I buried my son today

I buried my son today

3 years ago.

A Jewish coffin.

Under the sweltering African sky turned red,

Wind

Hard rain drops

Dusty ground.

Broken flowers

Broken heart.

Zane.

Mo Chuisle

Who am I now?

I was the mother to four boys.

This is how I see it - I had a certain rank. I wore a spectacular mother uniform with 4 dazzlingly bright medals woven tightly to the front of my precious mother-garment. Then, one medal was crudely ripped away, leaving a big, gaping hole. Yes, the other three medals are still there, but one is missing. The first medal I ever received is gone.

So - what rank do I hold now? Who am I now? Have I gone from Captain to lowly crew member?
This isn't a piece to 'pick up' - this piece - this dazzling medal is gone, ripped from me and there is no way to mend, replace, redo. So what do I do instead? And what will become of me?

My son died today

Three years.
He was gone before he died, actually. But while the machine forced him to breath, I could pretend he was there.
I have never seen the death certificate, I didn't look at the report of the post mortem.
I forget how tall he was and I'm not too sure how much he weighed. The details did not interest me.
I did not want to know.
I didn't go to the place where he had his accident, I did not go to his place of work.
I didn't see the motorbike.
I saw his empty room and his clothes waiting to be washed. I could still smell him. I could still hear his voice.
And I can mark the exact spot where I was when I knew he had left this earth, before they told me he was gone, I could feel the invisible twining from his spirit to mine, snap, ever so silently. And when it snapped, my heart shattered like a mirror crashing to the floor. 

A heart still in pieces, some pieces still missing, pieces he took with him. And what is left, doesn't work too well anyway.
And because of that, I'm not too sure about who I am now.

This crippling grief...

I wanted to go back in time. I wanted to say - on this day 3 years ago this is what was happening. But suddenly it became too hard. It's hard to get the words down when you're trying to fight the thoughts away. And maybe that is the problem here.

I believe that grief is solid. I believe that is is just there. Well, this grief in particular - the grief you suffer (and believe me you suffer) when your child dies. This is what I think; I love my children. It's a love that is there. It's not a love that can become more or less. It's there in it's entirety. Total and complete. And that's how I feel about this grief that I have for Zane. The grief is now there sitting alongside the love. The grief, also in it's entirety.

It was this day 3 years ago that I again got on a plane, this time to go to my eldest child, Zane Richard, after getting the call that he had had an accident on his motorbike. I had taken a notebook with me. An attractive black, narrow, leather note book that has the word Journal embossed in gold on the cover. I thought I would use this as his recovery journal, that when he was all well again, I could read to him what the journey had been like.

So on the plane, this is what I wrote;

6 November 2007
Tuesday
My Darling Zane-
How does one explain in words
the pain
and heartache a mother feels
when her child is suffering?
I keep seeing your
beautiful face
in my mind.
Please stay!
Please hang on!
Can you hear my voice
in your heart?
Can you feel
my love for you?
Zane, I love you so much!
Please hear me!
Hang on - I'm almost half-way there.
Can you feel how everyone is rooting for you?
The prayers that are being said
do you hear them?
Please, Zane!
Don't go!
We have so many
years ahead of us -
this family -
Stay!
Stay and be a part of it!
In my mind
I hear your voice.
"Mom" is what you say.
Please don't go.
Do you hear me calling
your name in my heart?
Zane.
Zane?
I'm on my way
Please wait for me
Hang on!
Hang on!
I hear your voice
in my heart.
"Mom"

My father didn't remember

My father didn't remember firing the maid.
He was suprised when he got home after being in the hospital and found the maid was gone.

Over the years there were other things he didn't remember either. Like my 21st.
He did remember some other birthdays - like my 6th - okay - he was still at home then, so he probably had my mother to remind him. I loved that card. It was a big red apple with a bright green worm and it said To the apple of my eye. Which I had been until my mother cut my long, knotted hair and I went all rebellious at 9 and nicked some useless stuff from that damn stationary shop.

He forgot to give my eldest sister, Janine, R10 when she completed the Rubik's cube, like he said he would. Of course he didn't believe she would, but she did. 
He forgot that by the time my parents got to the divorce lawyers, my mother had already given him plenty chances to improve on his family man status, but he only ever remembered that very last chance in the lawyers office when she said no more chances.

