Love lost poem lost and found...

I posted a poem here a couple of weeks ago but then decided better of it as it was a bit too personal. Here's a revised version...

A drunken eulogy to lost love:

You left me alone with unanswered lust.
You gave yourself up to the selfish night,
I was still aquiver with our passion
Body burning, set alight by your touch.
But still I head home without you, alone.

All those past men who used and abused me
Whisper sweet threats into my shrinking ear
Each dark, dank alleyway growling at me,
Promising my undoing at unseen hand,
Staggering home through the grey neon night.

I will dream that you are with me tonight,
I will feel the weight of your hungry hands
Grasping, seeking my sensual beauty.
I will feel your soft lips pressed against mine
Devouring my impatient devotion.

.

Painting things red

I've recently heard this song "Red" by Daniel Merriweather and the lyrics really meant something to me. Here's the main ones which resonated with me:

Knowing that love isn’t here,
You see the pictures
But you don’t know their names,
Cause love isn’t here

And I can’t do this by myself,
All of these problems, they’re all in your head.
And I can’t be somebody else,
You took something perfect
And painted it red.

Behind your lies
I can see the secrets you don’t show.

I might find this difficult to explain, but I'll try...

Clearly here is a man who has tried to connect on a deeper level with a woman who won't let him, she won't accept the good things for what they are and she won't ever let her life be perfect. She covers up her tender secrets with a film of lies. I've felt that way often myself, from the woman's perspective I mean. I've felt unable to love, unable to give those last parts of myself, unable to trust and unable to tell the truth about my feelings and I've constructed so many lies to hide it all that sometimes I've not been able to remember what version of myself I was portraying.

I can't accept perfect things and I "paint them red". It's easier to do this with everything than to work out what is and what isn't perfect.

To explain it all here is to get deeper down than I feel I should, no-one needs to lay themselves completely bare for all to see, because it's so difficult to heal over those wounds again. You have to deal with things for yourself and in your own way and rely on yourself ultimately to keep your own truths and secrets. You see it so many times with celebrities who say too much about themselves in the public arena and who can't then ever seem to make their lives their own again.

I learnt a very valuable lesson about this recently, that opening yourself up for the sake of nurturing a full relationship with someone leaves you vulnerable and raw. Now that a particular relationship has ended I can finally close up those wounds and let them heal naturally, but I couldn't see at the time that this was what I needed to do. I thought it was a nurturing relationship, I took a chance and opened up in a way I had never done before, and I got hurt in the end. I had already healed those wounds up myself once, admittedly there was a lot of scar tissue, but that's inevitable. I got caught up in thinking that opening them up and healing them in a different way would leave a neater result, but I was wrong. I should have just painted it red, should have just remained closed off inside and happy on the outside as I've lived a lot of my life.

There is a danger that if you let yourself fall apart too much you can be left without the control to put yourself back together and you have to rely on others to do it for you. Some people are comfortable with that, but I've spent most of my life trying to avoid it at all costs, denying the need for comfort and support, rather than allowing myself to rely on it and get hurt when it doesn't work out or when people turn away from me.

I'm not talking from any unhappy point of view here by the way, I'm not depressed about it, I just was struck by how much this song meant to me and the struggles I've been having recently with letting go of enough of myself to allow others to understand the real me, but in balancing this with my instinctive need to protect myself. Honesty is an incredibly vulnerable place and it's a place I'm not comfortable living in, which might seem strange coming from such an honest blogger, I feel it's more a place to be visited when necessary.

What these thoughts led me to was the question of why I feel so different, why I often feel so empty and devoid of the emotional depths that other people seem to dive into so freely. I used to think I was unusual in this respect, but then why would this song mean so much to people that it's become a chart success and so many people identify with it? This started me thinking that actually we are not all that different to each other. The singer felt these things, very likely about a real girl, I've read poems and stories and seen characters in film and in dramas who all fit into this category: the ones who paint things red.

Maybe I'm not so different to everyone else? Maybe I've had natural reactions to events and I'm just following the same road anyone else would follow? I spent a while trying to decide whether this was a comfort or whether it destroyed the specialness I felt that I had. We all have to feel like we have something unique don't we?

