Seasons



For my birthday this year Cam gave me this tree.  It was already tall enough to walk underneath.  It's planted out the front and we'll see it every time we come and go from our place. 

He loved trees.  A few years ago I realised I love some trees more than I love some people.  You might know a little bit how that feels if you go to Hyde Park.  Cam loved people more than trees I think. 

The week of Cam's funeral this Chinese Tallow started shooting new buds of vibrant green growth.  He really wanted to see it change from the state it was in the photo to the picture it is now. 

For a couple of weeks after Cam's passing 'relief' was the overwhelming emotion.  The only way I could describe it was that I felt like I'd had a really stressful job for the last 4 years and I'd just resigned and gone on holiday.  The low-level anxiety of living with terminal illness was mostly noticeable once he was free of it. 

Now, more than a month later, the emotion is just pure, undiluted sadness. He will share nothing of my life anymore. He won't make us choke with laughter at a family dinner. He won't know AB now calls himself "Supo Arro" [Super Hero] and asks "When can we go and visit Cam?".  We've lost so much and it's terribly, horribly, tearily sad. 

There will be a new 'normal' now.  There won't be as many laughs, music or character impersonations because Cam was the king of all that.  I know there'll be other things and it won't always be this hard.  I can make no sense of his death but I can appreciate that there are seasons.   This season is not as glorious as the autumn Chinese Tallow in years to come. 

I would just love him to see it.



Angus Harrison Cam Barr's version of a 'garden wee'.