Monday, April 27, 2009

Remembering those we love

It's been more than 5 years since my mum died but I still have to catch myself sometimes thinking "I must tell her..." Most of the times I am quite happy having conversations with her in my head - she is so alive there that I almost don't feel like she is dead, even though intellectually I know this is the case - but the oddest things can set off a wave of realisation that she is truly gone. Like this week's football ladder (reproduced below).

OMG - not only is St Kilda at the top of the ladder but they haven't yet lost a game this year. Zaida (my mother's father, my grandfather) will be so excited... oh... umm... that's right. Zaida is dead too. He died the year before my mum.

Nominally I still barrack for St Kilda but with my mum and grandfather gone, it just isn't the same. I can just imagine the conversation with them, getting so excited over St Kilda's success, wondering when the team will fall flat on its face this year, hearing for the umpteenth time about St Kilda's one and only grand final win - on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar (with so many Jews praying for them, how could they lose?), the rabbi breaking the rules and spirit of that solemn day to announce from the pulpit that St Kilda had won by a point over Collingwood...

I have trouble believing in an afterlife but I do believe that a little bit of the souls of those we loved remain with us as long as we remember them. So in my head my mum is drinking weak white tea with my grandfather who is having a mug of warm water and milk and they are having fun filling in the tip sheets for the next game of the season, wondering whether 2009 will be the year that St Kilda reigns again.


Rank Club Played Won Lost Drawn For Against % Points
1 TeamSt Kilda 5 5 0 0 555 262 211.84 20
2 TeamGeelong 5 5 0 0 598 402 148.77 20
3 TeamCarlton 5 3 2 0 581 457 127.14 12
4 TeamWestern Bulldogs 5 3 2 0 520 471 110.41 12
5 TeamPort Adelaide 5 3 2 0 480 468 102.57 12
6 TeamEssendon 5 3 2 0 441 447 98.67 12
7 TeamAdelaide 5 3 2 0 400 435 91.96 12
8 TeamCollingwood 5 2 3 0 476 442 107.7 8
9 TeamHawthorn 5 2 3 0 490 494 99.2 8
10 TeamSydney 5 2 3 0 459 473 97.05 8
11 TeamWest Coast 5 2 3 0 447 488 91.61 8
12 TeamKangaroos 5 2 3 0 362 421 86 8
13 TeamBrisbane Lions 5 2 3 0 401 488 82.18 8
14 TeamRichmond 5 1 4 0 401 523 76.68 4
15 TeamMelbourne 5 1 4 0 355 508 69.89 4
16 TeamFremantle 5 1 4 0 394 581 67.82 4

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