I think in the end it's a comfort, that so many people have had the same struggles and ended up the same way and I'm not on the path less trodden after all.

.

Nearly midnight and the day is far from over

I had better get comfortable because I doubt I will be moving for most of the night. I'm not quite sure how it came to this, but having got to work at 7.30 this morning and working straight through lunch, I returned home to work through dinner too and I'm still sitting here at 23:51.

Having done seven performance review forms on one day in my role as editorial manager - which I would have got done at work if I hadn't have had to do editorial work too - I've now got to write a document applying for my own job which is due tomorrow.

Apparently there aren't enough editors to warrant so many managers so they need to make half of us redundant, which makes me laugh as all the managers are doing editing because there are not enough editors, so that says how little those in charge actually know about what's going on.

I should have done it by Friday, but I had the temerity to have an operation last week and had the week off, hence why I didn't get the performance reviews done in time. Now I do believe that I'm doing about three days work in one day and I've got just as much to do tomorrow.

I'm 50 - 50 at the moment: if they ditch me then at least I wouldn't have to be part of this any more even though I'd prefer to have a job; if they keep me then I no doubt will start to wish they'd ditched me.

Sigh.

I'm not sure how it came to this, but on the bright side I have a coffee cupcake to look forward to when I've finished...




.

Slimmed down and back on track...nearly...

I've been absent for a while.

I do apologise.

I couldn't quite cope with it, any of it. I've just been coping with what cannot be ignored. The things were were mandatory like working, eating, sleeping, being alive and the people who have been right here and right there, people living and breathing with me. All the rest of you have been in my thoughts, but beyond my reach, so I hope you all forgive me and continue to visit here sometime like you used to do.

At one point I wanted to delete my blog completely, so that I didn't feel guilty for not updating it, but it wouldn't let me. It promised to be quiet and wait patiently for me to feel like I could return. So I unpublished everything to stop it all whispering to my guilty conscience.

I don't know if I'm better, I don't know if I'm ok, but I feel a bit more like I can share myself again.

I needed to slim down though, I needed to allow myself to wrap some parts of my self back inside myself again, so you'll find quite a lot of my musings have been left out of the posts which I've republished here. I've slimmed it down to the poetry and the posts purely about myself and my feelings. I wanted to make sure that I was publishing to the world only those emotional insights which are truly mine to publish. Anything about family and friends has been missed out.

I realise that some of you have left supportive comments on those posts which are no longer showing here, please be reassured that I do appreciate you all and those comments helped me at those dark times. Like those friends who lovingly got me gifts of chocolates and cakes in the past, I really did appreciate those at the time, but the current healthy living plan needs me to take a new direction.

I hope to improve my mood still further to be able to write poetry again. I've felt some pangs of longing for this starting to develop, so I know I'll get there soon. Partly this has been fed by the publication of the long-awaited book of the book of the Guardian Poster Poem blog.







Seeing as my biography in this publication says I'm on a poetry journey, I guess I'd better get back on the bus..... so WATCH THIS SPACE...

.

In the shallows

"I'm fine," is the stock response. I start the answer too soon after the question has finished being asked to be convincing, but for most people it's enough that they have asked. Sometimes I waiver momentarily, wondering whether this person is the right one to trust to stop me from being lost inside myself if I allow us to look inside, but most of the time the air hangs thick with lost words never formed.

Silence is awkward and painful and we move on and I sigh my grief into the empty corners.

That suits me just fine. I'm fine, nothing more, nothing less. It's a balanced place to be, it allows me to survive, to function, to move swiftly through the times when people try to put the focus on me.

I keep to the shallows, I refuse to allow myself to be taken to the deep places where I cannot be sure of my footing, where I have to sink or swim.

I might just choose to sink.

For hope has once again been ripped out of me, another tiny life growing and then dying inside. I have been the suffocating guardian once again, unable to stop my precious child from being lost. Another part of me has been lost too and there are no words.

