Saturday 10th

Drove back up to the Midlands on my own today, draging the kids back up there was tiring them and us out and Suki was looking drawn out.  I felt I just needed to spend a little more time with my brother and family.  No one was at home, all at the hospital and visitor not allowed, so I drove to my parents instead.  A shocking scene it was as I walked into my childhood home.  Mum was cooking something for lunch while talking to dad in the kitchen and both were in floods of tears - neither looked in anyway capable of helping Rob through this and both thought (most shocking of all) that this was all some punishment from god.  Mum and Dad had been in and out of the temple for longer than they had spent supporting Rob.  I am not a table thumper or shouter  but I told them both off - if they can't stop looking for blame and can't empathise with Rob now of all times then they were as useless as I always thought.  Dad had not even been back to work for a week and replaced that with crying around the house and praying to the same god that did this in the first place.

It is true that difficult times test your faith in god and events can polarise your thoughts completely.  For some their faith is proved positive and for others the faith lost completely.  I always had little faith   to begin with and the older I got the more I lost, now I am sure there is nothing there - it is all chance, biology, evolution and thought.  What god would do this to a child.  My parents however believe it is faith and prayer that will help up overcome these difficulties.  The problem with Mum and Dad has always been they care about what other people think and say that what Rob and I feel.

It has been interesting to see Rob and Ambe gain more faith over this week or two - I am not saying they are about to take up the punjabi version of the cloth - but they are praying regularly.  If the Shaan had been mine would I do the same, as a worried parent do you look for anything that others hope and healing and damn reality.

Collected Ambe from the hospital (she had been discharged a couple of days ago adnd was travelling back and forth to feed Shaan) and took home.  Rob had taken his other son out to play for a couple of hours - this was only time Rob smiled in the last two weeks.  A strange routine was developing here shuttleing between hospital, home, school, coventry, sainsburys, GP etc.  The stack of alcohol that was to be part of the festivites around the birth of my nephew was still in the garage.  I sat with everyone and just tried to listen to the problems, complications, medications, tirednes experienced by Rob and Ambe.  All this pain and yet they seemed curiously upbeat and things would improve as soon as Shaan was home.