Finding Grief Jen MacCulloch Australia Funeral Directors Association Award
I’ve spent fifteen years trying to numb the hurt and push down the pain. I’ve tried to drown the darkness in wine and whiskey. Stuffed in food to squash and silence the sorrow. Run marathons hoping to outrun the demons. For fifteen years I have failed. Finally, I have given into the grief. For the past six days I have cocooned myself in my doona and cried the deepest, darkest, ugliest tears. When my mother killed herself fifteen years ago I didn’t shed a single tear. It was as if the shock froze the tears. Six days ago the tears thawed and spilled out like Niagara. These past few days I cannot recall leaving my bed cocoon and yet I know I must have sought water, food, bathroom. Today is the first day that I am conscious of being, of breathing and of needing sunlight, sustenance and cleansing. My eyes, nose, throat and lungs ache from crying and my body is weak and waned like a wooden chair left too long in the rain. Despite these physical protests, my heart and head feel lighter and freer than they have since my mother’s death. It occurs to me that all the years I’d been eschewing the pain I should have been embracing it, eyeballing it. All these years I’d been hiding had only made the grief keep on seeking. Now I was the seeker and I had found grief, called him out and won the game. I stand under the shower which is surely my first in six days. I feel every hot droplet. I feel the suds singe my eyes. I feel my toes grip the tiles. I am aware of every hair that the pink plastic razor severs. I feel everything. It is overwhelming and a relief at once. I wrap a scratchy towel around my middle and peer into the foggy mirror. For the first time in forever I see me and I stare at me. I smile. The first sincere, guiltless, unrehearsed smile since her death. I have finally grieved for my mother. Let her go. Forgiven her. Released my guilt. Understood her. Known her. Laid her to rest. My days of trying to drown, stuff and outrun my grief are over. I will never spend another day that way. I am free.
Invisible Nicole Rogers Calvary Mater Hospital Pastoral Care Award
Invisible, that was me. Sporty enough to be left alone during P.E. but not enough to get on the teams, smart enough to hold my own during a test but not enough to be welcome in the science groups. You could walk into my school and not know I was there, I wouldn’t be in the photo for sports teams, or the science club. So when given the chance to be seen, I took it. A night out with the girls I wanted to be, I didn’t even think, “but why me?” I wish I was invisible again. Everyone knew, everyone stared, some openly laughed. Teachers that didn’t know my name before stopped to judge me and offer unwelcome advice, and they all questioned. The simple fact is I don’t remember what happened; somehow the night is a blank, waking up on the grass in some field, with blank memories and a fuzzy brain. It started slow enough, an upset stomach, a bit of weight gain. By the time I had the courage to see a doctor and talk about it, it was too late. Mum was supportive, but it wasn’t support I wanted, I wanted to be invisible. I wanted to curl up in bed and forget. Anger ate at my stomach, I was so stupid, how did I not realise. It was their joke. A game. I was so naive, how did I let this happen? 9 months of people turning away, 9 long months of quick glances and whispers behind hands, 9 months of isolation in a school crowded by people who knew. But mum had a plan. She would be the guardian and me; free to go back to life, set on track for uni, for a career. But it didn’t happen that way, 7 hours and there was no cry of life, just a limp purple body with no name and a lot of blood. So here I am standing next to a grave. A small body with a name my mother picked. Looking down at the grass, how do you say good bye to something you couldn’t love, never wanted, or even acknowledged? I’m sorry that I hated you so much, sorry that I never wanted you, sorry you would never know this world or make friends or find your own path. Mostly I’m sorry this ever happened, to me, to you. But it did and I can’t change that. My chest tightens and great sobs escape my throat. Standing here I’m grateful to be alone; I know it’s silly, but I’m not a pretty crier. I realise it’s the first time in a long time that I have let these walls down, releasing everything that I have been holding inside for so long. I sink to the grass and let go of all the hatred, watching it spill out as wet tears. My grief, an apology to the small body that lay somewhere beneath, me a step towards forgiving myself.
