Five Years

Yesterday was the five year anniversary of the passing of Nanna O'B.

Last year I couldn't attend my usual tradition as was stuck donating my annual leave for TT1 obligations and photo shoots in the US.

This year we certainly made up for it. Choc-coated almonds were bought as were light ice beers (ewww....!). We sat in the ute and watched plane after plane land. Each one mesmorising. And they kept coming! There was no break in the action. You could spot as many as three lining up to land, and in between each landing planes were taking off on alternate runways (east-west, then to the south, then back to the east-west).

I didn't think much of Nanna at the time. I was still annoyed from work, but as I worked through the choc almonds, and the company of the sheer power of planes landing overhead, I started to realise that I am pretty insignificant.

We are all insignificant in the scheme of things. When things happen to you, the world doesn't stop. Life keeps ticking along. Planes still need to land and take off again.

Afterwards we drove around to Airport West and saw the spot where Nanna and Pa's house used to be. Two houses now replace the original white weatherboard home. One has been recently sold.

Life moves on, but its still sad to think about how things were. Sitting outside 117 Moore Road, I was a bit overwhelmed by the forces of change.

I was struck by how this street needed to have a place with white weatherboards and pebble-coated pot plants on the front porch. It needed to have horizontal blinds across the front window that 'pinged' when you peaked through them. It needed a back porch with a green tinted roof over it and an outdoor setting covered in cobwebs.

Of course it didn't need any of this, and I don't need any of this. But I remember and I miss it.

I miss Nanna, and I miss Pa even though I was much younger when he left.

Choc almonds, well I could probably give them a bit of a miss from now though...