with re Reu. But I must end up a happier note as the world's heart sits heavy right now. Today he spelt out many words to me in sign, delighting himself with the double L in yellow.