The sum of all parts

Rachel Gillies

The day: Today. 2008.

The sun streams through the window, dappled by the leaves from the tree, landing on parts of me, little pockets of heat. It is warm behind the glass. I woke up writing this tale in my head, over and over. And I had to get up. So I sit at my desk, with words flowing out of my fingertips. With me, is Lindsay, my brother, and a bit of Graham of course, for they are never far apart. Mum, and Gran. It is New Zealand winter but the leaves never came off some of the trees. I think of all of you guys in Scotland, and it is not so far.

Riddex Michael, my unborn son. He sees that the most amazing day of my life could be his birth, and stretching on ahead in my life, it could be many days to come as he grows and crawls and walks and falls his way forward as a complex, combined, intricately tangled part of my life. Each day will eclipse the last.

Similarly, he sees that there are days of my life up until this very point that make me who I am. Have shaped me, shape my mind. How can one day be more than any other?

History collapses in on itselfthe experiences that shape a character last a lifetime. They are interwoven and cannot be separated. And memories are the pinnacle of what we have learntthese we carry forward, in our hearts and minds, to caution us and carry us forward in future travels.

I remember my Gran. She swims to the surface of my everyday, lazily floating to greet me, smiling, face upwards. hello. Sometimes in dreams, mostly in the everyday, often in stories, and of lessons learnt. We lay in bed together and watched Prisoner: Cell block H and Married with Children on Thursday evenings one summer. This experience that we shared, I could not, did not share with anyone else. Not friends, nor family. We had a certain wavelength, my Gran and I.

She made coffee in a certain way. Every day as I go through the process, filling the kettle, watching the grains pour in, hot water steaming as it hits cold glass, I think of her way. And sometimes I do it the same way, but I am lazy and the memory is enough to make me smile back at her, and regardless I do it my own way.

I made coffee today.

Her death is not the thing I remember most, and not the day of my life, but profound is her absence. As I grow and learn and want her to be proud. I feel I was on the verge of something she could have been proud of before she went, and now I know I am so much better I wish she could see it. I know she does. I know she did. But this is me talking now, not her. However, she remains proud, whispering through fuchsia at my back door, joining me in the swimming pool on Tuesdays. She still chides me in winter for not wearing enough clothes on my chest and for taking that extra chocolate or two

aye, be good tae yersel, Rachel

I am made whole, today, right now, by these events, and will be, by those that are to come and by the choices that I make. I have no regrets. Of nothing that has not created me and made me who I am. Today. My mum told me once,

there is no such thing as a wrong decision.

This sentence, and her voice, this is a part of me as I sit and write. And this very act of being, with my memories, the act of questioning:

makes

me

whole.

This day is extraordinary.