A Thousand Years

Last Tuesday morning, our family lost a child. Not lost as in we went to the mall and got separated and we couldn't find her. As horrifying as that would have been, the loss we experience is more permanent. Lorna-Lauren Faasili passed away at the age of 9 after a fatal asthma attack. She left behind her devoted mother, Tu'i, and beautiful twin sister, Hellena.

I remember getting the text from my sister. "Did you hear? :(". In my mind I guessed that someone had gained weight, or broken up with someone, or something had gotten lost/stolen. Things that at the time I thought were significant and warranted a sad face. Never did I guess what followed. "Lorna's passed away."

Life has since been a surreal experience. It's been a week now but it still feels like it was all a bad dream, and that soon we will wake up to normality, where we still referred to "Hellena and Lorna" as a pair. Where Tu'i had two girls to keep her up at night to scratch their itchy eczema.

What is now deemed "important" has changed so dramatically. I don't watch the news, and have stopped stalking people on Facebook. I feel like screaming, "How can you carry on? What does that matter?". How can such a tiny girl leave such a gaping hole? I don't know. But I am reminded, in a most poignant way, that life is precious and fleeting. We are not long here, our time is but a breath, so we better breathe it. Ironically, Lorna passed away due to asthma, yet in her short time here she sure did breathe. She lived her life completely.

So as we continue to mourn her, and as the wound of her departure continues to heal, I try to remind myself to use every minute I have to live and to love.

"I'll love you for a thousand years. Love you Lorn-baggz" - Hellena

Virtual will

Will
noun
A legal document containing instructions as to what should be done with one's money and property after one's death


I have been planning to get my will done for a while now. I am the paranoid type and am constantly worrying about Lyla's welfare should something happen to me before she reaches adulthood. I am also the lazy procrastinating type, rescheduling my appointment with the Public Trust a few times now.

The driving force behind me getting a will done is pretty much to state Lyla's legal guardians in her parents' place. It must be someone who loves her nearly as much as I, because there ain't gonna be no money coming with that kid.

It's an embarrassing truth. When the Public Trust person starts listing my assets and liabilities, and they excuse themselves, I know they'll be having a good laugh at the back somewhere at how unbalanced my will is. I will pretty much be delegating who will be paying my loans, and I don't even have a mortgage...kalofa e. Any takers?

So I had a good think about what I do have, that may not be Public-Trust-will-worthy, but nevertheless will need to be passed on to those who will truly appreciate them. And I have come up with this.

I, Bina, daughter of the Most High God, aged 21 years, resident of Windy Wellington, do hereby revoke all my former Wills that I made when I was a pimply teenager in Saoluafata. I declare this to be my virtual Will until I actually get around to making my real will.

I maintain good health (barely), and possess a sound mind (mostly).

I hereby bequeath the following items as specified:

A. Collection of rugby pics: I leave this to Sleepless. I know you will be presented with a big burden to steward such an important collection, but I trust that you will do everything in your ability to look at the pictures every day and night and will not spare your life to keep them safe.

B. My Springboks jersey: I leave this to Stella. I don't know anyone with such limitless fanaticism, and more deserving of this most treasured article of clothing.

C. My boss: I leave him to Coconut Girl. You deserve a boss that recognises and rewards your hard work, that will give you his parking spot when you are preggo and don't want to walk from the carpark way down the road (I think you will find this perk especially useful ... lol), that encourages high standards but sets these by example. Because you're worth it.

D. My trusty laptop: I leave this to Laura. The laptop is actually from work, so make sure you get to my house first and nick it. The only condition is that you must Facebook, blog and YouTube on a daily basis with this laptop. Difficult, I know. You must put aside all that socialising and extrovert activities you are currently involved with.

E. My binoculars: I leave these to Kuaback. They will come in use for your ... ummm ... "bird watching" at the beach. Please feel free to share your findings with your virtual friends.

F. My husband: Are you serious, I don't trust him to any of you crazies!!

As witnessed by my five or so blog followers this beautiful but chilly Welly day.
Long live the queens. Over and out.

Shuffling along

When we decided to move from Auckland to Wellington earlier this year, I was quite excited. I had big ideas of how my lifestyle would change, how I would become "artsy", how I would work less and take things slow, how when asked about the weather in Welly I would chirpily reply "You can't beat Wellington on a good day!"

Four months down the line, and I realise that I haven't progressed much down the planned route. In fact, I can't really remember all that I thought I would be doing by now. I mean, I'm awake working/blogging/Facebooking at 12:30am. That's still very much the Aucklander me.

So after a quick memory job (really quick, like half a minute) here are my unfulfilled Wellington goals:

1. Buy clothes - How I am still squeezing into my pre-childbearing work clothes I do not know. Actually, I do. I can only do that for a couple of tops which were really loose fitting and are now tank top looking. I'm getting grossed out just thinking about it as well, don't worry, I'm not offended that you are.

2. Go to the museum - I mean, isn't that what artsy Wellingtonians do? I have no idea. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

3. Spend more time at the park with Lyla - My excuse is the cold wind, which is quite a legitimate reason, except for the really warm sunny days when quality family time still consists of me on my laptop, husband on his laptop, toddler watching TV.

4. Sleep at least 7 hours a day - Ha! Funny, how did this make it onto my list.

5. Save money - How do you go from a single income family to being a double income family and still not have money? It boggles the mind. One day when I decide to look through our bank statements I might be able to find some answers.

6. Join a life group - This is due to 100% slackness and a multitude of excuses (which I can't remember now, so don't ask). But I guess I will have to get a life first, then I can share it with others.

7. Shave my legs regularly - I reconsidered this goal, and then realised that since I never show my legs/tree trunks anyway AND it's freezing cold here, why should I?

8. Buy a Smart phone - So it's got nothing to do with Wellington, but I want one, and I don't have any other lists at the moment so here it is. I guess it's related to goal #5 which was supposed to feed into my shopping account.

9. Stop having road rage - Is there special road rage counselling? I drive like I'm in a mad rush to get somewhere really quickly that I'm late for. The majority of the time if I stop to think about it, I'm just driving to work. Why on earth am I nearly killing myself to get there? Then I'm driving home, where washing, cooking, cleaning and more work is waiting. Again, why the rush? Still working on it. So if you're late to go when the light turns green, when you give way to more than one person while you're in front of me, if you switch lanes unexpectedly without indicating, if you don't merge like a zip, or if you keep going through the intersection and then stop midway because the other side is all queued up and you block me going the other way and I miss my green light - if you do any of those things and you get beeps and glares and hands waving in the air and fingers pointing to the head (translated as "use your brain") from a brown female someone in a black Mazda wagon...there's a good chance that would be me. I'm a work in progress.

Those are only a few that I can remember and have the energy to list. Maybe I'll think of some more later. Or maybe not.

Sincerely,
Same old me