My mom passed away suddenly last Sunday from a heart attack after walking back home from the beach with my younger sister. I have received so many emails, phone and facebook messages that I am overwhelmed replying to them all. I hope I will be forgiven for posting this message to everyone.

Dear good friends

Thank you so much for your kind messages. I think taking care of Joni has carried me through these past few days. She is such a little sunshine and our household is infused with joy every day through her. On the other hand what has been hard is seeing her do new things like laughing out of her tummy or starting to notice trees and the sky, and knowing there would not be a next time that my mom would be coming around that I would be able to share it with her. Just recently Grant and I spoke about how much has happened to him that he was never able to share with his dad. Every time I put Joni to sleep with her teddy that my mom gave her, I am sad that she will not remember her ouma. Or know any of her grandfathers. (And Grant's mom starting smoking again a month ago does not help this situation, may I add. A very sore point in the family right now.)

Thank you for all the offers of help. I am so grateful that this time round I do not have to do a funeral-by-government-committee. It is so much easier and I think things will actually get done, on time and in style. I'm even practising hymns on the piano for the funeral on Saturday. I think the biggest pain will be trying to clean out fifteen years of accumulated stuff from their garage with a baby on the hip and just making a plan with all the other furniture and things in the house before we sell it. It is a somewhat cruel blessing that a time of introspection and grief is so overshadowed by practical admin and organisation, all painfully reminding one of the loss every step of the way, lasting for months. I can't believe I have to do this just a year after my dad. It is just still sinking in slowly, especially in the sleepless hours of the mornings like now.

Other than that I think I just want to assure everyone that I am ok and although I am sad, I am also grateful. My mom has not had an easy life and has not been well for the last twenty years or so of her life, being on heavy medication most of the time, which tragically dulled her unbelievably bright and creative mind. I think she missed my dad a lot. I know she had a lot of happiness in the last few months with a new grandchild around. I am thankful that, as with my dad, we were spared a long illness but that she was taken probably without her even realising it and without suffering, in a swift moment. There are terrible regrets in that she left a message on my phone the night before saying she thinks there is something wrong with her and she just wants to hold her little grandchild one more time. That breaks my heart every time I think about it. Only time will heal that. And perhaps making sure that Joni holds that little teddy as a comfort. She would have liked that.

So, at the end, just this: thank you everyone for being so thoughtful. It is so much appreciated. I can not tell you how much it means that so many people actually care and are so kind. It is all that really matters, in the end. I wish I can remember that myself every day. Thank you.

Adi

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Adeleida Bingham July 21st, 2010 03:23:58 AM

The 14th of April was just a lazy afternoon of watching old reruns of Friends ("The One where Magnum PI shows up") when I suddenly realised, hey, what's with the plumbing today, there seemed to be some leakage. Could this be that my water may have broken? It was two weeks early still and it wasn’t a very convincing thought at the time as there really was no gush and mass flooding of the proximity, as portrayed in just about every Hollywood visual that I’ve ever seen on the matter. It was really just a little spurt and a soak which made the verdict more likely that my last few body parts has finally given over to the pressure and is waving the big white flag of surrender under this glorious mass of tummy that I accumulated the last nine months. Then it happened a second time, twenty minutes later and I started wondering how cool it would be if This Was Actually It. And in the same breath I start crapping myself as I had not finished packing my hospital bags yet, so I did a super whirlwind final packing of my hospital bags, Just In Case. I was so ready, oh so ready, to wave a big farewell to this demon called the third trimester and get on with the whole baby thing already! Hopes weren’t too high though, as many a very pregnant lady has rushed off to the hospital only to be sent back home red faced with a “nope, that was pee, you newbie moron”. That is then also pretty much the message I gave to my husband when he phoned to say he’s on his way home. When he arrived home I actually found a bit of blood now too, so I told him that I’ll pop into hospital for the routine CTG scan that I was due for anyway, the next day, while he took the dogs for a walk.