There are no words to express what it is to have gently held my withered dreams in my hand, disgusted but compelled. I cannot let myself feel because it will overwhelm me and those around me. I am holding back the flood, a destructive force which will crush us all. I am the only one who knows it, stares into it, feels it pushing to be set free.

I must stick to the shallows. I have to be fine. That is the only way.

.

The world and me, just sitting in a tree...

As I sat here chuckling at the latest Facebook fan page to which my friends have signed up, I realised that the advent of social networking, of whiling away time sharing what seem like life's mundanities, is actually something extremely healthy. For people like me anyway, for people who get so worried about whether they are normal and whether they fit in. The sorts of people who don't find it easy to have strong opinions or to voice them. The people who get lost in the crowd, who just go with the flow.



The aspects which so many people complain about when they tutt and say they would never facebook or blog (because obviously these things are now verbs) are exactly the reasons why I find them so wonderfully liberating.

People who don't appreciate it argue that you don't speak, so how can you feel connected? To me, that's been the most liberating aspect. It means that you don't get interrupted and you can have your turn to say what you want to say, but because the only way to be part of it is to actively communicate you have to have an opinion and you have to join in. You have to be an active participant.

People say that anonymous blogging is impersonal and you can never be sure who people are. That's been one of its beauties for me, to be recognisable I've had to be consistent. I've had to have opinions and stick with them. Sometimes it's been fraught and I've not known enough about the subject matter, sometimes I've been able to go with the flow, but because people only communicate through their words then all my words have been keenly observed and people know when I'm "winging it" and I've not been allowed to get away with it. You can't really be a passive blogger. It's pretty impossible to sit by the sidelines and not get drawn in.

The most important benefit which I've experienced though is the fact that I immediately have access to like-minded people and people who have first-hand experience of the issues which I am facing. I joined a miscarriage group on Facebook and I had instant access to many more women who knew exactly what emotions I was going through than if I'd tried to find them on my own, and because of the open nature of the group anyone could answer me who knew exactly what to say. For the first time I felt normal and reasonable and like I deserved to be as upset as I was.

I added my real thoughts to my facebook status for all my friends to see when I was struggling with Mothers' Day. Before I understood the wonder of blogging and the fact that readers are not compelled to write back to the things people post I would never have done this. But once I'd realised that posting a difficult emotion didn't force people to reply to me, I had gathered enough courage to post exactly what I was feeling and to just leave it to see what happened. I got some support from some dear friends, some friends who didn't know what had happened wrote to me and that made me feel better and some people said positive things which I needed to hear. Also people knew what I was going through and what I could in turn help them with, which has proved important in recent months when several friends have lost babies.

I've also found this same situation with my blogging. People comment on my posts who are interested in what I write, who sympathise with my feelings, who have something useful to say on the matters which I bring up. No-one is forced to be here or forced to understand my feelings or to participate.

The only people sharing my tree are the people who want to be there and who know how much my tree means to me and indeed might be able to make my life in my tree a bit better because they truly understand what it's like in my tree. Also I can offer my tree to those who truly need to come share it with me. I not only gathered strength from the ladies in the miscarriage group, but I was able to send my poems and writings to those that needed to read them to feel normal themselves, who were going through the same struggles and feeling the same awkwardness at showing any raw emotions. My tree is free to all and open to the world and this gives some purpose to the difficult times I've gone through.



It's a SUPER- community. It's the widest net a person could ever trawl. I've got followers from all over the world on my blog and a global Facebook friends list. I can "chat" to my cousin in Australia and my friends in America at either end of the day and I feel more connected to people in my life than I have ever felt, but more than that I know that I'm connected to the people in the world who can help me live a happier and more settled life. Gone are the traumas that people will never understand me, that I need to keep things to myself because people will think I'm weird, etc etc. Anonymously I can be as weird and candid as I like and it would seem that someone will identify with me.

I'm never alone in my tree, the world is with me.


