Every Breath

I told mum yesterday evening that one of the things that I will do if I go a nice bonus this year was to change her living room.

The house they live in is in dire need of a sprucing. The walls needs painting (which perhaps we may put off until the youngest comes goes past the crayon-hand-wall stage), the furniture needs changing (the sofa is so sunken it's no longer comfy for my cat-nap) and the walls needs expanding (seriously?! a 20x60 feet house is not meant to hold 4 adults and 6 children). Let's not even go into the dining table that has legs that moves on its own - not hocus-pocus here. Just wee humans pushing the table to get off their chairs and not the other way around.

I have often sat on one of those sunken seats and ID-ed the place in my head. And it's nothing fancy really. A L-shaped sofa so that when folks come round to speak to dad, there's a proper setting to talk in. Some shelving with pull-out containers for the children's toys. A tall shelve with doors so hold mum's cookbooks and the odd bottle of brandy (which is used for the Christmas cake, not for my consumption!). My electone with its broken keys and pedals would have to go and so does the musking-tape patch work cabinet.

It doesn't sound like many items but yet they would amount to some 4-digit receipt. And honestly, if I get a bonus this year (which Ben tells me I should not be hopeful for seeing how things are going - bad divorce, remember?), these things would be right at the top of my list. Not my new mobile phone (yes, a decision has been made on model). Not the oven for my kitchen. Not even a new pair of trainers for my workouts.

I have been to houses of the parents of my friends. And their living rooms screams that life, at this golden era, is all about them. It holds nick-knacks from their travels, it boasts of rosewood furnishings that aren't afraid of pudgy crayon-wielding fingers, it glitters and it shines from the glass cabinets and such.

Mum says it doesn't need to be on my bonus-wishlist. That she's alright with the state things are. And that she knows it will happen with God's blessing. My folks aren't complaining. I know it is a joy for them to see the lil space packed with strewn toys and laughter from their off-springs.

Perhaps I am losing myself - forgetting that to have a living room to call their own, and having it filled with love and family, is more important that Wedgewood china displays.

I suppose then every breath we draw, every second of everyday is a already a blessing, eh?