What Would You Say? Gregory Klemm
Driving to the beach the other day, you were in the car beside me and it made me happy. I was talking to you and you were smiling. I made up things that you would say and we laughed together. Without even turning to look at you, I could see you. I could feel your aura, your beautiful glow which permeated the car, filling me. It worried me when I realised what I was doing. But I didn’t stop. I talked with you all the way to the coast. Though sometimes we sat in silence, too, not needing to say anything. Just contented. When I arrived I had tears streaming down my face. I sat in the car crying. I didn’t want to leave you. I wanted to stay in the car and just keep on talking to you. You couldn’t come with me. People would look at me strangely. They would worry about me. Well meaning people, of course. They just wouldn’t understand. It’s been more than six months now. I hardly sleep. I go to work in a fog, and somehow muddle through the day. I don’t know how I keep going. Every night I lie awake and talk with you. I pull you to me and I can feel you, I swear I can feel you pressed against me. And we talk about my day, and your day, and our friends, and we laugh. But sooner or later we always come back to that same topic. I don’t want us to fight, but I can’t help myself from asking. Why did you leave me? Why did you leave me here alone? And the problem is that even though I know almost everything you would say, and I could talk to you for eternity filling in your words for you, I don’t know what you would say about that. And I don’t know what you would tell me to do. And nothing that I imagine you saying sounds right so we always end up fighting. And eventually dawn comes, and the pain and anxiety of the dark turns to a dull, throbbing ache as light slowly seeps in. Somehow I find the strength to pull myself from bed to start the day’s routine. I love you. I miss you so much. I would give anything for you to be here with me now, because I know I could get through this if only I could just talk to you about it. I know I could find the strength to let you go, if only I could have you here to help me do it.
Cherub Michael Tippett
I used to be a selfish man. Never cruel or avaricious; merely unaccustomed to living outside myself. That all changed the moment you arrived. There you were, the very best of me, a tiny bundle full of promise and possibilities. Watching you grow was a delight. Each day delivered a magic show and I was enthralled by even your simplest trick. It’s a wondrous thing to witness a human being take shape. To see them thrive and develop a sense of self. Barely three years old and already glimpses of the remarkable woman you would become . . . If not for the horror of that day. Your heart, your precious heart, too great and insuppressible to be contained in a body so delicate. My memory of the events that followed is patchy at best. But I do remember the calls. The animal sounds that roared and howled in my ear as I phoned everyone that ever loved you and broke them. Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. Your mother and I left the hospital sometime later, returning to a home haunted by a pervasive absence. The new quiet was deafening. Your bedroom was now a museum, full of exhibits left to gather dust amongst the fossilised remains of bedtime stories and goodnight kisses and dreams that would never be realised. Outside, our backyard had become a graveyard. Orphaned toys stuck out of the grass like cheap plastic tombstones. In a corner, the sun-faded crypt of a cubby house had been hastily abandoned. There is a madness that grips the mind when it strives to make sense of the senseless; to incessantly ponder the answer to the great unsolvable riddle. In the end, all I can do is tell myself: you were never meant for this. You were destined to climb mountains. To cure cancer. To build rocket ships and fly to the moon. You were made for greatness. Or a lifetime of pleasant mediocrity. Because above all things, you were simply meant to be. Thirteen months have passed and I still wait for you to twirl out of your room, weaving worlds in your head and inviting me to be a part of them. There are times when I worry the hurt will never leave. The only thing that scares me more is perhaps one day it will. That somehow the easing of your loss will signify the fading of your memory, and I’ll soon forget the details of your perfect cherub face. Despite the gnawing ache, your mother and I are determined to keep moving with the world. We recently travelled abroad. Remarried in Vegas. I even climbed a mountain. (Plans for a rocket ship are currently underway.) We both agree on this: if we cannot live with you, we shall endeavour to live for you.
Are You There? Karen McCrea If I should pick and unpick my way across torn dreams spun tight over long years, if I collect the fragments and bones and artefacts and examine them diligently for signs and omens, is it enough? Shall I find you again?
If I should search the wide, wild world, from the withering Sahara to the swarming Amazon, If I salt the lakes with yearning tears and pepper the roads with tender promises, until all my breath is ragged and I am wracked with pain, is it enough? Shall I find you again?
