A friend of mine's father died last night. A wonderful, generous, larger-than-life man. He had a massive heart attack and died. Sudden, unexpected, tragic. It got me to thinking about death and dying, again. I know it's inevitable and we don't get a choice in how it happens, but I hope mine's quick. In my sleep even better.
I say we don't have a choice but that's not entirely true - we do, really. I'm a complete believer in the fact that we were given intelligence to allow us to make that choice at any point that we have become tired of life. In my head I would rather make that choice than suffer for a long time with some horrible disease and then go. The real problem lies in the pre-empting of that.
How do you know when it's going to happen? You just don't. I guess that's the eye-opener here. You never know, so one should take note of all those 'Live for today' cutesy postcards that people insist on plastering their Stalkbook walls with. Is it obvious I'm not a fan? But it's the postcards I'm not a fan of, not the sentiment. I've had my brush(es) with death, I know how quickly the world can turn upside-down.
I'm trying to decide if I'm scared of death, it's one of those questions people ask. I don't think I'm scared of death itself but I know I'm petrified of dying, the process. Ug, what a depressing topic for a beautiful Saturday morning in early spring set to a soundtrack of Florence and The Machine.
Let me rather 'seize the day', 'live in the moment', 'dance like nobody's watching' etc, and stop rambling on.
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Fragility
I guess it happens all the time, to everyone. Sometimes we see it happen, other times it happens without us even knowing. Brushes with death. When we notice it, it's a wake up call, a reminder of the fragility of it all. When we don't notice... well... I don't know, maybe we realise somewhere, way deep down in our psyches and we draw a breath in, surprising ourselves, but not really knowing why.
It started last Monday, fairly innocuously, but I was pre-menstrual at the time and terribly emotionally fragile, so I was struck down with a terrible sadness that made me want to sob. It was a floating upside-down fish in a fish tank at a fish restaurant, being removed most carefully into a plastic bag. He was being taken home to the restaurant family owner's son's (and our waiter) tank, hopefully to be revived from whatever goldfishy ailment had turned his world, literally, upside-down. It all seemed too much. Remember... I was awfully PMSsey.
The next morning, I narrowly missed 'walking into' a crime scene. See post before this, or before that one. It made me want to devise some kind of filming set-up that filmed a minute ahead of me, and a minute after. Wouldn't that be fascinating? Or maybe just give one more to worry about.
And then, last night, the third (and hopefully last... come on Old Wive's, prove you're right with that 'Bad luck comes in threes' thing. Please.) This, truly, was a proper eye-opener, not a hormone-induced sob-fest.
They'd unwisely brought some of the fire they'd made outside into their completely closed room. Her mother had done it when they lived in the Transkei, in a hut with windows which had no glass and a door that opened onto the beautiful Kei hills. She didn't think that it'd suck the oxygen from their lungs and fill the room with god-knows-what noxious gases. It did.
I heard her screaming to her sister, her son as they, all three of them - two grown women and one 7-year old came into the house and literally fell into my room looking as if they'd all been drinking. He was crying quietly and squirming in his mother's arms. Her sister fell onto my bed, sliding down onto the floor where I could hear her breathing heavily as I simultaneously tried to get the story out of her, calm them all down and call an ambulance, my father, anyone.
It seemed like hours before they all descended on the house, as I thanked my lucky stars for family, friends, paramedics. An hour later and all had been examined and given the all-okay, her sister up off the floor, standing up, breathing normally, her oxygen levels back to normal.
And me - a swirling, bubbling, confused mixture of sheer anxiety, fear, claustrophobia, sadness and anger. I just feel like I need a good, hard, and possibly loud, cry. The fragility of us all, the momentariness, the fact that death really is always just there, waiting, it all just seems too much.
We're all alive though. For now.
It started last Monday, fairly innocuously, but I was pre-menstrual at the time and terribly emotionally fragile, so I was struck down with a terrible sadness that made me want to sob. It was a floating upside-down fish in a fish tank at a fish restaurant, being removed most carefully into a plastic bag. He was being taken home to the restaurant family owner's son's (and our waiter) tank, hopefully to be revived from whatever goldfishy ailment had turned his world, literally, upside-down. It all seemed too much. Remember... I was awfully PMSsey.
The next morning, I narrowly missed 'walking into' a crime scene. See post before this, or before that one. It made me want to devise some kind of filming set-up that filmed a minute ahead of me, and a minute after. Wouldn't that be fascinating? Or maybe just give one more to worry about.
And then, last night, the third (and hopefully last... come on Old Wive's, prove you're right with that 'Bad luck comes in threes' thing. Please.) This, truly, was a proper eye-opener, not a hormone-induced sob-fest.
