Delhi's missing piece

Just lifted the following passage from a blog I did in July last year:

www.Indiansingledad.com!
It is has been a strange week for the artist formerly known as Indanhousehusband. The loss of the better half has been a strange experience. It started out with a horrible foreboding, yet has actually been a good confidence booster. There was a huge amount of anxiety that very quickly slipped away on 'A's' departure.

Roll on ten months and again I have become Indiansingledad. 'A' has returned back to Blighty for ten days on business and the contrast in emotion couldn't be more different to back in July.

I think I massively down played the sheer terror I felt the last time I was left 'home alone'. I remember the first day 'A' was gone thinking to myself; how am I going to get through five nights completely alone? Five nights!! That should have been a holiday, not a chore, but it was really tough. I felt completely exposed and slightly resentful. It was the first time and probably the only one through this whole experience were I genuinely felt emasculated. It should be me flying back on business and earning the rupees while 'A' looks after the boys and wonders how she will fill the days, but it was me. I got my head down and got on with it but couldn't wait for the moment 'A' returned and when she did, there was no feeling of pride that I had coped and everything was OK. It was just pure relief!

Move on to now and 'A' has been gone a week tomorrow and if truth be known it feels like a day! It is now much harder for her to be leaving the boys than for me to be on my own with them.I think that is a sign of how much I have changed and learned throughout this time. Nothing worries me about the boy's now, my relationship with them is incredibly different to back in July. I don't have to think too much or pre plan anything with them, everything just kind of happens naturally. I feel more skilled and more capable as a Dad than I ever did before becoming the house husband and that is something I will always be thankful for.

The real problem this time has been that I have missed my wife for selfish reasons. Not like before were 'A' was the scaffolding that held the family together, I can do that now and don't need that support. I miss her because Delhi, despite it's 16 million population feels kind of empty without her.

Every day here we see something that astounds us and that 'something' is what we share with each other. It is the little things that annoy other people that we love that make it 'our India' and our home. We both have 'love India days' were our love for the country gets cranked up another notch. We often speak during the day and 'A' will say "Having a huge love India day today" and I will feel the same. Unfortunately till she is back I can't have a true 'love India day', I need my Indianworkingmum back to appreciate everything here, I need the population to be 16 million and one!

Hurry back 'A' we miss you loads.

Raf, Sil and 'G'

Life and Death

Too many people I know are dying. I know in some Freudian way we all are, but I just wish it would slow down a bit. Four of my friends have died within the last six months, a count that is surely way out of the average. My family back in Blighty are turning into professional mourners, trudging from one funeral to the next and it is all getting pretty depressing. I daren't even answer the phone to home anymore for fear of more bad news, it is time now for it all to stop please!

Bad news is the one thing that really brings distance home here in Delhi. It is really difficult to grieve when you haven't got anyone else to share it with. At home we would have gone out for drinks and reminisced about great nights out and youthful follies but here in our little ex-pat bubble it means nothing to anyone else.

You can't tell the mums at the school gate you lost a friend yesterday, what do they care, they didn't know him. So you just get on with it. Have a quiet thought for the person on the day of the funeral and keep on keeping on. It didn't help that last week was the one year anniversary of The Bogan's death ('A' and I's best man). Barely a day has passed over that year were I haven't thought about him and the emotion is still pretty raw.

It has made me think so much more about my own mortality,something that has never bothered me at all. When life is bordering on the perfect death makes you realise how quickly it can all be taken away from you, how short our time is and how much needs to be crammed into it. The truth is that life at the moment is bordering on the perfect. We are so happy in India and I can't think of one down side to living here other than it is going so fast. Our first year is nearly up and it has gone in the blink of an eye. The weeks and months are flying away and I wish I could just put my foot on the brake and slow it all down a bit.

It only seems days since we received the terrible news about my mum. At the time my first thought was would she ever see us out here? Would she survive that long? Really terrible thoughts that now seem in the dim and distant past after she is Finally in recovery and has made it out here with Dad.

Emotion was running high when I greeted them at the airport, I think Mum had probably gone through the same thought process as me. Now she was finally here standing in our garden, the reality hit home and the tears came. It was like we had put the final big full stop at the end of what has been a terrible sentence. She didn't look great (I subsequently found out that was more to do with 5 glasses of wine and 5 brandy's on the plane and a hangover as opposed to the cancer) but I didn't care, she was here, alive and well and we were going to make the most of it.

Make the most of it we did too. We flew down to Goa and had a fabulous time on the beach. Real happy times, Seeing mum and dad with the boys - who's worship of them is at hero proportions - was something that will stay in the memory for a long time. Days were spent on the beach and round the pool and as the colour came back to mums skin it was like watching her come back to life again. Evenings were spent boozing and laughing and buying 80 quid bottles of wine because dad Miss-read the menu! Normal Conde fun stuff,living your life stuff, cramming it all in stuff and forgetting the past stuff.

I realised while I was down there that these are the times that you 'put the brake on',Slow everything down a little bit, take a step back and soak it all up. Life can seem to be running away too fast but you just have to stop and take a look around you and savour the great times.

That is my intention from now on, I am going to make the most of the time we have here in India and savour every last moment. Appreciate all the terrific times we have to come and have a ball. Bogan, Danny, Lee, Jean and Jambie would have liked that.