Love Is All You Need.

• Paige Holden, Grade 9, Lowood State High School
• Poetry
• 2011

Excellence Award in the 'Step Write Up 2011' competition

The sun rises, the soothing air slides through the cracking glass windows, the fog is covering the world like a blanket to a bed, and I slowly gather myself out of the warm bed and make my way down to the kitchen. Life today is getting harder by the minute.
The doctor said I should take sick leave, but how can I when I have my whole family to feed and the bills to pay? I make myself some buttered toast and slowly slip on my work outfit. The weather is chilly and my bones ache and my head feels like a massive balloon. But I can’t give up.
The kids are sound asleep, I take some time making their lunches, not wasting too much and not letting them starve. Life is hard. Today’s prices are dear and I don’t know how long it will take for me to crash and burn. I tell the kids love is all we need, they just smile and say ‘I love you mum’. I don’t want them to miss out on too much, I set aside money for them every week to give them pocket money. $5 every week, keeps them smiling and isn’t too bad on the budget.
Its time to awaken the monsters. I bang a pot with a paddle and I hear yawning, laughing, then stomps of the little elephants alive. They sit there so peacefully, all eating toast and milk; I gather them up, doing their hair and getting them to brush their teeth. I muck around with them, I can’t do too much, and I’m hurting a lot, my cancer is ‘gone’ but it’s slowly returning. I ache everyday, the kids don’t understand when I can’t play anymore, and they think they make me angry, I just cuddle them and say sorry.
The drive to work is horrible. Manual cars on cold days don’t mix. My hands are swollen and stiff. Working at the meat works doesn’t help either. But it’s a paying job in this society so I can’t complain too much.
My mum’s suffering from dementia, I see her every Wednesday it’s getting tougher seeing her like that. Her not being able to remember who I am just fragments of her life. She’s changed so much, it hurts, it hurts to see her like this, angry one second, happy the next. It hurts that she doesn’t remember me but I can’t blame her, it’s the disease. I sometimes think it’s just better if she passes, so she doesn’t have to go through this pain, but then I realize I’m being selfish thinking of something like that.
I make the kids sausages and vegetables for dinner. They tell me stories of their day; I listen, they always seem to make my day. Tonight its freezing the kids are asleep in my bed, the candles are slowly burning; I make my way into bed, snuggling the kid’s takes away the loneliness and pain.