They'd unwisely brought some of the fire they'd made outside into their completely closed room. Her mother had done it when they lived in the Transkei, in a hut with windows which had no glass and a door that opened onto the beautiful Kei hills. She didn't think that it'd suck the oxygen from their lungs and fill the room with god-knows-what noxious gases. It did.
I heard her screaming to her sister, her son as they, all three of them - two grown women and one 7-year old came into the house and literally fell into my room looking as if they'd all been drinking. He was crying quietly and squirming in his mother's arms. Her sister fell onto my bed, sliding down onto the floor where I could hear her breathing heavily as I simultaneously tried to get the story out of her, calm them all down and call an ambulance, my father, anyone.
It seemed like hours before they all descended on the house, as I thanked my lucky stars for family, friends, paramedics. An hour later and all had been examined and given the all-okay, her sister up off the floor, standing up, breathing normally, her oxygen levels back to normal.
And me - a swirling, bubbling, confused mixture of sheer anxiety, fear, claustrophobia, sadness and anger. I just feel like I need a good, hard, and possibly loud, cry. The fragility of us all, the momentariness, the fact that death really is always just there, waiting, it all just seems too much.
We're all alive though. For now.
Monday, August 1, 2011
In memorium
She thought that if she carefully opened up her chest and took her heart out it might help. She did it gently, knowing the fragility of it all and wrapped it in layer upon layer of the softest, reddest satin and put it in a beautiful engraved wooden box that her grandmother had given her as a child. She’d said it was a magic box and could be used quite safely to hold secrets and valuable things.
Carefully she placed the box in her bedside cupboard and whispered some unintelligible words as she closed it and lay down on her bed. It didn’t help, though, the box couldn’t protect her heart. Her despair leaked out of her, a gush of red, a waterfall of disillusionment, into a puddle of hopelessness. And her heart gently stopped beating in its beautiful red satin outfit. She sighed and was peaceful at last.
Carefully she placed the box in her bedside cupboard and whispered some unintelligible words as she closed it and lay down on her bed. It didn’t help, though, the box couldn’t protect her heart. Her despair leaked out of her, a gush of red, a waterfall of disillusionment, into a puddle of hopelessness. And her heart gently stopped beating in its beautiful red satin outfit. She sighed and was peaceful at last.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Bumping back to reality
Coming back from our idyllic mountain stay I landed back in the city with a series of heartbreaking bumps. We bought a newspaper on the road back and G read the devastating report of the tragedy in Norway. It worries me that, as a society, we seem to be breeding this kind of violence. My heart goes out to the families of those children and, mostly, to the children who were there, who must surely be gripped by a fear and horror that is hard to imagine.
Then the news of Amy Winehouse – not unexpected, but still sad. She was a talented and obviously conflicted woman. Hopefully she has now found her peace. If only the gossip press would leave it alone. All this talk of speculation about how she died? Honestly, we all know. Let her be now, just let it go.
The most devastating and the point at which my heart really boke, though, was when I logged in to Stalkbook, the bearer of all news, good or bad. A wonderful friend of mine from school was found dead in her apartment by her husband. Her daughter is three. She was 36-years old. A strange story really – they lived in South America, so far away from home and family, and apparently she said she was tired and went for a nap. A while later her husband went to check on her and she was dead.
It just all seems so wrong and out of sync but I suppose that’s the nature of death. It’s incomprehensible, despite the fact that it is a truth for everybody at some point. Things like this, though, make me sit up and pay attention because so often I forget to do so. Life is so incredibly fragile, every interaction with every creature may be the last you have. Because of this, I am reminding myself to be a little kinder, gentler. To be sure that the people I love, know that I love them.
Then the news of Amy Winehouse – not unexpected, but still sad. She was a talented and obviously conflicted woman. Hopefully she has now found her peace. If only the gossip press would leave it alone. All this talk of speculation about how she died? Honestly, we all know. Let her be now, just let it go.
The most devastating and the point at which my heart really boke, though, was when I logged in to Stalkbook, the bearer of all news, good or bad. A wonderful friend of mine from school was found dead in her apartment by her husband. Her daughter is three. She was 36-years old. A strange story really – they lived in South America, so far away from home and family, and apparently she said she was tired and went for a nap. A while later her husband went to check on her and she was dead.