(Images: neserstaz.blogspot.com & http://outdoors.webshots.com)

Mothers' Day

I struggled to lift my head off the pillow this morning. I just wanted to stay cocooned in bed all day and get up tomorrow morning like Mothers' Day had never happened. It's taking all of my willpower to function today, to hold myself together, but what I really long to do - to lie in a dark room, barely functioning apart from displacing air - doesn't meet the criteria of good daughter or daughter-in-law. I need to phone my mother and I need to organise lunch and a card and flowers for my mother-in-law, so I need to make myself function at a higher level than feels possible. I also need to make sure that I don't let them see how much I'm hurting right now, how devastated I am not to be getting the card and flowers myself, because it's hardly a good Mothers' Day present for them to see my pain on the day when they are the ones who should be being cherished.

If I hadn't lost it my baby would have reached full term this week. This has already been weighing me down with sorrow, but Mother's Day on top of that seems a cruel twist of fate's knife in my belly. Last weekend I saw my entire family and I tried to enjoy it, but the huge gulf between what I had and what I should have screamed too loudly for me to ignore and I felt set apart from them, like I was watching them all from the outside. That's when the pain started, the physical pain of feeling so much dread and sorrow at the same time, like two fierce creatures circling and fighting inside me, which has grown steadily this week so much so that the last few days I've often been found clutching my stomach for fear of losing control completely, fearing that the swelling emptiness would spill out, leaving me in pieces on the floor.

I've wanted to write about these growing feelings for a while, but I just can't connect to that deep inner place where the poetry lives. Staying in the shallows, with the occasional light-hearted poem, seems to be the only way to survive at the moment, without drowning and becoming lost forever. So I've lost my muse, or at least I've put her to sleep for a while, and I feel like I've lost some of myself too.

As for Mothers' Day, it's nearly over and I can congratulate myself that I didn't fall apart, and maybe things will be just that little bit easier now I know I've been able to survive this.

.

Wish I could pray

So I'm guilty of being one of those people who turns up to gigs on the strength of one song. The only song I knew of Ralph McTell's was "Streets of London" . It's very famous and has apparently sold the most copies of any sheet music. I think I got the tickets bought for me as a bit of a joke really, I'd played in an orchestra in the same bill as Mr McTell, which also played on local radio. My claim to fame!

So we were the roudy ones at the back of a sedate seated gig, clamouring for the only hit we knew, probably getting "tsked" by the other people there. But this only lasted for a short while and then we were amazing by the abilities of the man, and his warmth and his humility. It was just him and his guitar and piano: no warm-up act and no gimmicks. He told many stories of his amazing life learning the guitar and his songs reflected his life experiences.

One in particular spoke to the heart of me, as it's something which I'd been feeling myself and it seemed to encapsulate the feelings in a much calmer way than they had been brewing inside me. I'm disappointed that I can't find a recording of it anywhere to include, but here are the words:


WISH I COULD PRAY:

When I was a child I thought as a child,
We sang hymns at the close of the day,
But now I'm a man I think like a man,
But sometimes I wish I could pray.

Just to thank someone when the danger is past,
When returned to your family and friends,
Or for comfort when you are tired and you're scared,
Or got problems that seem will not end.

Sometimes I wish I could pray,
Sometimes I wish I could pray,
Most of the time I'm doing ok,
But there are sometimes I wish I could pray.

Just to thank someone for the stars and the sun,
For the cry of a baby at birth,
To believe there's a home way up in the sky,
When our journey is done on this earth.

To believe everything has been planned in advance,
By one who keeps watch and is pleased,
Or to lift up your eyes and to thank someone,
When you're humbled and brought to your knees.


Here's one which you might recognise (the theme tune to Billy Connolly's tour of Australia):



.

A bit random

The last few posts have been swept up from other blogs where I've posted for poetry challenges. This one was based on random search engine terms. I just thought it was a little bit cute...


A cartoon little girl
With a frail paper heart,
Caught out in the night,
Glaring eyes in the dark.
Bright angel in the rain
Slowly soaking away.





(Picture from www.bhakti-yoga-meditation.com)

The Angel's Waltz

Now, ladies and gentlemen, please squeeze in,
There's not much room on the head of this pin,
I pray you all, please take up your partners,
For the Grand Waltz is about to begin.

You at the back there, cut out those high flings,
Straighten your halos and smooth down your wings,
Stop making a fuss and get into place,
We'll start the dance when the cherabim sings.

