Not bad for a bunch of internet perverts.

A little over 2 years ago my mum looked concerned at the idea I was meeting a few women for brunch who I had met on the internet. It wasn’t a date; it was just likeminded people, meeting for coffee, because we had got along really well on twitter.
Mum’s train of thought was that only perverts talk to strangers on the internet, how do you know they are really nice ladies, and not creepy dudes? And also, don’t you have REAL friends?
Mum is an accountant. Say no more. < note to self: insert smiley here in case mum reads this>

My train of thought was; these people are AMAZING, and we are so similar. I’ve spent most of my life feeling like the “odd one out”*, why would I walk away from the chance to find like-minded people?

So I went to coffee. I went to brunches. I went to tweet ups, to movies, and music in parks. I helped start an Auckland Feminist meet-up, We started a pub quiz group. I met the most amazing people. People, who don’t like bars, people who don’t like crowds. People I wouldn’t have met any other way, than through friends, or online.

These people were My People. They were Good People. They were broken, and ill and strong and opinionated. They were different ages, and stages of their journey. We didn’t all immediately click, and there were admittedly a few, who once I met them, I realised we weren’t so well matched after all. But mostly, this weird space on the internet that my mother was convinced was full of perverts was a gold mine.

These were my kind of “perverts”.

These perverts had the same kinks as me. It was like being on a platonic dating site full of witty, smart people who cared about the world they inhabited. Who took action for change. These perverts were willing to do a lot of weird stuff with me (like helping the community).

Most recently, one of my favourite internet perverts – Jackie Clark, started calling some of us the #twitteraunties. It seemed at first glance that it was a bunch of friends who enjoyed meddling in each other’s lives and being shoulders for each other. Then things stepped up to another level and the #auntymafia was born. These were Good People who might not even live in the same place, but were willing to come together to make a difference.
Last night some of the Aunty Mafia came together to coordinate, wrap and deliver food, presents, packages, technology collected for Te Whare Marama o Mangare women’s refuge. This wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. We had been meeting to discuss how to help, and the job seemed almost do-able by us on a small scale. We came up with a small plan, and Jackie took it to twitter and started asking for help. For some reason this captured people. They loved it, and wanted to help. Donations and food and gifts flooded in, people involved their corporations that they had links to, and networked among community groups. With enough strong backs, and loving helpers, we were able to harness all the resources available. It wasn’t small scale at all. What Jackie had started was small. What she had grown was HUGE.

I found last night overwhelming for a bunch of reasons. Partly because it felt like an honour, that at what could be one of the roughest times in someone’s life, we were able to make a difference. Partly because for every enthusiastic smile there, ten more people had contributed to the gifts and food we were wrapping. This was bigger than anything I’ve been so closely involved in, and although part of me was overwhelmed, a small voice was proudly chirping up in the back of my head…

“Not bad for a bunch of perverts off the internet”.

Thank you. Thank you all.

Further reading:

Jackie has a lovely thank you at her blog, acknowledging the sheer number of people involved, and saying thanks better than I have words for.

And the Divine R and R have info on their blog on the next project moving forward.

 

* My old friends are amazing, but we are united by love of each other and lives together, not similarities.

 

Kids and Guns.

I was having a conversation yesterday with a colleague about children and guns.
He has a new baby and is torn between allowing toy guns, or not.
When we were little my mother did her darnedest to keep guns and violent toys out of our hands and in response we picked up sticks and pretended they were guns.

When I was about 8 or 9 my great uncle allowed me to watch as he organised the guns and ammo for rabbit/possum hunting on the farm. I clung to the back of his bike as we all rode out to a good spot while the sun lowered itself into the hot Hawke’s Bay earth.
I waited, twitching with suppressed excitement and nerves, for the rabbits to come out to feed.
I watched as he shot animals and they didn’t get back up again.
I cried as he walked me over to retrieve the “bunny” and ensure that it was a fatal shot and was not in pain.
He explained the different between pets, farm stock, and pests.
We talked about animal control and what rabbits and possums did to New Zealand farms and native bush.
We went home and skinned the rabbits and fed the dogs.
After a night of bad dreams I awoke and sat at the breakfast table, little legs swinging and explained to my amused Aunt that MY Bunny was a good bunny because it didn’t have too many babies and only ate our vegi scraps, so that bunny shouldn’t be shot.

My mother taught me that she didn’t like guns.
That is all.

