Death, birth, closing doors and new opportunities

Death, birth, closing doors and new opportunities

My run of bad sleep this week was continued by a 5am text to say that my ex's mother had died. What mixed set of feelings for a woman I hardly knew but who I felt I would have loved to have spent time with and had long long chats. Life for African women can be such a struggle and this woman brought up a huge family, dealt with the death of a child, outlived other adult children who were taken prematurely by a disease that's ravaged Africa and lost the husband she had spent almost all of her adult life with and whilst fighting her own battle with ill health tried to keep going. She will be buried on land the family own next to her late husband and children, I'm not a particularly religious person and don't think I believe in life after death but I do hope that their souls are able to keep each other company from now on.

And as for that ex well I have to say that even in the face of the death of his mother he still couldn't tell the truth. I know that now I can finally walk away from the whole experience and forgive myself for making such a mistake and letting that natural need to be loved mean I missed the fact he wasn't the man he claimed to be and close that door forever.

And then comes the birth....... Birth and death constantly sit hand in hand and today I gained a new cousin, well third cousin, as a new generation was born in my family. A boy too which seems unusual in our family, he's a small little chap but looks just perfect and I hope to meet him soon.

And with the news of this birth came a new opportunity to work with a local textile artist who makes the most wonderful woollen products, here is a snap of some of them I took a while back at a vintage fair so I can't wait to start building up her photographic catalogue of products for her web page, we both got a little bit excited about using some vintage props to display her products too which I know we will have a lot of fun setting up, what a great end to a hard week.