Day 20, Level 1: Sunshowers, Stuff, Nokias and Miscarriages - and Baby Sam!
Stuff (website news) has turned 20 years old - was it really that long ago it first got under way? I can't quite believe that. I have to admit I check Stuff at least once a day for a quick update on what's happening near and far. It's a handy thing, although can be frustrating - especially that auto-play thing - lightweight and with many grammatical and typographical errors. But for a quick news fix, it's okay.
When you think back 20 years, to when Stuff started, it's amazing how crude the internet was as a news-sharing platform then - but, at the same time, how enlightening and ground-breaking it was.
How far things have come. The days of dial-up, Nokias and Blackberries, not to mention landlines and massive clunky monitors and churning home computers that did your head in, are now - thankfully - part of history! Along with cordless phones, walkmans, video players and transistor radios. Even CDs are a thing of the past ... although we still play them at home on ur CD player!!
Kids today - even young adults - don't even really know what half of the above even means! Not to mention push-button phones, cassette players, Polaroid cameras, blackboards, carless days and wringer washing machines!!! Even voice-mail is becoming redundant as people don't have the time to listen to messages.
I wonder when people will look back on iPhones, Chrome-casting, Bluetooth and Netflix as completely old-hat and redundant - and what the next latest greatest things might be. It's hard to imagine. Going to the moon and back for an outing may well become de rigeur in the not too distant future ... could be safer and more appealing than hopping around Earth, thanks to Covid! I jest (as I often do) - but perhaps only a little as it may not be as ridiculous as it sounds.
Talking of computers, Mum never had one. She did have a cell phone. She'd worked at the BNZ, ran the business-end of Dad's general practice and was one savvy-as lady. I encouraged her to get a computer but in those days they were cumbersome, expensive, unreliable and could be more of a liability than anything else. She kept abreast of things via traditional methods - and we, her family, were just nearby.
As intimated in an earlier post, Mum died suddenly, too young, aged 66 (in 2007) - if she'd lived on, I've no doubt she would have been a savvy laptop-using senior having a ball of a life. I miss her every day. We only had a cross word once in life. Alas, we skirted the more tricky family issues, but we did have some real heart to hearts that are indelible.
Muriel (Brett's mum) never had a cell phone - but she did get to grips with a computer and email etc, although it was never straight forward. I think a technician, techie friend or one of us was at Muriel's computer more than she was, sorting out issues! Having said that, she was more than happy to give it a go, went to Senior-net, and did have an an idea of what it was all about. Until it was all too hard.
SHARE-NOTE OF THE DAY:
Miscarriages ...
There's been a new web series put out by the NZ Herald called Misconceptions - a well-titled look at the facts, grief, stigma and mystique around miscarriage, with various local personalities sharing stories of their miscarriages. As one of them says, it's always, strangely, been called "losing your baby" - but that's just not the case. You might not have a baby after the event, but you know what happened to it, you didn't "lose" it.
I've had five miscarriages, all completely different, at different stages of pregnancy. All harrowing in their own way. There is no "one size fits all", nothing can prepare you for it, nothing makes it easier to grapple with in the moment or bear into the future. But it's reality, and deal with it you must.
One of my miscarriages, at 12 weeks, was a particularly horrific nighttime occurrence, both physically gruelling and emotionally draining. Very grim, hideously battering on all levels. I went to work the next day. I guess it was about keeping some semblance of normalcy.
All these miscarriages were after I'd had Sam and Michael. A third child would have been nice, but mother nature was saying stick with two beautiful boys. No way was I getting pregnant again - I simply couldn't go through another miscarriage.
Here's a photo of me and baby Sam in 1993 - he turns 27 on 30th June. Where does time go!?!?
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