When somebody says "All you need to know is that you're loved", Brace Yourself. Because the next thing you hear is going to tear the bottom out of everything you thought you ever knew. After the you hear those words, every life shattering possibilty runs thorugh your head, but one of those thoughts stops running looks you in the face and says "She's done it"

With every part of yourself you hope that you're wrong. When those words  come out of her mouth, I look my aunty in the eyes and ask her for confirmation of my fears in five simple words,

"She's done it, hasn't she?"

Her eyes tell me what her lips can not.

"How did she do it?"

"Come with me," she says, "we need to go home."

The journey home is black. I push my fingers so deep into my eyes to try to stop myself from crying. Soft words are being spoken but I can't hear them. I need this all to stop. I need the world to stop so that I can have time to put my thoughts together. Why does the world have to keep spinning? I need it to stop so that i can collect myself. Get ready to face what is waiting for me at home.

The ute stops and I get out. Hands are grabbing at me. Hands I don't want touching me. Hands that need to let me go. Flashing lights and people are confusing the space where I am trying to walk. More hands.

"Just let me go!"

The walk from the ute to the front door is happening so quickly but also seems like the longest walk I have ever done. The walk is long but not long enough to prepare me for the moment I have been dreading since I heard those words -"you are loved." The moment where my Dad meets me at the door. The moment where fears become reality. There is a brief moment where time stops and I look at my Dad for comfort. His blue eyes fail me. He doesn't have enough strength for himself let alone to feign strength for me. He can't be the superhero I need him to be right now. He's having a hard enough time trying to be a human.

"Dad, I want to go in there. I want to see her."

Hands grab at my shoulders as I try to find a place to squeeze past my slowly depleting father.

"You can't go in there. You can't see her." he says as I'm pulled back away from him and the house that was once, but will never be again, my home.

Everything is melting and I'm screaming and everything aches, and  I want to lay with her. I want to hold her. But I can't. And I never will again. She's gone. And her blood and brains run down the window and my mummy has run away without saying good-bye for the very last time.

Movies-the new bed time story

One of my favourite memories of childhood was bedtime stories. My brother, father and myself would all pile into one bed with a stack of books and the fun would begin. Dad would animate the stories with an array of character voices and personal anecdotes. He was a fabulous story teller.

As we got older and deemed too old for bedtime stories, I shifted my focus to another form of story telling. I love to read books but I can never seem to recreate the colour my Dad added to his stories. A good movie on the other hand - made well - can be a story in all its technicolour glory.

A great script delivered by actors who become characters from another time and place can deliver that same satisfaction a child feels while listening to a bedtime story. This is why it is so important for a director to seriously consider the manner in which he tells his story. A story is neither bad nor good. It is the way it is told that makes the difference.