It just all seems so wrong and out of sync but I suppose that’s the nature of death. It’s incomprehensible, despite the fact that it is a truth for everybody at some point. Things like this, though, make me sit up and pay attention because so often I forget to do so. Life is so incredibly fragile, every interaction with every creature may be the last you have. Because of this, I am reminding myself to be a little kinder, gentler. To be sure that the people I love, know that I love them.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Not another one
I’ve known her for years although, in the past four or so, I have seen her less and less. She moved back home to the small town where people know her and knew her parents and their parents before them. I was glad for her, she seemed lonely here and unsafe in the house she shared with her sister and son and she was always ill.
She called me two weeks ago, when I’d just got back from Spain and was sitting waiting for a friend at a restaurant. It was that dreaded, heart-sinking, scream-inducing phone call. The one where the person on the other side says: “I have cancer.” And you want to cancel the call and throw your phone into the pond next to you in which two goldfish swim, not noticing a thing, in the hope that, by throwing it there the call won’t have happened and it won’t be true.
Yesterday afternoon she popped in to visit with her son who used to be a little boy and is now a grown man. She looked tiny and fragile, despite being wrapped up in layers of clothing. Always prone to being a little morbid previously, she was surprisingly upbeat, if pale and wide-eyed.
At Real Work yesterday I had a discussion with a doctor who had been soothing another collegue whose mother has brain cancer (monstrous thing is everywhere). He said something I hadn’t thought of before: “We all die,” he said (I had thought of that, not the next bit), “and, in some ways, it’s a better option to be given a time frame. It gives you time to tie up loose ends, to say goodbye, to tell people you love them.”
A difficult concept to grasp. I have never been okay with the thought of death. Of anyone else dear to me’s death, that is, not mine. Mine, I’m fine with. Maybe that makes me intrinsically selfish?
I didn’t ask her what the prognosis is. She’s being given some treatment, and I hope it works but, mostly, I hope that in this whole process she doesn’t feel too sore or yukky and that she will be loved as she should be, to make it all as okay as it can possibly be.
These things remind one to hug the people you love closer, to be nicer, gentler, kinder. Time is limited, always.
This cancer thing is a bitch.
She called me two weeks ago, when I’d just got back from Spain and was sitting waiting for a friend at a restaurant. It was that dreaded, heart-sinking, scream-inducing phone call. The one where the person on the other side says: “I have cancer.” And you want to cancel the call and throw your phone into the pond next to you in which two goldfish swim, not noticing a thing, in the hope that, by throwing it there the call won’t have happened and it won’t be true.
Yesterday afternoon she popped in to visit with her son who used to be a little boy and is now a grown man. She looked tiny and fragile, despite being wrapped up in layers of clothing. Always prone to being a little morbid previously, she was surprisingly upbeat, if pale and wide-eyed.
At Real Work yesterday I had a discussion with a doctor who had been soothing another collegue whose mother has brain cancer (monstrous thing is everywhere). He said something I hadn’t thought of before: “We all die,” he said (I had thought of that, not the next bit), “and, in some ways, it’s a better option to be given a time frame. It gives you time to tie up loose ends, to say goodbye, to tell people you love them.”
A difficult concept to grasp. I have never been okay with the thought of death. Of anyone else dear to me’s death, that is, not mine. Mine, I’m fine with. Maybe that makes me intrinsically selfish?
I didn’t ask her what the prognosis is. She’s being given some treatment, and I hope it works but, mostly, I hope that in this whole process she doesn’t feel too sore or yukky and that she will be loved as she should be, to make it all as okay as it can possibly be.
These things remind one to hug the people you love closer, to be nicer, gentler, kinder. Time is limited, always.
This cancer thing is a bitch.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Junkie
He had that pretty boy look, beneath the grime. If he’d had a good shower, washed his jeans-hanging-moodily-below-his-bum-showing-his-boxers, had a R450 Bieberesque haircut and cleaned his finger nails, he could’ve been one of those private school boys I see being dropped off by their mommies in their gas-guzzling 4X4s each morning. But he wasn’t.
I was sitting alone in the passenger seat of the car at the garage. B had gone in to pay, leaving the driver’s side window open to petrol fumes and the lemony scent of the dishwashing liquid in the bucket next to the window – the water for washing windscreens. I smelt it as I riffled through my purse looking for change to tip the petrol attendant, my cell phone (the new one) lying quietly on my lap waiting to be put back in my bag. A clean smell.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw him swagger over. Looking up, I watched him fill his syringe with the sudsy water, squashed up bugs from trips to faraway places rushing through the needle and into the syringe. He squirted it out, shattered dreams from a different type of trip joining the bugs being forced back into the bucket. And again.