My uncle taught me that guns are tools.
Guns harm that which you use them on.
He taught me that if you shoot something it is your responsibility. YOU pick it up, make sure you did it properly and dispose or/use the remains.
Guns are to be taken seriously, and are NOT toys.

My uncle taught me more in one week than my mother had taught me in 8 years.

I have no doubt that if he had caught my brother and I pointing even pretend guns at each other’s heads we would have finally met the big leather strop he kept on top of the fireplace to scare us with.

So when I saw this morning’s paper with this article I was delighted.

There will always be guns in this world.
Kids will see them on T.V, on farms, in computer games, and in the sadder cases, in their own world.
Kids will always play at adult activities, cooking, families, building, driving.
Shooting a gun is an adult activity and will be mimicked.
It is a parent’s responsibility to provide good behaviour for children to emulate.
We can turn our backs on violence and pretend it doesn’t exist, or confront it and teach our children better lessons. This idea is a brilliant way of providing the toys, with an appropriate response.

Will the kids who haven’t seen a real gun in action understand why the license is part of this play activity?
I wonder.

Grieving a child - A new resource for families experiencing loss.

Note: the base details of this write up were taken from the details of an interview with the Bay of Plenty Times.

I want to thank Liz, primarily for writing this incredible book, and also for allowing me to write this, I hope this will help market the book and allow the community to know about this new resource.
Please pass the word around. As activists in various different women’s interest
groups we are ideally set to pass the word around.

************************************************************************

It is not often that a book comes out, and I want to;
A) Get it NOW
B) Buy multiple copies for my friends.

Recently I got a wee note from a friend of mine who wanted to let people know that his sister has written a book.
*sigh*
The number of books I have read because I know the author, and then wished I had that couple of hours back...
This is different.

For a start it is a book written to help families cope with bereavement and the process of a stillbirth.
Liz Tamblyn has self-published 300 copies. She hopes the book will be a valuable tool for people working with children dealing with grief .

Secondly Liz is the author and it is written in first person perspective, but
not hers...
The book is called Baby Sam and is in the voice of Baby Sam’s big brother Jack, who was 4 when Sam was stillborn.
Liz wrote the story soon after Sam's death four years ago.
"A lot of it is Jack's words. I read it to him seven or eight times and he corrected the bits I got wrong."
There are not too many times in your life you remember minute to minute. The day you realise your child is gone is one of those moments.

Sam was six days overdue when a check-up discovered that he had died. Liz had felt him moving just the day before.
She knew about stillbirth through her cousin’s experience 14 years before her, and what she had seen in the media, but nothing can prepare you for this.
What Liz’s book does help with is the process after. Grief, the experience of mourning as a family unit and the ways of remembering a child lost.
“The book tells how the family celebrated Sam's life with a special dance at his funeral and by releasing red balloons. Jack and his younger sister Sally received presents from Sam and had a birthday cake with a train on it to mark his birthday.”

This really hit home for me; we celebrated my friend’s son’s 18th birthday a few years back though he died quite soon after his 4th. The first birthdays were filled with the weight of grief, raw and unhealed. In contrast his 18th Birthday was a picnic on the grass; we each laid flowers on his grave and had our own private moments with him before joining the group for what was definitely a celebration. A celebration of his life and his family’s since his loss.

No one grieves the same way, or uses the same coping mechanisms, and so any resource to help support a child through a healthy and natural process of loss is highly relevant.
The BOP times reported that this is the only book on baby loss from the sibling’s perspective, which Liz has kindly let me know is incorrect.
In her words...
“There is another book put out by Skylight NZ, SIDS Wellington and Sands Wellington called "What Happened to Baby" (Which I highly recommend!). It is generic and could be any baby, for any reason at any age or gestation. The text has been carefully designed to fit a wide range of bereavement situations, including miscarriage, stillbirth, cot death and accidental or natural deaths of an infant or toddler. Ours is the only TRUE and PERSONAL story I have found on the subject.”
Liz who is also mum to Harry and Sally, found writing the book was extremely healing and therapeutic.
"It's almost like his life has left a legacy of helping other people through their grief. It's like a new purpose in my life, which I would never have had. I'd rather have him if I had the choice but I have to find the good things."

Mrs Tamblyn is a committee member for Sands, a support group for “families grieving the loss of a baby no matter the gestation or age or reason for death. (Not just stillbirth and newborn death).”

The book was officially launched at a private function in Tauranga last week.

To buy Baby Sam, email babysam@tamblyn.co.nz or visit www.skylight.org.nz.