At hospital, they hooked me up to the CTG machine and, as expected, nothing, nada. Not even a little blip of a uterine contraction and little baby was just fast asleep, the heartbeat all restful and peaceful. Twenty minutes later, they declare it a probable non-event and said they’ll communicate the CTG results through to my gynaecologist. There was no more leakage either so they can't really do a good litmus test to confirm whether I was spilling amniotic fluid or whether I was just, you know, peeing my pants. I made a call to Grant saying, enjoy the dog walk, nothing happening here, see you at home and please remember to pick up Steers Wacky Wednesday burgers on your way home. (Hint: I'm still waiting for those burgers).

A few moments later the nurse peeped into the room again and asked the magic question: when did I eat last? I realised my gynae made a judgement call to get little baba out that night. My heart almost jumped right out of my throat while I tried to remember: uhm... late afternoon? Some toast? The nurse darts off again. I sat back and breathed deeply and as dignified as possible while freaking out just a little bit. It seems nine months are still not enough to really prepare you for when the moment comes. Of all things, I then remembered that I also had a massive piece of chocolate cake just an hour or two before and I ran down the passage to tell the nurse, who was back on the phone to my gynaecologist. (I believe my brain intentionally blocked out that little sinful indulgence, b.t.w. ). The nurse waved a “don’t worry” at me while she smiled the update to my gynae on the phone. I returned to my little room to wait for the nurse’s announcement which came just a few minutes later: get into this gown, you’re going into theatre in half an hour!

Back on the phone to husband I went, bawling my eyes out and telling him to get the damn dogs back to the house and come over and Bring The Camera, we’re having ourselves a little girl that night! For the life of me I can not remember what happened in those minutes between the phone call and him arriving – I think I made three trips to the toilet and put on my elegant ass-revealing hospital gown and just lied down on the bed and kept thinking, she’s coming, she’s coming, at last, with a big grin on my face and tears in my eyes. My gynae arrived at some point, also with her usual big smile, and I then relaxed in knowing all will be fine. It was well after hours so a lot of phone calls were made to get an anaesthetist and a paediatrician organised also.

Grant arrived and we took a few shots of my massive belly as a desperate attempt to at least get one of the hundred To Do’s Before Baby Arrives done before it is too late. My only belly shots! Then we casually walked over to the theatre which, thank goodness, did not look like the gloomy theatres from Grey's Anatomy but was white and bright and very relaxed and friendly indeed. The anaesthetist arrived and everyone hailed him as if he was the best anaesthetist they have ever met. Now that is what you want to hear before someone pokes a needle in your back! He did a flawless job and my legs slowly turned to jelly as they positioned me on the table and put up the shield. While this was going on, husband was running up and down the stairs to fetch a nappy and a little beanie from my bags. I panicked for a moment realising he had no idea where I parked my car which had all the bags in, what if he took too long and missed everything! But he arrived, well in time, with a tiny nappy and an enormous pink beanie – sure signs that there was really and actually another little life form now firmly on its way.

The Caesar can only be described as quick and uneventful but kind of rough: those doctors really get stuck into your insides with a vengeance! And the paediatrician at some point stood behind me and pushed my whole tummy down like a sack of potatoes and I just heard cheers and thanks from the other side. Uh, ok, do whatever you need to do I guess... Husband was the star as he got up and took some amazing photos of the procedure. I then heard them say, look, her eyes were already opened as she was being born, apparently something that doesn’t happen often. I remember thinking, hey, that’s a good way to come into this world: with your eyes wide open. Then...the magic moment just a second or two later when her cries ripped through the room, loud and clear and sounding terribly upset about the state of affairs. All I wanted to do was see her and hold her but I only got a brief viewing before she was whisked away for checks. At least daddy got to go with and be with her for those precious first moments. Merely a few minutes later a big bundle of blanket with the tiniest little face peering out was put into my arms and I just cried as we held this wonderful gift and miracle, the most beautiful moments of all my life at the time. I think they saw we were very moved as they left her with us for far too long as she was terribly cold, her little hands and tiny fingers all blue and she needed to be warmed up. She was whisked away upstairs to a warming chamber with dad in tow while I was pushed into recovery, where I started shivering uncontrollably as the spinal block started wearing off. They pushed a hot air hose under the covers to help with the shivers but it was of little use as I was not actually cold but just experiencing this common side effect of the anaesthetics which really is just totally unpleasant. Dad kept bouncing between me and the baby with status updates and it was good to hear that all was well even though she was not with me.