I pretended to not look, hid my phone in the door of the car, put my purse between my knees, and watched, acutely aware of the sharpness of that needle. He was completely unthreatening yet I felt threatened, not by him, but by my inability to stop him from walking away, to inject whatever noxious chemical he’d buy around the corner, along with the dishwashing liquid and squashed windscreen bugs now coating the syringe into his young veins.
As we drove away I saw him loitering outside the café waiting for whichever dealer would come by first, licking his lips with delight, swapping death for cash. The scene was watched over by the big old lady of a hospital across the road. A hospital filled with the ghosts of young boys just like him, and I wanted to scream out of my window: “Don’t do it, please. You’re beautiful, and you deserve more than this.” But I didn’t.
This morning, driving past the café, up to the big old lady of a hospital I wondered where he and his dirty, dishwashing liquid-smelling syringe spent the night last night. Winter is coming and the evenings have a decidedly biting edge to them.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Habitual dinner
I go out for dinner regularly with my parents and their old friends who I call That Other Lady and That Other Lady’s Husband. They’ve known me since I was born so they’re always a comfortable kind of dinner. We always go to the same steak house around the corner, owned by a grumpy man who I adore.
It’s all very predictable always. That Other Lady’s Husband brings a bottle of red wine which they share, although sometimes That Other Lady abstains and drinks lime and soda instead. My father brings a bottle of white wine, which we share, with lots of ice.
We all order the same things each time, altering only the choice of baked potato or chips, according to the time of the month. My father allows himself chips once a month, otherwise goes for the healthier baked potato option. I normally have the baked potato, because I like the sour cream. My dad always orders his steak: “Rare, underdone.” My mother and That Other Lady have their’s medium, I have mine rare and That Other Lady’s Husband has his medium rare.
We talk about how much fun it is to be retired (them), how busy I am at work (me), whatever sport is going on (oh, our boys at the World Cup, sigh) and, newly, because they too now have their first grandchild, the grandchildren.
Last night was a little different, though. A shared close friend of ours, a woman whose kids I grew up with, died on Saturday after a long battle with cancer. She was a warm, generous character with three sons who were the most destructive creatures ever created. She loved them, despite this. I remember being mortally affronted when they broke our much-loved hammock when we were children. She longed for daughters so loved my sister and me and we loved her.
Her youngest son produced a daughter with his girlfriend aged 16-years old about 16 years ago. She was there to catch the baby and had a most joyous 16 years helping raise her. The daughter she’d never had. She was oh-so-brave, and went through three sets of chemo and then decided, with the last recurrence, that enough was enough. We spoke about her a lot last night, remembering her loveliness, her abundant love. I hope she’s peaceful now.
Also different last night, was the empty red wine bottle. Well , not that it was empty, that's normal. However, unbeknownst to those drinking it, them being my dad and That Other Lady’s Husband (That Other Lady was on lime and soda), in amongst the delicious wine were four floaty things, which we only noticed, stuck to the side of the bottle, when it was finished. Four, differently lengthed, furry-looking things.
I tried to fish them out with a long spoon but had no luck. It provided much amusement during pudding as we wondered how many had been in there to start. I have e-mailed them and wait to hear. I’m hoping to get a case of wine out of the deal…
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Hello Sailor
Observatory, fondly called Obz, is a student area of The City Beneath the Mountain filled with beautiful old houses, mainly digs and a main drag called Lower Main Road. A street filled with restaurants, pool bars and hidey-hole shops, it has an air of vague degradation, yet some youthfulness. The youthfulness probably comes from the plethora (of?) tattooed, earringed artsy looking, well, youths. Versions of me, twenty years ago. I spent a lot of time there then and don’t so much anymore, but G and I went there last night.
She’d had a rough day, emotionally, having been to the funeral of a much-loved friend. I could almost see her nerve endings fizzing with emotion, and it was catching, I felt it too. As we drove down into Obz a sad, grey mist was flying in from the sea, going up our nostrils, chilling our skin, a meteorological version of how G was feeling.
There’s nothing like the death of somebody close to you to shake you up and throw the fact that life is so fleeting straight into your face, knocking the breath clean out of you. I’d read the lovely Miranda’s account of her friend’s death in the morning, a beautiful, heartbreaking post that made me cry and cry.
So we went to the place where we played as youths and had two glasses of wine at Hello Sailor. A sweet little place that has moved into the centre of Lower Main Road. The owner/maitre’D was so yummy, clean and fresh looking I almost wanted to lick him. I didn’t, though, I know better. He was the perfect type of attentive – there, but not in your face.