Oh please be careful, treat each other well -
Remember that last time Lucifer fell?
He says he misses our heavenly throng,
And said to say there's no dancing in hell.

It might be crazy and well you may jest,
I'm sure it seems a peculiar quest,
But believing in things they cannot see
Is a gift with which mankind is not blessed.

It is all beyond their power of thought
That the world may not be quite as was taught,
That beings exist without any form
That an infinite mass can equal nought.





.

Devil's eggs

In three minutes' time,
Enjoyment sublime,
I'm hoping to beg
From this little egg,
Its fanfare proudly
Rattling loudly
Against the pan side,
As bubbles collide.

As keenly I wait,
Neat Soldiers on plate,
Two minutes to go
A crack starts to show.
The web starts to spread,
And with it my dread,
The breaches are burst,
This breakfast is cursed!
















(Picture from http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/11/dining/diners_041108_egg.jpg)

Poetry about cake...

Pink Fairy's last wish:

When the time comes, I'd like you all to know,
Death by chocolate is my chosen demise.
Face down in the chocolate fountain I'll go!
Just make sure that I don't caramelise,
Until you embalm me in creme brulee.
Then cloak me in chocolate truffle roulade,
Crowning me with a raspberry souffle,
And bury me in pavlova set hard.




Bring on the black-iced, chest-beating mourners
And realms of Angel cakes singing my praise.
Weep for my death in all the world's corners
Oh you Viennese whirls and Creme Anglaise.
The Devil's food cake banished should he be,
For he has no place at this lavish wake!
A burial fit for the pink fairy
Floating on high on her lemon cloud cake.


(Picture: http://zencupcake.com)

The man from the city:

"Why is there a dog in that field?"
The man from the city said,
"Eating grass like he were a sheep?
Shouldn't he chase them instead?"

"Where is this dog you say you see?"
The girl from the country pled,
"I can see only grazing sheep,
Has the fresh air turned your head?"

"There he is chewing on that shrub,"
The city dweller exclaimed,
"You call yourself a country girl?
Do you need it all explained?"

"Yes, I do need explanation,"
Was the girl's bemused reply,
"How in a field with nought but sheep
You a ghostly dog espy?"

"I know what a sheep should look like,"
The city man did retort,
"A fleece of white and jet black face -
This is nothing of the sort!"

"Ah Sir, I see"..."I see the truth!"
As with laughter she did weep,
"That grazing dog you swear you saw
Is"... "Is really a black sheep."




.

Go ahead ...

I found this poem, I've not written it, I read it on the facebook page of the local miscarriage support group I've just joined. I think they are people who will understand what I'm feeling and this poem says what I'd wish all my friends to know.


Go ahead and mention my child,
The one who died you know.
Don't worry about hurting me further,
The depth of my pain doesn't show.
Don't worry about making me cry.
I'm already crying inside.
Help me to heal by releasing
The tears that I try to hide.
I'm hurt when you just keep silent,
Pretending she didn't exist.
I'd rather you mention my child,
Knowing that she has been missed.
You asked me how I was doing.
I say "pretty good" or "fine."
But healing is something ongoing.
I feel it will take a lifetime.
~anon

.

Not waving, but drowning...

"Not waving but drowning."

It's my favourite line from a poem. Ever.

Four small, ordinary words. A simple sentence. But it says so much about how much we can mistake the actions which we see, how wrongly we can perceive situations and how much we take for granted in imagining we know what other people are trying to say to us. But it's so easy for someone to be lost when we could see that they need help if we just stopped to really understand what it is that they are trying to make us see.

I'm not quite drowning. I'm too strong to drown, I know this now. A year ago I wasn't too sure, I felt overwhelmed and unable to ask for help from those who could see me if I waved my arms. That was part of my problem, being unable to tell people how I really felt, being unable to tell people when I was upset, and what I was upset about. I would just go and lick my wounds in private and keep on wearing my shiny mask. Like I said, I'm strong. I'm not about to drown. I won't let myself drown. I know what it's like to see someone waving who you just can't help, who you just can't reach, and I'm not about to become that person. I don't need to become that person, because I can now blog about it.

