jmgoyder

As a young girl in love with an older man who often let me down, I remember being told constantly by him that when I got older I wouldn’t get so disappointed. At the time I was in my 20s and he was in his 40s. I have never forgotten him telling me that and I did, eventually, resign myself to disappointment (when he suddenly couldn’t accompany me to my brother’s first wedding where I was singing; when he suddenly couldn’t come up to Perth for the weekend because the cows were calving; when he forgot to remember my birthday; when he didn’t ring me for over a week; when he asked me to move in with him and then changed his mind ETC.)

Don’t get me wrong. In the end, all of those disappointments were cancelled out in a happilyeverafterish way and Anthony and I had an exceptionally wonderful first year of marriage (and many more), which included Ming’s entry into our lives, before Anthony was struck for the first time with cancer and had to have his kidney removed. Mutual devastation and, yes, disappointment but with a lot of hope too.

Two years ago, Ming was playing football for a local team and for his school when one day he took his guernsey off after a game and I saw how twisted his back was. Now, before you ask why I hadn’t seen this before, it was winter, so I hadn’t seen him with his shirt off for ages. We knew he had a scoliosis and he was being treated regularly by a chiropractor, osteopath, physical trainer, physiotherapist in order to prevent it from getting worse. But on that day, I saw that what had previously only been visible in an X-ray was now visible to the naked eye. I felt a bit sick and quietly asked the coach to take a look … long story short Ming was very suddenly seen by our doctor and a spinal surgeon and told he would have to quit football immediately. This verdict was given a day before his school’s annual football finals in Perth. The disappointment was not only Ming’s but also the two teams he played for, and Ants’ and mine of course because he had been showing great promise and was passionate about football and very good.

There is a lot more to this story including Ming’s sobbing the day we were told he had to stop playing football immediately, that he would have to have surgery and that he would never be able to play football again. And I remember telling him, on the two-hour drive home from this appointment, that the disappointment would ease off as he got older. Instead of resisting this, he dried his eyes and nodded his head in acceptance. “I’ll still be able to ride my motorbike, won’t I, Mum?” he asked.

It took me few ticks to answer this because I had been told by several professionals that he should not be riding a motorbike.

“Of course you can!” I said.

At the end of the football season that year, I didn’t think we would be invited to the presentations because Ming had stopped playing, but on that day, a couple of the mothers of other boys in the team rang me to say we must come because they had something to present Ming with and I was not to tell Ming because it would be a surprise. Well it was a huge shock. The team had ‘retired’ his number 20 guernsey and had it framed with photos of the team and of Ming in action. I was standing at the back of the room chatting to friends when Ming’s name was announced. He had no idea and was just there to cheer his buddies on and I smiled thinking that he would be given a small token. So the shock was pretty huge!

In terms of size, it was the biggest award given that night with lots of cheering for Mingy and I had to bite my lip not to cry. Ming had to give a little impromptu speech and nearly got teary himself and everyone was taking photos but I didn’t have my camera so took the one above the next day. Ming was 16 then.

Well before this event I had told Ming about Anthony’s philosophy of disappointment and I remember Ming wondering about this. However he did turn his football disappointment into the joy of reading the literary classics (hahahaha – that is an absolute joke) – into the joy of music (that is true).

And now, two years down the track, it is Anthony’s disappointment that I somehow have to alleviate. I said to him the other day when he became disappointed about not being able to come home overnight anymore, “You told me once that the older you get, the less disappointed you feel.”

“I was young then,” he said, reaching for my hand.

I used to jokingly call Anthony ‘the missing link’ (as in the scientic term for something that is somewhere between an ape and a human), and Ming, ‘the alien’ because when he was born he so resembled ET (remember that movie?) This picture shows you why….

It was January, one of the hottest months of the year in Australia, when we brought our little alien home from hospital. As neither of us had ever had a baby before, I remember Anthony driving us all home at a snail’s pace, terrified that every bump in the road would somehow injure the baby in the back of the car in an oversized baby seat. I sat in the back next to Ming, watching him sleep and beside myself with excitement that he would soon be home with us.

Those next few days were bliss. Ming would mostly sleep and Anthony and I would spend hours just looking at him in his bassinet. As soon as Anthony came inside from milking the cows he would go straight to Ming and gaze at him. We were both in awe of him and the delight was almost overwhelming. Our smiles stretched our faces in ways they’d never been stretched before.