About two hours passed before the shivering stopped and at about the same time, she was ready to come out and back to us. Oh, it was so amazing. She latched with vigour (far too much vigour, I realised a day later, when I ended up with purple and blue bruises all over) and we were just... two clumsy new parents not knowing much about what to do but holding onto every moment. Just the amazing way I always thought it would be.
I think back to this first night and I still bawl my eyes out. Every day since has been so amazing. There have been tough times: breastfeeding did not come easily at all (but all is well now), we seem to have landed a colicky baby also (but we are managing much better, thanks to Telament and Bennett’s colic mixture) and don’t get me started on the deprivation of sleep (still working on that one, but it is getting better)! But her just being here far outweighs everything that could possibly be painful or exhausting. I wake up next to a tiny little girl every day (ok, several times every day and night) that has the cutest little wake up routine of stretching every possible limb and pulling her face into a dozen contortions that are all so adorable I want to munch them up. And then she looks at me and my cup is full as we become each other’s worlds just for now and we draw strength from one another while we grow up, each in our own way, together.

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Adeleida Bingham May 18th, 2010 06:50:45 PM

Yesterday we were five weeks pregnant :) . (I told Grant in the Woolies queue yesterday that WE are pregnant, but I think the only impact it had was that he got himself another late-night snackie...). Five weeks is one week closer to that first huge milestone of six weeks, when that little heartbeat hopefully shows up on the first scan and risks of miscarrying diminishes sharply.

Thoughts at this point:

• I'm slowly easing myself into feeling a bit more confident that this is actually, finally happening, and trying to let go of all the ghosts that infertility brings to one. It is very hard. I'm trying to get to a point where I can feel ok just falling in love with the thought of being pregnant myself without constantly feeling a guilty tug at all those left behind, still struggling and hurting. This is very important, I think, as at the end of the day, this was always the goal of our journey through infertility: to have a family. We decided against adoption, and donor or surrogate routes were probably not going to fly with us either. Now, I have arrived, at least for the immediate future. So, it is about achieving a balance between remembering and being compassionate, yet not taking away from one's own joy and inhibiting the dreaming and hoping and just wallowing in what the future may bring. I'm getting better at this, I think. I'm falling in love with the idea of being pregnant, I even ventured out and bought a onesie to force myself to get over that big mental block that infertility puts into your life, with regards to exposure to everything and anything to do with babies. It's cute. It is blue and has a train on. Please note that if I have a girl, she will most probably love blue and trains. Who made the blue for boys rule anyway???
• What do we want??? I think people shy away from this question with a saintly "oh anything as long as it is healthy" (urgh) 'cause there is this impression that if you don't get what you want, you'd be disappointed or not love it as much or whatever other crap. So, we all know that is not the way things play out, we love what we get, so I'm quite bold to announce that: Grant wants a boy, I want twins (any gender, preferably both genders).
• About the twin thing: at this point, I would be incredibly surprised if we are not expecting twins. My motivations:
  • Of course, as a start, we transferred two good looking blastocysts, which both could have implanted
  • My hCG betas taken over four measurements, every second day, was: 31, 112, 314, 749. It is mostly climbing at quite a bit more than the usual doubling rate. Which may (but also may not) indicate more than one
  • My official 14 days past ovulation hCG beta test was 314 - quite high, which may (or maybe not) indicate more than one
  • My progesterone is sky-high, which could (or not...) indicate that there's more brewing
  • I got heartburn last week already, terrible, horrible heartburn, which seems a bit early as this usually kicks in later, which may (or, sigh, may not, especially at the time I was eating fudge) indicate more than one
  • I'm hungry ALL THE TIME. I'm only five weeks, for crying out loud! What's with the eating??? Although I seem not to be able to eat much at one go - one piece of toast instead of two, a small meal every two hours instead of a big one, I am eating LOTS: I'm like a big cow nibbling the whole day, and I'm talking high calorie stuff: cheese, nuts, avo's, actually I'll eat pretty much anything that I can find (minus the stuff giving me heartburn, though!). Yet, not gaining a single gram. In fact, once last week, I weighed less. Big thumbs up for having more snacks that day...munch munch munch... Usually when I just let go like this, I'd gain weight at a rate of a kilogram every two days or so. Hence... my thoughts that something is burning this all up. It's wonderful, though. I haven't had cheese for so long, and I'm nibbling little blocks of nice old cheddar throughout the day now without any effect. Bliss. My guess is that this won't last, so I will have to curb the eating habits at some point!!! Dang.
  • I'm incredibly tired. I haven't been able to work a full day for the whole of last week and I seem to come home, collapse like a dead person, and go to bed really early just to sleep it out really late in the mornings (minus the three times I now have to get up in the night to wee). I am really, really, really, really tired, most of the day. Abnormally tired. Surely only one little bean can't eat up energy like that!
  • I just... know. I'm not the type that know things - I am amused at people that claim to intuitively feel things or bring any non-scientific claims to events. But this time, I'm different. Which means I'd probably pour some egg on my own face when I'm wrong :) but, it's weird, I just feel like it could be two. Maybe it is just truly what I hope for, embedding itself into my mind.
  • And, having said all that, if I had to objectively look from the outside and judge what I, personally, would be able to cope with best, without driving me dotty and pulling blankets over my head once baba is here, it would be only one. Twins, phew... it's like one has to build an assembly line of some sort at home that deals with the feed, burp, poop, sleep, cry cycle and there just is none of those hours of gazing into a sleepy baby's face and just sitting and rocking in a chair, just learning the crinkles in his or her face and getting to know what exactly this thing is that you are holding. It's just crazy, all the time!

