Sssssh!

Yesterday morning, AC and I watched a video on FB of some lovely lads in the hot and sunny lands playing around and posing and dancing in a mankini. When I get the link again, I'll post it. But if you google mankini, look at the picture of one, and imagine it in desert camo material, RAF roundel on the front, and parading around on chaps with white bums and legs, and very tanned tops, you'll get the idea!

AC laughed in a way he hasn't for a long time. Shall we say 11 weeks? I think so.....

So I emailed the chap who made the video to say thankyou, and you are lovely, and so on. He's emailed me back today to say that he will pass the message on to the other lads, and that it's nice to know what an effect they had on someone - they were just messing around.

And that's it really, isn't it. We don't know what effect we have on people. Pure ignorance and thoughtlessness is behind most of what the She-Ex did to us, it wasn't deliberate (well, taking BG and keeping her contact minimal at times and being abusive and not getting divorced was, but that's about to bite her in the behind unfortunately) but mostly, it was just the way she was. That's sad, but I'm glad we didn't let it rule our lives. In the same way, I expect that whilst when I wrote to her with a concilatory tone, she thought I was sarcastic, and mean and I probably upset her day. Some days I was angry, and I told her clearly I was having a go at her, but other times, unintentionally, I know I upset her, just by existing, just by making him happy when she couldn't.

We don't know what effect those around us have on those we love. AC loves Rich, Rich loves the AC, that's True Fact (AC's latest phrase!) and Rich was amazed by the depth of hero-worship and love the AC had for him. One of the reasons that I'm glad Rich didn't survive to be paraplegic, is that now, the children have him as a hero, not as a frail person who needs to be looked after, but has a hero, who went to the 'Stan, and was brave and strong and mighty, as a father who loves them both so dearly, and who was a wonderful father. The AC will grow up knowing that, I cannot speak for the BG, but I can tell her later.

We don't know what effect we have on those whose lives we touch - friends travelled from all over the country to get to the Celebration, those who couldn't travel (or were on the Banned list lol!) thought and prayed for all of us on that day. And they travelled because he touched their lives, he made them smile, he cared and listened and was there when they needed him.

We don't know what effect we have on the lives of those we brush past - my children were upset, and one of my boys is determined that if footballing fails him, then he'll go into the forces, "Like Miss C's Big Richard." They called him "Big Richard" because he was. They knew him, they said hello to him in town if they saw him, (and when he was on his own, apparently that was weird!) and one of the mums said to me that Rich changed her sons life. How? Because Rich told him that he was dyslexic, just like this lad, and it hadn't stopped him doing anything he wanted to do, he'd just had to work a little harder and find a way around it. That short conversation, and there were many with different children, changed that small boy from thinking he was stupid, to thinking life might be tricky, but it was still going to be great.

There were so many ways that Rich had an effect on peoples lives. And I only know them because people said, because he had been killed. I've always said when I appreciate something people have done, and now I say it more than ever, because why shouldn't they know *before* they die?

And the Ssssssh? AC is still asleep - first solid night in a long, long time. About 11 weeks I think....