Perhaps I should've been more forgetful. It might have been easier for both of us had I forgotten when he didn't phone for my 21st. Or my 18th. Or my 16th. Many birthdays. I should have forgotten when he didn't keep his word, I should have forgotten when he became unreasonably irritated, I should have forgotten when he wasn't there for me.

So I got on a plane

So I got on a plane and went to South Africa. The flight was long. I was distracted. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I stared out the window at passing clouds and sandy mountains topped with snow and wondered about the lives going on down below.  The middle east doesn't look like a place I would ever want to live. Dry and barren, dusty roads and trees only here and there. I hate the heat.

Eventually I watched The Bridge to Terabithia. And I sobbed. It's a sad movie (and it involves someone dying), but I also sobbed for my father and for everything that was and everything that wasn't. Memories about him jumped around in my mind - eating peanut chocolate in his car and wanting to be ill, his light blue Ford Cortina pick up, his limp.

His limp.
When I was a year old my father was working as a traffic officer. One of the many jobs he had before the age of 40. As I remember, the story goes like this (I'll have to check with my mom) - my father came home at lunch time and on seeing a bright red welt across my face, fired the maid. Apparently she had hit me. He then got onto his traffic officer motorbike and headed off back to the office. At least I think that's where he was going. I'll have to check the facts. He was travelling down Aliwal Street - a busy road in our home town of Bloemfontein, South Africa, when he was hit by a car and it went over his leg. It was a bad break. After that, his leg was significantly shorter than the other and he spent the rest of his life limping.

And as I see it - not just physically.

My father died today

My father died today. Three years ago.
It was the start of a very strange experience.

I received a call from my mother. It was late at night and I was in the bathroom. My husband came in saying my mother was on the phone. I knew instantly that something was wrong. My mother doesn't phone at ungodly hours. All the while I washed my hands, I kept repeating silently to myself, 'Just stay calm, just stay calm, just stay calm...'

My mother's voice told me too, something was wrong. No, not hysterical or high pitched. Calm and gentle. She mostly speaks calm and gently, but this was a 'I have to deliver bad news' kind of gentle. One of my brothers and my father had been in an accident. My brother was okay, but my father didn't make it.

My parents divorced when I was 8 and I went from being his golden girl to being nothing of importance, really. I didn't do anything particularly nasty to drop in rank, but my father was easily displeased by simple things like my long hair being cut, me not hearing the first time he spoke & my innocent shop-lifting from a stationary shop at the age of 9. I didn't know I was stealing - it was gift vouchers that I mistook for pamphlets. Okay, and a sheet of stickers. But I took a whole two handfuls of gift vouchers, having no idea of their worth. My father was furious. He was a locksmith and did work for this stationary shop. What would they think of him?

And so was the relationship. Me disappointing him as far as I went - mostly unknowingly, and him not paying attention unless I was very badly behaved - he blamed my mother - or when I was very well behaved - he took the credit.

He was not an easy man. But he was my father. An absent father, but my father no less.
And now he was dead.

The Deep Dark Hole

I have taken myself to bed. It's been more than a week now that I have felt paralysed.
I'm not sure what I feel paralysed by, really. The doctor says it's grief.
You see, my son died.

He didn't die last week, or the week before, for that matter. He died on the 11th of November 2007. He was 20 when he died. A young, healthy 20 year old. Now dead.
I noticed that a few weeks before his birthday I started feeling particularly out of sorts. I was thinking about him all the time. That's nothing new really, because he is always in my mind, sitting gently at the back not causing a stir. But this time he came straight to the forefront, right in my face, if you will. I became tearful and angry, but mostly bewildered.

I could see myself slowly starting to unravel - like a loose thread being pulled from an already threadbare cardigan. I managed to drag myself to my doctor who has thankfully booked me off work. I am relieved, as I cannot bear the thought of having to face anyone, see anyone, hear anyone and certainly not speak to anyone.

I wish I could go away to somewhere where it is quiet. Very quiet.
I have not left my home this week except for the visit to the doctor. My husband runs me a bath every day, makes me toast with cheese on - which is what I've been living off, and sees to the children. Oh, yes - I don't think I've told you that. I have other children.
Three boys; ages 12,  almost 11, and 8.

My husband bought me some roses. They're lovely. They really are. And yet, when I look at them, they stir no emotion in me. Flowers usually do and it's not just flowers that are guilty right now of not being able to lift this heavy cloud, it's everything. "Ah, classic signs of depression", I hear you say. Perhaps. I know the signs - nothing gives you pleasure anymore. Yes, it would seem that that's where I'm at.