Our first scan is next week Wednesday, which will reveal all. It is sheer torture having to wait this long!!! I'll be corny and say, yeah, at the end of the day, please, all we want is to see that little heartbeat. Just. That. Please.

PS: My mother-in-law is washing her huge doll collection's clothes and bringing it all over, you know, for the baby. I'm terrified.... All in all, the mother-in-law may be driving me dotty before the maybe-twins do, but at least I know she means well so I hope I can just go with the flow and pray that the right words and actions come to me during our interactions in the next nine months and, well, next twenty years really. At least she is so excited and just loving the thought of finally becoming a grandma. I just wonder whether those dolls are, in fact, wearing Voortrekker outfits...laugh... ;)

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Adeleida Bingham August 24th, 2009 07:37:02 PM

We're pregnant!

Our official four week beta test came through with an hCG level of 314 which is a most definite affirmation that our first IVF has indeed worked.

Of course, there was no way I could wait that long, so I did some sneak tests earlier last week, two and four days before the official one, which came in at 31 and 114 respectively, which indicates that things are going very well indeed.

We're ... I dunno ... in a bit of a daze I guess, as it is something I've avoided thinking about for so long now because it becomes quite hard to imagine pregnancy and kids around when things are just not happening. And now I have to think about it, and it is almost as if my brain has a block! But I got my book, I'm reading it, I'm already eating funnily (puked everything I ate up on the weekend due to a migraine and now don't feel like any food whatsoever, even chocolate cake is left untouched!) and I have no doubt that I can feel... something down there. Which could still be from all the procedures that happened down there, though, rather than the real something.

We have so many friends being so incredibly happy for us and it is awesome. My mother-in-law is phoning the whole world including CNN to make sure everyone knows, and she is hopping up and down like an energizer bunny (it's her first grandchild). It is incredibly early days, so I keep telling people, hey, stuff happens, you know, at least until six weeks, and then until twelve weeks, and then until 28 weeks, and then we can maybe say, ok, it's sticking. But for now, it is there and we are incredibly grateful. Unbelievably grateful in fact. Knowing how hard things can become and how traumatising this journey have been to many people, we got away with one single IVF (ok, given that we did take four years of disappointment to get there!) and we got our bean. Or beans. The high betas, who knows, maybe we get two.... which would be awesome yet freaky!!!

