The 16th (the day of the Global Earth Exchange) coincided with the final day of my mother’s business closing. She and my Dad established a tv and electrical business 57 years ago and about 30 years ago she opened her own business ‘The Discount Shop’. She took after her mother, my grandmother, who had lived in a small village in Co. Monaghan, called Newbliss. My grandmother never actually closed her shop. She died aged 82 leaving her shop fully stocked with all kinds of everything—clothes, toys, food and household supplies. My mother’s shop focused more on household supplies and on the 16th my sister and I took some plastic cutlery which were in a box unsold and made this ‘bird’: 

We then said a blessing and prayed that my mother Joy would experience joy and a sense of peace, to replace the massive anxiety and distress she had. 

 It is now two weeks later and my eldest brother has sold his business, which was my parents’ business. It has been an emotional and an exhausting few weeks. He had a head injury as a result of falling off his bicycle a few months ago and while it is essential that he get his health sorted, he might not be in the best position for making such a huge decision. Anyway the decision has been done and the irony is that my mother’s little shop is now full again with stuff from my brother’s shop, while he decides what to do with it all and what he is going to do with the rest of his life. 

 I have been doing my best to keep out of it but slipped last week into being ‘too helpful’ and getting yelled at several times, with not particularly nice language used. I felt stupid and distressed. My Dad died almost nine years ago and if he had lived he would have been 80 today. I think I deliberately don’t allow myself to miss him most of the time, but he was such a calming force and a huge support for me, I missed him more these past few weeks than in the whole nine years put together. So, as I type, those tears that I have known were there and wouldn’t come out are now flowing, so that is good.