It’s in one of those old shops with beautiful wooden windows and doors and is most tastefully and simply decorated with many sailor-inspired pics and a wonderful wooden-framed old mirror that’s so old it’s got that mouldy look. I loved it. I felt like I was in a wonderful old companionable house. It was full – an eclectic mix of businessy-looking people and oh-so-cool youths. The two pavement tables, on either side of the door, had a man at each, drinking coffee, one reading the newspaper, the other engrossed in his book.
G and I philosophised about life, chatted about the world and drank icy white wine. The two glasses of wine, despite my watering them down, as I do (I know, I know, I’m a Philistine) went straight to my head. I’m such a bloody lightweight these days. I tried to soak it up with their special – Shepherd’s Pie and salad, which was actually a kind of stew with mashed potato on top. Not what I expected, but delicious none-the-less.
And then we went home, passing the youths only just starting to go out. I watched as a girl in the flat above the tattoo parlour primped and preened in front of a (non-mouldy) mirror, adjusting her top repeatedly to get it perfect and wondered about humanity. I wanted to tell her she was perfect, just as she was.
Death, breathing heavily, just around the corner, an inevitable, frustratingly unannoucing visitor, makes me want to pull everyone closer, hug them tighter, tell them they’re beautiful, just so.
She’d had a rough day, emotionally, having been to the funeral of a much-loved friend. I could almost see her nerve endings fizzing with emotion, and it was catching, I felt it too. As we drove down into Obz a sad, grey mist was flying in from the sea, going up our nostrils, chilling our skin, a meteorological version of how G was feeling.
There’s nothing like the death of somebody close to you to shake you up and throw the fact that life is so fleeting straight into your face, knocking the breath clean out of you. I’d read the lovely Miranda’s account of her friend’s death in the morning, a beautiful, heartbreaking post that made me cry and cry.
So we went to the place where we played as youths and had two glasses of wine at Hello Sailor. A sweet little place that has moved into the centre of Lower Main Road. The owner/maitre’D was so yummy, clean and fresh looking I almost wanted to lick him. I didn’t, though, I know better. He was the perfect type of attentive – there, but not in your face.
It’s in one of those old shops with beautiful wooden windows and doors and is most tastefully and simply decorated with many sailor-inspired pics and a wonderful wooden-framed old mirror that’s so old it’s got that mouldy look. I loved it. I felt like I was in a wonderful old companionable house. It was full – an eclectic mix of businessy-looking people and oh-so-cool youths. The two pavement tables, on either side of the door, had a man at each, drinking coffee, one reading the newspaper, the other engrossed in his book.
G and I philosophised about life, chatted about the world and drank icy white wine. The two glasses of wine, despite my watering them down, as I do (I know, I know, I’m a Philistine) went straight to my head. I’m such a bloody lightweight these days. I tried to soak it up with their special – Shepherd’s Pie and salad, which was actually a kind of stew with mashed potato on top. Not what I expected, but delicious none-the-less.
And then we went home, passing the youths only just starting to go out. I watched as a girl in the flat above the tattoo parlour primped and preened in front of a (non-mouldy) mirror, adjusting her top repeatedly to get it perfect and wondered about humanity. I wanted to tell her she was perfect, just as she was.
Death, breathing heavily, just around the corner, an inevitable, frustratingly unannoucing visitor, makes me want to pull everyone closer, hug them tighter, tell them they’re beautiful, just so.
Friday, November 26, 2010
TDoT(26): Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Who hasn't? I've never collected the supply of pills or tied the rope into a noose, though. I've been through some pretty depressed times in my life, surely we all have? Life can be a bloody difficult game to play and everybody has their struggles and, sometimes, when it all seems too dark and dreary, I've thought about throwing the proverbial towel in.
I've even got to points where I've thought I've needed to get some help, before I start collecting those pills. Then I've got the help I needed. From friends, from family, from opening my eyes and seeing the bigger picture.
I've always believed people have the right, though, to take their own lives. This is a big statement that needs much quantifying. I am not saying that severely depressed people should be allowed to spiral into a tunnel from which they can't escape. There is help for that, and every avenue should be explored. But. If a person is truly tired, and feels their time on earth has reached its end, in a rational and thought out process, I feel that, as intelligent beings (most of us), we're allowed to make that choice.
The argument that it's selfish to everyone left behind? Yes, I agree, it's not a nice thing for those left in the wake, devastated, asking themselves "Could I have stopped it?" But selfish, it's not. I speak here only about the kind of suicide I mentioned above - a rationally-made decision. Desperate, sadly spiralled types are different and devastating and I'm not even going to go there. It's hard, really, to make a distinction, isn't it? I hope you're getting my drift.
