Big Big week.

Last Sunday while I was getting the boys ready for bed Seb appeared tearful and breathless at the door of Coles room with a phone in his hand. We had spent the day at his brothers new house, visiting and having lunch with him and his kids, and Sebs sister who had arrived from Sydney to spend the week in Auckland for their fathers book launch.

Any time you get a phone call involving stilted speech and crying, its bad. He managed after the third attempt to tell me his sister had called, and their dad had suffered a brain hemmorhage. 10 minutes later I'd packed him a bag and he was in the car back to his brothers to hold vigil as the kids waited for news from Wellington hospital where their father had been admitted.

He had been at the airport waiting for a flight home after a busy weekend, and had apparently collapsed just short of the plane itself. This turned out to be fatefully positive.

Seb hates to fly, like, HATE. the kids needed to be with their dad, Wellington is 8 hours by car, 1 hour by air, so they booked flights. Seb got on the plane on Monday morning and promptly got off again. Sleeplessness, stress, a head cold and a fear of flying make a bad combination. And so, even though it was not part of the plan, I drove him down to Wellington and we arrived at Brendans bedside by midnight.

I've only been to the Windy city twice, the last time when Kobi was 11 months old, a whole decade ago. Here we both were arriving in a foreign town, our nations capital in the dark of night with no idea where the hell to go, tired and anxious to see Sebs Dad. Jodi and Mike met us at the Hospital entry and thank god or we would have been so lost. I had talked to Seb all the way down in the car about the possible things he could expect, when my exfather had a stroke it was a rude awakening to the fragility of humanity, and I had a window into the kind of world Seb was about to enter. Of course nothing can prepare you to see your beloved parental unit unconcious in a bed strapped to a dozen machines, and with breathing tubes and stuff sticking out of them.

In the rush to get down in the car we had obviously not arranged any sort of sleeping situation, but Sebs stepmum had a sister in Wellington and we were to stay with her. Tiredness and disorientation made it impossible for me to pick up the retardedly short route to Sues home for near on 3 days, now I could find it with my eyes shut, though this is not recommended lol.

Theres something to be said for a nice home, and we had the pleasure of staying in 2 very nice abodes for the 6 days we were gone. Sue's neighbour had a guesthouse with beds for 4 and graciously let us use their facilities the whole time. It was difficult the first night to stop myself from wriggling as the 3 Telfer kids seem to be able to lie still and not move and here was I moving my arms and legs about in the dark making a whole bunch of noise. We were also treated to homecooked meals and wonderful food by Sue, its heartwarming to see how families pull their shit together in times of trouble.

Being that Sebs father is a well known sports broadcaster, his illness was very quickly being reported in the papers, and that was weird. Weird because here was his wife and his kids reading about him in the paper online which was being updated almost hourly, but they weren't the people informing the media. It was weird to feel exposed in that way, to have this private moment of their lives on show, and so I kept my own conversations about what was happening to the sole domain of my mother. At one point the updates were coming so thick and fast it was obvious the staff were either tipping off the papers or someone close to the family was. Even now while I blog I feel self concious that I could be saying things that are really just for the inner domain.

Brendans recovery over the last week has been remarkable however. He was taken out of the coma after 2 days, and is displaying full range of speech, both in quality of production and content. He has a shit of a headache, and has a way to go before he's back to his usual pace of life. I got my own unintended outcomes from the time in Wellington, that being with Sebs family at this most vulnerable moment, getting to know them better, and being able to offer them the parts of me that are the most useful, my care, my experiences and funnily enough, my car. More than once I was told Seb not getting on the plane was a blessing in disguise.

So we left Wellington on Saturday, I had refrained from seeing Brendan all week, I felt that it wasn't my place to be in there, and I wanted Brendan to have his dignity in place at all times. He asked to see me that last day which was really nice, and in my short visit, he reached out to hold my hand and I told him he just needed to sleep and it was totally ok if he did that. He spent near on the rest of that time talking with his eyes shut to manage the terrible headache and then we left. We drove to Rotorua and spent the night with Sebs uncle so we didn't have to make the entire journey in one hit. We had breakfast with Sebs best friend, aptly named Brendan, and went home. It was good to hold my own children after the longest time I have ever spent away from them, and to be in familiar territory, but both Seb and I don't feel quite right being here, and I think it will stay that way until Brendan is flown home to Auckland, hopefully sometime this week.

Didn't help that my liking for Wellington grew tenfold during our trip, and I was alittle loathing to return to the outskirts of Onehunga. Seb agrees I will probably never be content until the day we sell this house and move into the city.

Love your family, be kind to one another, lifes too short for bullshit. These are the lessons of the week.

Oh, and thank you Brendan T for all the beautiful sunsets and scenery we saw on the way to your side, I thought of you each time I laid my eyes on the essentially magnificent countryside of my birth.