We were ridiculously proud and couldn’t believe it when others didn’t gasp in wonder when they saw Ming. When I finally got brave enough to take him grocery shopping with me, I was astounded when we were not surrounded by crowds of admiring people, and relieved when grannies came up and stroked his bald head, smiling at my permanent grin.

The ecstacy of those first few weeks of Ming’s life was so potent that I can still smell it now – the flowers in the garden, the pooey nappies, the mown grass, the perspiration under Anthony’s arms, steak cooking on the barbecue, the milky burps, the softness of that bald little head, the cowshit scent, wafting into the house from the dairy, the frangipannish sunlight streaming into every room, the little dachschunds as I held them above Ming’s bassinet so they could have a look, and Inna’s 4711 perfume that I found in a drawer during that first week.

Perfection.

Ming was nearly 12 months old when he experienced his first Christmas. Anthony and I had bought him a big toy truck and one of those small, plastic ride-on cars. Both our families had followed the pillow-case tradition so, after Ming was asleep, I carefully wrapped the two big presents, then, with some difficulty, stuffed them into a pillowcase and put this at the end of his cot.

Then, underneath the Christmas tree, Anthony and I put our presents to each other and lots of little things for Ming. The final touch was to fill a red stocking with chocolates for Ming and sticky-tape it to the mantle-piece, near the tree.

I was so excited that I couldn’t fall asleep until around 2am, then I woke up at 4am, still excited! So, by the time Ming and Anthony woke up, after 8am, I was almost delirious with anticipation and exhaustion. I couldn’t wait for Ming to see the pillow-case but, when he finally did get up, he didn’t even notice it – and I had to point it out to him.

We all clambered onto the big bed and emptied the pillow-case out. Ming looked at the two enormous wrapped presents and then gave us his wise-owl look, as if to say, What the hell is going on?

“Father Christmas has left you two presents, Ming,” I said, excitedly but he still didn’t respond. He just sucked on his dummy and watched us grin at him, probably thinking we’d gone slightly mad. I suppose I’d expected him to just magically absorb the Christmas presents thing and, I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed by his lack of spirit. Even when I showed him a picture of Santa with a big sack of gifts on his back, he remained impassive.

“Open one of them for him,” Anthony whispered, so I began to gently tear the wrapping paper off the toy truck to expose one of its wheels.

Well that was the only trigger needed. As soon as Ming saw that wheel, he spat his dummy out and his bewildered expression transformed instantaneously into an enormous grin. “TWUCK!” he repeated over and over, tearing at the wrapping paper ecstatically. Even if I’d been able to anticipate that moment and had a camera ready it would have been impossible to capture Ming’s glee when the truck was finally exposed in all its glory.

Once Ming had opened that first present, he very quickly cottoned onto the idea and went crazy for more and his continued delight was contagious.

We most certainly set a precedent that first Christmas. Its magic permeated Ming’s psyche so effectively that when, the following year, I once again woke up at 4am, it wasn’t my excitement, it was Ming’s that woke me. He was standing next to the bed, patting my cheek with one hand and holding a very full pillowcase with his other hand.  His little face seemed to glow in the dim light of dawn.

“Mummy,” he whispered seriously, “Fava Quistmust happinded again!”

My husband, Anthony, was in hospital having his kidney removed. Cancer. I was back at the farm with our two-year-old son, Ming, waiting for a baby-sitter I’d never met. Ming was having his second asthma attack. The first had happened in the hospital, when Anthony was admitted.

Now I was grappling with the nebulizer, a distressed child and my husband’s predicament, the shock trapped in my throat.

I returned from the hospital that evening and paid the baby-sitter. Ming was asleep. Out on the front verandah, I sat down. It was the first time I’d ever been home without Anthony.

A little later, Ming toddled out, rubbing his eyes. He looked up at the half moon and said, seriously, “Moon bwoken.” Then he brushed his soft little face against mine. “Daddy can fixded it”’ he asked. I nodded and hugged him.

Two weeks later, Anthony was home. Ming wanted to wrestle him, so I swung our little boy onto my hip and took him outside. It was a dark night and there was a full moon.

Ming looked up and I felt his heartbeat quicken against mine. “Daddy fixded the moon, Mummy. Look!”

We went back inside and Ming climbed onto Anthony’s lap.

“Fankyou, Daddy”’ he said, “You’re a good boy.”