Back to the "Could I have stopped it" feelings of guilt. There we need to stop ourselves from the intrinsically human habit of turning everything into something about ourselves. In this case, it's not. If I decide to drive off a cliff into the sea because I am tired of it all, it is NOT about you. I have chosen to stop, that's all. Rejoice in the life that I had, rejoice in my finding peace which, obviously, if I've driven off a cliff into the sea, I didn't have.
I didn't really answer the question properly did I? Instead, I got on my ranty soapbox. Let me step down now, I have Christmas shopping to do.
I've even got to points where I've thought I've needed to get some help, before I start collecting those pills. Then I've got the help I needed. From friends, from family, from opening my eyes and seeing the bigger picture.
I've always believed people have the right, though, to take their own lives. This is a big statement that needs much quantifying. I am not saying that severely depressed people should be allowed to spiral into a tunnel from which they can't escape. There is help for that, and every avenue should be explored. But. If a person is truly tired, and feels their time on earth has reached its end, in a rational and thought out process, I feel that, as intelligent beings (most of us), we're allowed to make that choice.
The argument that it's selfish to everyone left behind? Yes, I agree, it's not a nice thing for those left in the wake, devastated, asking themselves "Could I have stopped it?" But selfish, it's not. I speak here only about the kind of suicide I mentioned above - a rationally-made decision. Desperate, sadly spiralled types are different and devastating and I'm not even going to go there. It's hard, really, to make a distinction, isn't it? I hope you're getting my drift.
Back to the "Could I have stopped it" feelings of guilt. There we need to stop ourselves from the intrinsically human habit of turning everything into something about ourselves. In this case, it's not. If I decide to drive off a cliff into the sea because I am tired of it all, it is NOT about you. I have chosen to stop, that's all. Rejoice in the life that I had, rejoice in my finding peace which, obviously, if I've driven off a cliff into the sea, I didn't have.
I didn't really answer the question properly did I? Instead, I got on my ranty soapbox. Let me step down now, I have Christmas shopping to do.
Monday, November 15, 2010
TDoT(6): Something you hope you never have to do
Shoo, that's a difficult one. There are those things that are inevitable but you wishwishwish would never happen. I hope I never have bury the one's I love, but I know it has to happen at some stage. Well, no, I won't have to bury them, literally, we're of the cremation types, my family, but you know what I mean.
Hoping I don't have to do it, won't change the fact that I will. Perhaps a better hope would be to hope that I never have to say goodbye to anyone I love traumatically or tragically. Anybody who reads Family Matters (fabulous blog) will know what I mean. To die peacefully, surrounded by family and love and still graciousness, that's what I hope for. For all those I love, and me.
Hoping I don't have to do it, won't change the fact that I will. Perhaps a better hope would be to hope that I never have to say goodbye to anyone I love traumatically or tragically. Anybody who reads Family Matters (fabulous blog) will know what I mean. To die peacefully, surrounded by family and love and still graciousness, that's what I hope for. For all those I love, and me.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Untitled
I woke in the night from one of those terrifying dreams that make you gasp awake and lie for a while trying to get your breath back and order the tangle of thoughts flying around your head back into reality. It was all betrayal and sadness and, well, paralysis, but of the emotional kind.
The kind man’s death of the previous post is weighing on my mind. I keep going through the phone call from my mother, thinking of what I was thinking as she told me. And what it was, was this: I kept wishing the sentence would end: “Childhood friend called (please stop), her Dad fell down those treacherous stairs (STOP, please) and he had a terrible head injury (for fuck’s sake, stop now) and he died.” Deflation, heart break.
I wrote Childhood Friend an e-mail this morning but words sound so hollow at times like this, don’t they?
The kind man’s death of the previous post is weighing on my mind. I keep going through the phone call from my mother, thinking of what I was thinking as she told me. And what it was, was this: I kept wishing the sentence would end: “Childhood friend called (please stop), her Dad fell down those treacherous stairs (STOP, please) and he had a terrible head injury (for fuck’s sake, stop now) and he died.” Deflation, heart break.
I wrote Childhood Friend an e-mail this morning but words sound so hollow at times like this, don’t they?
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Heartbreak and joy
The father of one of my childhood friends from the dusty Small Town in the Free State fell down a flight of stairs yesterday and died. He was a wonderful, caring man who was always kind and gentle. He reminded me of Father Christmas. I am so very sad for them all. A reminder, again, of how fragile we all are.