The magic about this is that you readers can all choose whether to be burdened by my feelings or not. You can just ignore it all, you can walk away and I'll never even know you've been here. That makes me feel so relieved already. I'm not forcing anybody to listen to me and to deal with my issues. You can comment if you want, or not. It's a totally free relationship, no-one feels beholden and it's so good for me. So, here goes...

I feel a bit lost right now. I've tried a number of times to tell people how I feel. My husband, my family, my friends. Yet none of them can see that I need their help or what it is that I'm really upset about. Now I can finally tell people how I feel they don't seem to want to listen. I don't know why I keep on failing, why the fact that I'm struggling so much with one part of myself is so hard for anyone to see when they seem to be noticing all the rest and all the other things which we talk about. I feel like I am waving madly and no-one can see.

For once in my life I could say I had a quiet Christmas. That's because my head was quiet. It was elsewhere, switched off. I went through the motions and I'm still going through them. To be fair Christmas is always like a play to me. I know the lines, I've played it many times, so that's no different. But this year I truly felt vacant.

I am vacant.

I am empty.

That's the truth of it. I should have been seven months pregnant by now. I should have been enjoying our last Christmas before it all changed forever, I should have been excitedly chatting to my sister and my Mum about my pregnancy, about my plans, I should have been glowing, I shouldn't have been thinking about myself any more and what presents I might like. We would have been crowing over presents for the baby and Christmas would have felt a little bit magical again, how it used to feel.

But instead I feel like I'm missing a vital part of me and I can't understand why no-one can see the gaping hole. Every day I tend to my scars from two operations in fairly quick succession and I still feel twinges in those wounds, so there is no escaping it physically. Much more than that though I feel like every day is empty, like all my social interactions are just trying to take my mind off the hurt that I want to feel. I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to be morose and miserable and I want people to understand how I feel.

Yet I seem unable to get anyone to stop and really listen, to really appreciate what I feel and not just presume that they know. My friends without children, who don't want children, don't understand what all the fuss is about: just try again and have another one. My friends with children just tell me that it will happen soon, that they managed it so it will happen for me too. Maybe they've forgotten how difficult it was, or maybe it wasn't difficult at all for them. The only people I think who might understand are those who can't have children, but do want them. Then again they say to me that at least I can get pregnant. That's no comfort to me though.

I'm not sure I can even articulate my feelings properly. I can't seem to get across how wretched I feel. I suspect that people think that it's not healthy for me to dwell on it, that I need cheering up. But I don't. I need to share my pain. I'm grieving and no-one seems to want to acknowledge that it's happening.

I feel completely alone. No-one is right here, right now, in the same position as me and I can't seem to be able to communicate how I feel so that people can truly comprehend. Maybe someone who reads this might know?

Anyway, here's the poem in full...


Stevie Smith - Not Waving But Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

.

Winter's fall

The day has scarcely blossomed, when its glow
Is obscured from us, lost, as wilting bloom,
Midst curves of hillsides, draped in drifting snow,
Leaving only an opalescent gloom
Bleeding through the line between land and sky,
No longer day, but not yet fully night.
Mute snowflakes faintly glisten as they fly,
Reflecting the last of this sinking light,
Enchanting ribbons squalling through the grey
Should herald for us a silent warning
That a dark hunger soon will swallow day,
Leaving us with a long path to morning.
Instead we are mesmerised by the scene
Of the winter's fall, silent and serene.


This is my first ever sonnet - it's a bit like hard work!!!

.

Come be my monster

Come be my monster,
Lay your black heart bare,
Show me your darkness,
Your sorrow, your pain.
I'll sooth it away,
For you I will dare.
Come be my monster,
Live freely again.

Come be my villain,
I'll show you the way
To harness your wrath,
Your terror I’ll tame.
I'll teach you to know
The part you should play.
Come be my villain
And live free from shame.

Come be my darling,
Learn to be my pet.
No more be ugly,
Your beauty I see!
Speak me your secrets,
Feed me your upset.
Come be my darling
And live free with me.