Now... to find a place where you can get an ultrasound every week in Cape Town... what's with this waiting until the six week? I wanna see the blobs!!!! :)

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Adeleida Bingham August 18th, 2009 06:53:23 AM

I was waiting for good news before I blogged again. Sadly, it escaped me until now. So I need to get this one post over before I move onto better days. I'm going to be brief, as the enormous knot in my throat makes it a very hard post indeed.

My siamese cat, the one that features on my logo at the top, died Tuesday. She stopped eating about a month ago and a trip to the vet, and another vet, and a truckload of scans and tests and biopsies later confirmed that she had very advanced liver cancer which may or may not have moved to several other organs already. On top of this, her one lung was collapsed and the other one almost filled with fluid. How does this all happen without us noticing? I honestly don't know. She never had breathing problems and she was active and purring and her old grumpy self. It was only once she stopped eating and rapidly deteriorated to a very, very skinny cat, that we noticed something was wrong.

I syringed fed her for a number of weeks. Last week she started eating by herself again but just before the long weekend I realised that she was starting to loose some of her spark and will to live. She came through the weekend, mostly clutched to me, zipped up in my fleece jacket like a little kangaroo baby. She was still purring, but sadly this is often a way to ease the pain. Around Monday she started losing control of her body functions and we realised it was time.

This was some of the saddest days of my life. The day before and the day after. I still see her little ears moving either forwards (a happy sign) or backwards (not so happy) and me smooching them until they start moving forwards. She was queen of the household. The dogs were petrified of her. I loved her to bits and she loved me back. I got her when she was merely four weeks old and could fit in the palm of my hand. The breeder wanted to get rid of the kittens for some reason as fast as possible, and I took this little thing from its mom, an elegant and graceful chocolate siamese that came around to "approve" me while I was holding little Nino, and its dad, a fierce and wild seal point siamese cat that probably has never been cuddled in its life. And she was the perfect blend of the two. Always graceful, always neat and tidy, yet with a wild tomboy streak which gave her so much character.

She only accepted two animal friends in her life: my other siamese from childhood, Thai-Thai, which passed away many years ago at the ripe old age of eighteen, and our current kitten/teenager cat, Boo. Here are four pictures of how I want to remember her. Two of them with Thai, one of them cuddling on the couch (Nino at the right), one where Thai was giving Nino one of his famous "headlicks" (all animals in the house had to endure the headlick, sometimes for hours on end). One of her with Boo shortly after they made friends, which took the best of two weeks as Nino had to check this kitten out first (Boo passed with flying colours, of course, as she is a darling of note). The last of Nino is in her signature pose - tail neatly curled around, ears forward and head tilted.



I add one more, but this is not the one I want to remember, but it is the last photo of her hence important. It is taken a few days before she passed away. Despite being so frail, she kept climbing this tree, and it was actually a branch that we were going to prune away. Needless to stay, the branch will stay as a memory, that will still have many a cat (and otherwise) sitting in it in the future.



I'll miss you my darling cat. I hope you and Thai are having a nice cuddle and headlick somewhere where there is no more pain and tiredness. My heart was and is truly broken still, but that is the way of pets. In the end, it is your life and not your final few days that mattered. Or so we tell ourselves, to make things easier. I miss you damnit. It was far too soon. I wish you were still around. I wish I could have done something. It was so incredibly hard saying goodbye.

I promise this is the last sad post about death and dying. Tomorrow will bring good tidings to this blog. If you sneak into my Flickr account, you may get a preview, but just remember nothing is confirmed until... gosh when? Four weeks? Six weeks? Twelve weeks? Forty weeks? Ok, we'll settle on four weeks, then, which is tomorrow. Hang in there.