My mother’s call to tell me this came after a morning of sinking feelings as Real Work dealt call after call of horrible, suffering-filled stories, mostly involving children. My heart breaks a little more with each one I deal with and, on one hand, I long to run away and leave it all behind where I can’t see it. Then I remember the man I spoke about above, and the good he did and force myself to be grateful that I can do something, despite having to hear it tearing me apart. Over and over.
And then I am constantly reminded of the whole cycle – my beloved friend, Pop, halfway through chemo, doing so well, pushing through. She is beautiful in her hairlessness, she seemed almost translucent when I went to take her some trashy reading yesterday while she sat, looking small, in the big Lazy Boy, the chemo dripping into her veins, chasing that monster away.
Another friend is in labour as we speak, her baby boy being oh-so-comfortable still, having waited over a week past his due date to start making moves towards joining us here in The Big Wide World. I am sure the wonderful man’s spirit is watching it all from above, smiling and also feeling the joy of the circle of life. Here’s wishing that little boy a safe ride in (and his mum a not-too-painful delivery of him, it’s been almost 24 hours of labour already!)
To heartbreak and joyousness and the celebration of life and my managing to keep my head above water.
My mother’s call to tell me this came after a morning of sinking feelings as Real Work dealt call after call of horrible, suffering-filled stories, mostly involving children. My heart breaks a little more with each one I deal with and, on one hand, I long to run away and leave it all behind where I can’t see it. Then I remember the man I spoke about above, and the good he did and force myself to be grateful that I can do something, despite having to hear it tearing me apart. Over and over.
And then I am constantly reminded of the whole cycle – my beloved friend, Pop, halfway through chemo, doing so well, pushing through. She is beautiful in her hairlessness, she seemed almost translucent when I went to take her some trashy reading yesterday while she sat, looking small, in the big Lazy Boy, the chemo dripping into her veins, chasing that monster away.
Another friend is in labour as we speak, her baby boy being oh-so-comfortable still, having waited over a week past his due date to start making moves towards joining us here in The Big Wide World. I am sure the wonderful man’s spirit is watching it all from above, smiling and also feeling the joy of the circle of life. Here’s wishing that little boy a safe ride in (and his mum a not-too-painful delivery of him, it’s been almost 24 hours of labour already!)
To heartbreak and joyousness and the celebration of life and my managing to keep my head above water.
Monday, July 19, 2010
A transluscent moment
I stayed in the car while she put wild flowers on her grandmother’s grave. It wasn’t a planned visit. We were on our way to breathe fresh air in the hills on a blue sky Saturday. It was unseasonably warm, despite the storybook snow-capped peaks in the distance. She had told me stories of her grandmother in the car, love-laden, childhood reminiscing, perfect for an open-skied, back route road trip.
It was an unknown experience for me, not the graveyard, but visiting someone I ‘know’ in a graveyard. My mother is a social anthropologist and is fascinated by graveyards so I spent hours as a child trailing around behind my parents in any graveyard we happened to pass by. My family, however, are of the cremation sort.
It was a typical small town South African graveyard (I am, due to the above-mentioned fascination of my mother, a well-seasoned graveyard connoisseur, for lack of a better word), slightly dilapidated, a mix of small, simple headstones and huge granite monoliths, all with heart-wrenching inscriptions. I stayed in the car while she walked through them to her grandmother’s and laid wild flowers on it. I was taken aback by my rush of emotion watching her bend down at the grave. And then I just felt priviledged. To have been allowed to be there.
Sometimes it’s the tiny transluscent moments that make one step back and look properly, isn’t it?
It was an unknown experience for me, not the graveyard, but visiting someone I ‘know’ in a graveyard. My mother is a social anthropologist and is fascinated by graveyards so I spent hours as a child trailing around behind my parents in any graveyard we happened to pass by. My family, however, are of the cremation sort.
It was a typical small town South African graveyard (I am, due to the above-mentioned fascination of my mother, a well-seasoned graveyard connoisseur, for lack of a better word), slightly dilapidated, a mix of small, simple headstones and huge granite monoliths, all with heart-wrenching inscriptions. I stayed in the car while she walked through them to her grandmother’s and laid wild flowers on it. I was taken aback by my rush of emotion watching her bend down at the grave. And then I just felt priviledged. To have been allowed to be there.
Sometimes it’s the tiny transluscent moments that make one step back and look properly, isn’t it?
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
The cycle of life
He was a real boy. There were five of us cousins on my mother’s side – four girls, and him. My sister and he were the eldest, and there was always some kind of ‘sibling/cousin-rivalry’ between them. Then there was me and the middle girl, close in age, we got on well. And then the baby cousin. She is six years younger – poor thing, we taunted her terribly as children! Basically, my sister and the boy clashed whenever we got together. He, admittedly, did turn into a bit of a spoilt rich boy teenager and went through a particularly annoying stage.