Come be my meaning,
My goodness make glow,
Mirrored in your black,
My worth now I see!
I cannot love you.
So monster please go!
No more torment me!
You must set me free.

.

An historic poem

Well it's "historic" in so far as it's one which I added to the Guardian Poster Poems for the "History" topic, although I did always mean to go back and write something more. I'll probably never get round to it, so here it is in its original form for now...

Your history:

History weighs heavy on your eyelids
Now almost lacking the strength to unblink.
Caught in the wrinkles of your sunken face
Memories long lost, but never replaced.
We know your past better than you do now,
Gently steering your familiar tales.
But still we know so little of your life.
Your hopes and dreams, the sights which you have seen,
Are fading in the flickering twilight
Of your once vibrant eyes, now turned to grey.
History that once gave such sweet escape
Now lurks, an unknown beast in your shadow.

.

Ten years gone, but not forgotten

Almost precisely ten years ago I sat on the floor of my best friend's bedroom in the final throws of an uncomfortably hot summer, leaning on a large mobile air conditioning unit, trying to read her poetry through eyes which could barely see and with a voice which no longer seemed to be my own. I shouldn't have been able to function properly, I should have been wailing and mourning and begging for the fates not to take her. But instead I found a secret hard place inside and I let it take over me.

She never once saw me shed a tear for her. Her best friend. The one who became like a sister when we she lost her Dad and my sister went to the other side of the world; the one who never questioned, never judged and never abandoned her in so many hours of need; the one who knew all her secrets and confided hers in return; and the one she'd given her strict instructions to...

No-one was supposed to talk about it, we were to carry on as normal until the bitter end (but people had to make sure they left with something precious of hers whenever they visited). She couldn't let herself falter in her resolve otherwise she would fall apart. She set the tone which we all followed. We dutifully avoided emotional outpourings (although I wrote mine in a letter which I noticed beside her bed at the end), we respected her need to be alone even though we wanted to spend every second with her, and we left her to her quiet times when she contemplated her forthcoming battle, perhaps she was planning how she wanted to play her final scene? She made lists of who was to get her treasures, which was so incredibly important to her. In her final days when the tumour pressed so far into her brain that she could no longer speak she could be seen slowly and carefully giving out imaginary objects to the friends she pictured in her mind, deliberately placing them into the grateful palms she dreamt were there in front of her.

Sadly for her there was only me in the end, in that final scene. It was my turn to sit with her and keep her amused. By this point she hadn't slept for three days and couldn't physically last much longer. None of us knew what she thought, but we imagined she was so terribly scared of what would happen when she closed her eyes. She was so incredibly uncomfortable, sitting on the edge of the bed, propping herself up with her elbows resting on her thighs, but she refused to lie down - presumably for the same sort of reason, the fear that she'd never get up again. She wanted to live one minute and then not be alive the next, she didn't want to fade away, to turn to grey, to drift in the place between the two. Now I know I said we never discussed it, but she was virtually a part of me this girl. I knew how she felt. She'd always been clumsy and awkward. In death as in life she felt self conscious. I knew that she was so mortified by the idea of the indignity of death. She held herself upright and presentable for as long as she could and we helped her.

They had been reading her a Terry Pratchet book, but I couldn't bring myself to read the humorous story with the character called Death. I couldn't even utter the word, plus I knew I'd be a poor substitute for her Auntie who did the silly voices. So I searched the room in snatched moments, returning to my place on the floor at her feet when she faltered and swayed forward, gently propping her back up before continuing my search. I searched for something meaningful, some words which could sum up our life together and found a book we both loved as children. As I read to her I looked to her to try to see recognition of my choice, some indication as to whether the familiarity was a source of comfort or torture, whether I was playing her last moments how she wanted them to be played. She was beyond any ability to communicate, which was so excrutiatingly painful at the time when I needed my best friend the most. You imagine having a perfect moment, that timeless meaningful last exchange, but I feared that if she could hear and understand me that she would feel my words like daggers through her heart.