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Adeleida Bingham August 16th, 2009 04:38:47 PM

The last two weeks was spent in Potchefstroom, a town that definitely begs for a post of its own as it is... I dunno, what can I say, an odd little place yet somehow enjoyable, although it feels good to leave. You know what I mean? Anyway, I did my two weeks Physiology practical here and it has been fantastic - a bit like a holiday with lots of interactive entertainment scheduled with nice long breaks in between, sadly with an exam at the end to spoil things, which is happening tomorrow.

Last night four of us "mature students" in the class went out for dinner. I just want to mention at this point that although I am usually a person that just keeps to myself and enjoy my own company tremendously, being surrounded by people and company these last two weeks with no one but one lady knowing that my dad has passed away, has been incredibly good for me. And so was last night. However... what really bites are all the reminders. Like the one guy mentioning that the week before our practical started he was in Hermanus and it was great because there was nobody there as the weather was so miserable and rainy all week. And all I can think of is, yes, how can I forget, the rain every single day in the week my father passed away, and how it came down in buckets the day of his funeral, and all the people standing in the rain outside the church at the end, and the police lights outside the church shining through the mist and.. and... and... And then we order some wine and us two Capetonians at the table spot the Neil Ellis Cabernet Sauv. and we both rave about it, and I am reminded that my dad first introduced me to this magical brand and he called the Neil Ellis white wines a nectar from heaven (which it surely is), and I wanted to order it just because I needed to honour him and have my own silent toast to him with that first glass. And then we talk about what the world will look like in fifty years, where will the Indians and Chinese be in rank, and I am reminded of the dinner my dad invited me to with the Chinese deputy minister of Land Affairs and the incredibly fancy twenty two course meal they prepared for us and how afterwards I heard the staff got sweet & sour pork and rice in the kitchen and how I wish I could have had that rather! But worse was when the one guy suddenly said, hey, remember it's Father's Day this Sunday. And he looked at me with such enthusiasm and there were plans in his eyes of stuff he was going to do and I could just put my head down and admire the pattern in the tablecloth and nod biting back the tears and the words My Dad Died Three Weeks Ago, so there will be no Father's day this year. Or next year. Or ever again. Only a memory and a wish that he was still there and regrets and sadness and more memories.

But still, it was so good being among people because even if they do not know, it helps, it helps talking about other things and just being around other people. When I woke up this morning, I cried so long thinking about all these reminders last night and I think right now the phase of grief I'm going through is just feeling like I was not a good daughter. Which reminds me of when my dad and I saw the movie "Gladiator" together - not because he would enjoy it for its popularity but more because he was an expert on the Roman Empire and a great admirer of Marcus Aurelius, and at one point this great emperor tells his daughter: 'Let us pretend that you are a loving daughter, and I am a good father.' And she answers 'This is a pleasant fiction, is it not?'. And this is the kind of stuff that is just breaking my heart at this point: wondering whether I could have been more loving and more present and more forgiving and more... more... I can't even think what would happen if I had to stumble across a radio station playing The Living Years at this point.

And then, my birthday present: another negative pregnancy blood test this month. I have no idea what the universe's idea of balance is, but it is not turning my way.

So, I have mixed feelings. So many people phoning me and congratulating me and being kind and wonderful. And on the other hand it's been a very tough three weeks. Oh, forgot to mention: on top of all this, my mother-in-law had three epileptic fits brought on by really bad bronchitis brought on by standing in the rain at my father's funeral. She is out of hospital and she (and her cat) has now moved in with us for the foreseeable future, which is going to be good. And I'm phoning my own mom every day. Which is a change from the past. The living years. It's all we have.

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Adeleida Bingham June 19th, 2009 08:02:25 AM

I have much to say about my dad, but not yet. It is still very painful and I have not had a chance yet to grieve properly as this week was very, very busy. Where our family will miss him so dearly and would long still yearn for his precious conversations, he was also, and overwhelmingly so, missed and recognised in the most beautiful and loving way by his colleagues and friends this week. His funeral on Friday was formal and peaceful and I will still talk about that as there is MUCH to tell. However what carved its way to my heart and brought much emotion and closure and beauty was the memorial service held by his old department, Land Affairs and Agriculture, which was held on Thursday in Parliament. When I sat down, someone came round and mentioned to my most gracious host, Minister Joemat-Pettersson, that the "comrades would like to sing freedom songs". And I didn't even give her a chance to answer and just said, please, sing. And as the singing started the tears came, and the Minister had to give me tissues as I forgot mine, and if you listen to this SABC clip you will understand why. I will try and get hold of the whole service on video as it is by far the most precious memory this week brought.