If I should aim for the distant speck on the violet horizon, if I should run true and straight towards you, if I walk an extra mile or two in someone else’s shoes. in everyone else’s shoes, If I am fast and bold and faithful, If I am brave and strong and good, is it enough? Shall I find you again?
Are you there?
Codes to Leave Linda Ireland Hunter Writers Centre Award The late flush dahlias flare like little disappointments. A desultory carer smokes outside. There are codes to enter here.
The place smells of yesterdays. The looks are single outward journeys shuffling each day’s future tense into something more speculative.
This is a harsh final surrendering. In Room twenty three are your codes to leave. You have come down to this world. You are small now,
in this space. Did you lift me, once, over salty breakers at Bar Beach where horizons rolled?
In the corridor even the light echoes. My too loud voice is gauche. You are moving into a silence. All day you will stare at the wall clock.
At Steinbeck’s ending I break from my reading and weep silently for you my father.
You say this is the natural order of things and get on with the hard work of your dying.
I am thinking of continuance when I take your jacket to be cleaned. They will dress you in it at the funeral parlour.
Some weeks later still in my handbag five grapes in cling wrap unravel me.
The Cubby House Nikki McWatters Your last night is going to be a sleepover. I watch as your mates build their cubby house of sheets around your bed. The ventilator churns, moving your chest up and down. You look like you are play-acting asleep to amuse the boys but we know otherwise. Your body lies there, warm and beautiful and yet, my darling, you have already flown from us. The room smells like bleach and salty tears. I wish it smelled like gardenias. Ben and Todd are laughing as JJ struggles to tie a knot around the metal bed head. I wonder if you are watching this from somewhere far away, perhaps even close by. I let my thoughts wander back to the happier days when you were all in primary school and had chaotic sleepovers. The four of you were a force to be reckoned with and little sleep was ever had. I suspect tonight the boys will stay awake alongside you, hiding beneath the sheets with their torches, scaring themselves silly with ghost stories. I want to lie beside you this last night and hold you like I did that first night when you were born, eighteen short years ago. One cowardly punch took you away from me and I want to make that go away, evaporate it from your timeline. I want to wrap you up in a blanket and carry you home, rubbing your skin to bring some colour back to your cheeks. Instead, tonight I will go home alone and sleep in your wooden bed with the airplane mobile hanging overhead. I will leave you and your friends to share this special last time together. Tomorrow morning I will kiss you goodbye, a last kiss, before they take you to surgery to pay your life forward. Tomorrow is for good-bye. Tonight is for friendship. The strength that these young men are showing as they drape sheets about the room keeps me buoyant, allowing me to smile. You are the luckiest fellow to have such wonderful buddies. They will miss you almost as much as I will if that is even possible. I will miss you with unimaginable sorrow. The cubby house is constructed. You lie inside, shadowed and oblivious. The boys have turned this room into an exotic Arabian tent, a final adventure. Your last night will be filled with stories as the boys reminisce with you and yet without you. They are ordering pizzas. Ben laughs as he shows me his Spiderman pillow. JJ puts your teddy bear, Albert, on your pillow, nestling against your face. These sleepovers used to drive me mad with your all-night laughter and hi-jinks. Prank calls. Truth and dare. How I wish we were still back there. I would have told you to have fun, stay up all night, eat more junk and holler at the moon. Goodnight darling boys. Look after my baby. Tomorrow is for good-bye, my love. Tonight it is cubby house time.
Calvary Julie Watts The National Association of Loss and Grief Award
We dip a stick sponge-tipped and soaked in water into the wound of your mouth you are thirsty and this is our Calvary bent knees on a white bed your sharp bone relief the afternoon gathering up all its shadows. My sister presses your hand to her cheek like a kiss prolonged stretching back. I hold your other our skins tangled what finger yours mine fading icon fading man fallible as breath. They turn you like liturgy and we stroke the murmurless litanies of your skin pale parchment encrypted with all our gospels remember it ruddy and robust—throwing us high and catching the rumbling Vesuvius of your laugh. Driving home kite surfers soar above a chopped dark sea tomorrow I will rummage for wings but today I curl on a stone like a plucked moth small flightless shrouded in silence.