All Over Again

On the second last day of the year Gemma-Rose invites Andy and me to have breakfast with her. We drive into town to a favourite cafe where, after scanning the QR code with our phones, filling in the necessary details, and sanitising our hands, we choose a corner table by the window. Then we browse the menu, change our minds a few times before deciding we’re in the mood for French toast with bacon, avocado and maple syrup. While Gemma-Rose places our orders and pays for our food, I think about how, not so long ago, we were treating our daughter instead of her treating us.

While our French toast is cooking, I peer out the window and along the road towards another cafe that, years ago, used to be our favourite place for a coffee and cake date. Regularly, Andy and I would sneak an hour away from our family, taking only the baby. One day, while we sipping our lattes and savouring the last crumbs of our chocolate slice, a man approached our table and smiled at Gemma-Rose saying, ‘You have a beautiful baby! Is she your first?’

‘Oh no,’ I replied, ‘she’s our eighth.’

The man’s smile faded as he mumbled, ‘Rather you than me.’

I wanted to say how happy we were with our children, how they had brought joy into our lives, how privileged we felt to be parents, how all the work involved with bringing up children is worth it, but the man stepped back and then hurried away before I could say a word.

On the second last day of the year, I grab my phone and snap a few photos of Gemma-Rose, our eighth child, who’s no longer a baby but almost 17 years old. Then our teenage daughter reaches out her hand for the phone, saying, ‘I’ll take one of you and Dad.’

As the waiter slides our toast-filled plates onto the table, I think, ‘Where would I be without our kids? Who would I be?’

And I know that, without a doubt, the man in the cafe, all those years ago, was wrong. I would never say, ‘I wish it were you and not me.’

Sleepless nights and overwhelmingly tired days. Numerous miscarriages and the death of our son. Time and money sacrifices. Endless work, grief, sorrow and uncertainty. All the difficulties Andy and I experienced together led to this moment in time: enjoying breakfast with our daughter. It’s a moment like so many others in our life: one of pure delight. Oodles of giggles. An ocean of love. Joy floods our hearts. As it always does, it rubs out the pain.

If I could, I’d do it all over again.