This morning I said goodbye to my house guests, my wonderful aunt and twin cousins, and flew to Joh'burg where I rented a car and drove down to Potchefstroom, where I will do two weeks of Physiology practicals. My one tyre burst halfway, but in minutes a wonderful gentleman and his wife stopped and helped me change it. And now I'm here. When the plane started moving this morning, I finally found my grief surfacing and I have cried, properly, for the first time since Monday's tears of shock, and it's been like that the whole day really. I am so thankful for all the closure given to me this week as these tears can now only be for the loss and the missing and the wish that I had more time, but knowing that there is much peace to be found in that his life work was done, and always so with dignity and honesty and integrity. And in between all the work he did, he left so many memories with so many people with his enormous knowledge which he always shared in the most memorable conversations and debates, and his wonderful stories which he could tell with so much sharp wit and a wonderful engaging manner and his true care and unwavering determination in his task to help right the wrongs of the past by reaching out to those that needed it most.

And this is all I am going to say for a while about my dad.

I can not think of a more appropriate way to spend the next two weeks, engaged in learning and broadening my knowledge, as that was something he was just always doing and he would have loved to have heard about it. He would have probably spent half an hour talking about how Potchefstroom was founded and the stories behind the town. I think as time goes by, this is what I will miss the most: knowing I can call him up and ask him about anything under the sun, and he would probably know about it, in detail, and be able to make an interesting conversation about it. And see, there I go again. As I said, I have much to say about him.

But for now, I'll blog about the stuff we are dissecting in class, whenever I have a moment. It is going to be really cool.

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Adeleida Bingham June 7th, 2009 01:56:39 PM

This morning my dad passed away, without warning, just, suddenly, this morning, he was there and then he was no longer with us. It may have been a stroke, perhaps a heart attack, but the one moment he was still stirring his morning coffee in bed and my mom says he fell back suddenly, then came round and said he must go to the bathroom and as he got out, his legs just failed and he fell. He never got up.

I am thankful that he did not suffer. I am thankful that I got there in time to wrap him in a blanket with my own hands, touch his hair, cry with my head on his chest and say goodbye. I am thankful of what he left behind here, a valuable life, his hand visible in so many things I appreciate around me and in me.

The funeral is at Die Groote Kerk in town (between Parliament and Adderley street), 14h00 on Friday. I am organising everything. It helps. It is my way of grieving. I can't write much more right now as I think my heart is broken, but I'm not going to check right now. The right time will come. There is much to say. But not tonight.

But what I will say, now, is that this morning when the call came through and I sat on the floor at work crying, another text came through to announce the birth of my friend C's baby girl. This is what I know, at this point: my dad passed away, and my friend's baby was born. And perhaps that is all I need to know, right now.

Bye dad. That was far too soon.

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Adeleida Bingham June 1st, 2009 08:02:01 PM

If you are ever in the area, here is the Google Earth link to our farm: GoogleEarthLink.kmz.

Click for a picture to show the road:


And here... is the discovery we made last weekend. Our (uninstalled) new septic tank blew over in the wind and when they moved it to reposition it in place, they found this guy. Yes. It was six feet. Sorry dude.

Comments (3)
Adeleida Bingham May 24th, 2009 09:23:08 AM

Grant had to drive through to our farm this morning to go and drop off our basins and other bathroom furnishings for the builders. He sent through some pics! The building is progressing nicely (click for bigger images and smart-ass comments):



And finally: Boys and their toys... Grant put up another solar panel so he had to remount everything. He mentioned that his new mount is "extendible". Sigh.

Comments (1)
Adeleida Bingham May 5th, 2009 08:40:14 PM