Tonight I'm sitting on our new lounge and it's just so comfortable that I'm on the laptop instead of being stuck in the bedroom on the computer chair. Our old lounge is still in the lounge room too so it's a little crowded. Lauren and Daniel are coming over on the weekend to pick it up. Looks like I won't get out of re-covering it after all. Lauren will want it re-covered for sure, and I'll at least have to help her.
Work has been flat out this week. I have a questionnaire from the Department of Planning that has to be completed by the end of the month, with questions about approval times and costs for every development application that came in last financial year. I have pages and pages of notes, but actually getting the time to sit down and do it seems to be the hard part. I've organised to have next Monday and Tuesday off and with the work I already have waiting for me tomorrow, there's no way I'm going to get to it. I'll bring it home tomorrow night and try to work on it at home, but time is a rare commodity at home too. I've had a map-making week. It's been fun, but very time-consuming, and because I don't make maps very often, I'm stumbling around in the program to do what I'm asked. The end result is always very rewarding though, so I struggle on.
Saturday is the first round of the finals for the Junior Rugby League competition and I think we're off to Tumut. There or Temora, Alex will find out for sure tomorrow. In a fortnight the touch football summer competition starts, and there'll be a couple of weeks overlap. The same thing happened last year.
Originally, I took the couple of days off because Alex thought he had to go to Albury next Tuesday for the Riverina stage of the school athletics carnival. I told him today that I could drive him there and he informed me that he didn't qualify after all. He came second on the day for shotput, but someone else must have thrown longer than him. He was disappointed. I'm not, because I get a real day off after all. One day when I can just potter around home, or get stuck into a bloody questionnaire that's haunting me. I'm waking up in the morning and it's the first thing I think about.
At least I'm not waking up any more and Graham is my first thought. He's not even my last thought at night any more, and though some nights when I'm trying to go to sleep I do think about him and his fucked decision to end it all, I guess it's true what they say about time healing wounds. It's been nearly 2 months and I guess I've come to terms with it. Mum also said that she has stopped crying when she goes to bed at night. I don't even want to think about how I would feel if it had been my son. Being my brother was bad enough.
I took Alex and Carly to the cemetery last Saturday when we were in Wagga. I told Mum that visiting cemeteries wasn't my thing, but I ended up there anyway. We didn't stay long. I straightened a little rag doll that one of his girl's must have put there, probably Shannon, and watered a pansy-looking plant that was in a little pot. Grass is starting to grow over the dirt and it looks cared for. I just had a sudden impulse to visit Graham and I'm glad I acted on it. An old friend of Dad's died the same week as Graham and is buried in the same row. A guy David works with told him that Graham is in a good "street" at the cemetery and has neighbours that he knows. I don't know if he was trying to be funny or comforting. Knowing the guy, he was probably serious.
Anyway Graham, I hope you're resting in peace.