We didn’t see them often, probably once a year because they lived far away, up north in The Desert Country, on a beautiful, vast game farm, in a castle (I kid you not.) I loved it there. My uncle was not welcome here on the tip of Africa during the nasty Apartheid years because he had been outspoken during his university years here, so we had to visit them there mostly.
So we grew up together, apart. Joined by genes, separated by distance. As one does, we grew apart, but whenever we got together it was like no time had passed. He grew out of his adolescent arrogance, stayed on the farm and became a well-respected game ranger (he could see animals where you’d swear there were none) and married a wonderful, young American girl and they had two baby boys. They visited us with the two little ones here in the City Beneath the Mountain about five years ago, staying with my parents.
It was my birthday, and I was having a party in my garage. My mother was insistent that I invite them, I was reticent – they didn’t know my sister was gay (or so I thought), I was worried they’d be judgemental of the gay people there. Eventually I gave up aruguing with my mother (as one does, it’s pointless) and said they could come, with a fluttery nervous feeling in my tummy.
Halfway through the evening I looked across my garden to see him, beer in hand, arm around one of my favourite gay boy friends, swapping e-mail addresses, as he invited him to stay on the farm up in The Desert Country, anytime. A while later I saw him and my sister talking animatedly, laughing together like old friends. I realised at that moment that I had read him so wrong for so long. Wonderful boy.
I am eternally grateful that I gave in to my mother's insistence. Yet another occassion where she was right, despite my teenage tendencies to try and deny it.
Him and his lovely wife proceeded to produce another two beautiful boys, bringing their happy little brood to four. When the baby was four months old, he was killed in a car accident, leaving his wife and four boys under six. There are no words to describe the devastation of it.
His funeral, attended by hundreds, was testament to how wonderful he really was, and he was buried on the farm, down by the dam, where he had fished throughout his life, a peaceful place looked over by the enormous blue African sky.
That was two years ago, almost to the day and this morning I was greeted with a mail from my Aunt to say that my youngest cousin, his sister, (she who we taunted) gave birth on Saturday morning to her second child (the first is a girl) – a little boy, who is named after him. I cried big, fat tears – raw sadness (still) mixed with unadulterated joy.
I guess that’s what they call the cycle of life?
We didn’t see them often, probably once a year because they lived far away, up north in The Desert Country, on a beautiful, vast game farm, in a castle (I kid you not.) I loved it there. My uncle was not welcome here on the tip of Africa during the nasty Apartheid years because he had been outspoken during his university years here, so we had to visit them there mostly.
So we grew up together, apart. Joined by genes, separated by distance. As one does, we grew apart, but whenever we got together it was like no time had passed. He grew out of his adolescent arrogance, stayed on the farm and became a well-respected game ranger (he could see animals where you’d swear there were none) and married a wonderful, young American girl and they had two baby boys. They visited us with the two little ones here in the City Beneath the Mountain about five years ago, staying with my parents.
It was my birthday, and I was having a party in my garage. My mother was insistent that I invite them, I was reticent – they didn’t know my sister was gay (or so I thought), I was worried they’d be judgemental of the gay people there. Eventually I gave up aruguing with my mother (as one does, it’s pointless) and said they could come, with a fluttery nervous feeling in my tummy.
Halfway through the evening I looked across my garden to see him, beer in hand, arm around one of my favourite gay boy friends, swapping e-mail addresses, as he invited him to stay on the farm up in The Desert Country, anytime. A while later I saw him and my sister talking animatedly, laughing together like old friends. I realised at that moment that I had read him so wrong for so long. Wonderful boy.
I am eternally grateful that I gave in to my mother's insistence. Yet another occassion where she was right, despite my teenage tendencies to try and deny it.
Him and his lovely wife proceeded to produce another two beautiful boys, bringing their happy little brood to four. When the baby was four months old, he was killed in a car accident, leaving his wife and four boys under six. There are no words to describe the devastation of it.
His funeral, attended by hundreds, was testament to how wonderful he really was, and he was buried on the farm, down by the dam, where he had fished throughout his life, a peaceful place looked over by the enormous blue African sky.
That was two years ago, almost to the day and this morning I was greeted with a mail from my Aunt to say that my youngest cousin, his sister, (she who we taunted) gave birth on Saturday morning to her second child (the first is a girl) – a little boy, who is named after him. I cried big, fat tears – raw sadness (still) mixed with unadulterated joy.
I guess that’s what they call the cycle of life?
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