A few pages into my tentative and angst-ridden performance I had reduced myself to a state of agonised indecision, compelled to carry on reading what I'd started in case it was welcome to her, but wanting so much to apologise with every word and feeling sure I should be intuitive enough to know exactly what to do. I had stopped focusing on her, stopped checking that she was ok. Suddenly her hand came sharply into view. I looked up to see her slumped a little in my direction, her elbow loose and her hand outstretched. I'm so deeply ashamed to admit that I thought that she was reaching out for comfort, in that moment I was full of my own importance and I took her hand and looked into her face to give her those words of love I'd longed for her to seek from me. This was that imagined perfect tableau - the faithful friend sitting at the feet of the brave soul, giving her the strength for her final journey. But this was my wishful thinking. She hadn't finally reached out to me, in reality she had lost that final morsel of strength that was keeping her composed, she'd finally given in and allowed herself to fall. In her last moments I'd made her lose her dignity and that will always haunt me.

Realisation then hit me like a slap to the face and I welled with panic, stomach crashing to the floor. This wasn't supposed to be my moment, it was supposed to be her mother with her when she died. I rushed to the top of the stairs and screamed a banshee's wail, "come, please come!". The family and friends gathered downstairs came rushing, with her mother in the lead. She had a book of poems she wanted to read to send her on her spiritual journey, she had it all planned out. But I had stolen her moment. The doctor had turned up and gently laid her back on the bed, for she had crumpled into an indignified lump in my absence, and he said that she should still be able to hear. I was unspeakably grateful for his intervention and the hope he gave to her mother that she was not too late and she could share the most important moment of her daughter's life.

Secretly though I knew she had gone from the world, I'd sensed her go, I'd felt the air above us electrify over our brief tableau and felt the shadow of death upon my face when she fell and blocked out the waning evening light from the window behind. But her mother needed to feel part of the moment of passing too. I never wanted to take that from her so I played along.

In the end I became some kind of folk legend, the "best friend", the one who she chose to die with. I don't know if this helped or not, they all wanted as perfect an ending as possible for this deeply cherished friend and what better than a peaceful passing in the comfortable presence of her oldest friend? At the funeral people met me with awed faces and wanted to be near me. I was a physical connection to the one they'd lost. I felt honoured and duty bound to play the part, but some things I couldn't do. She was an amazingly upbeat person and had given her instructions for the funeral. People should wear bright colours, but I wore black. We were all supposed to do The Time Warp at the crematorium to mark her sense of fun, but I remained seated and tried not to feel inadequate. I could no longer follow protocol and the sense of disappointment that I thought I saw around me added to my grief to make me feel completely alone and so desperately miserable that my best friend was not there to turn to. This in turn brought on further guilt until it was a frenzied loop of self blame and misery.

For you see the difference between me and the others, the reason why I was alone amongst friends, was that they had not shared that last moment. These people had all lost a loved one from their life, but they had not watched her go and they didn't carry the awful guilt of wondering whether they'd done it right (with no-one left to ask), nor did they view proceedings through the image of the moment their friend lost her fight, seeing all of life through it like looking through a stained glass window on the world. I even saw the image on the back of my eyelids as I tried to sleep. For weeks and months.

So I mention it's been ten years, tonight there is a big party, everyone ever connected to her was invited. I didn't go, I couldn't go, I still can't face commemorating her death day. To these other people it's a date to remember the good times shared with a dear person who they still miss, but for me it marks the saddest day I've yet lived through, the day my best friend slipped away in front of my eyes, no glory, no ceremony, no significant moment where either of us saw into the heart of things. They could only imagine and wish they were there, I continue to live the confusion of wishing I hadn't seen it but also knowing that I would never ever have wanted to be anywhere else.

.

The fish know best

The fish know best this river blue,
Which deep shrouded currents renew
Under the surface, smooth as glass,
Its secret heart, a writhing mass,
An ever-changing underclass.

Each step I take cannot break through,
Solidity forever true,
To piscine realm where I trespass,
The fish know best.

Their shiny rainbow scales imbue
The depths with iridescent hue,
Taunting me around me they pass
As I fail to catch them, alas!
Old lessons here I learn anew –
The fish know best.


(apologies to those of you who have seen this one from me elsewhere, but I just thought I'd plump my own blog up a bit)