grieving

Day 790

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Home is so sad

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

  • by Philip Larkin

Here is a link to the video recordings of presentations made at a Suicide Prevention conference in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 17th November 2016. Stories of triumphs, visions, ideas and tragedies. All worth watching. The 10th one tells the story of Saagar and my sad home.

https://contactni.com/Contact-Conference-2016-Suicide-Prevention-What-Works.php

Day 789

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It’s come back. Last 2 years we sat on a beach and pretended it wasn’t happening. We ignored Christmas. Overlooked it. Avoided it. This year, we are home. We are here to face it in all it’s glory and brutality, helplessly watching the abundance of ‘missing’ it precipitates. For many years I volunteered to work on Christmas as I believed it meant more to my colleagues who belong to the Christian faith than it did to me. With whatever time we had together as a family we enjoyed the social aspect of X-mas.

When Saagar was eleven, I wrapped his gift in a hurry and left the roll of wrapping paper in the ‘miscellaneous’ cup-board. When he saw the gift from Santa, he gave me a quizzical look, like a cocker spaniel and said, “But…”. That was the end of it. Although we laughed about it, the Santa story was blown away in that instant. As an adult he thought it was unfair on kids to be ‘lied to’ by their parents. We took different standpoints on matters of wonder, mystery, magic and innocence.

After much internal resistance over the last week, I finally installed a postmodern Christmas tree of white and silver twigs with pink fairy lights right in front of Saagar’s picture. Milkshake loved it and immediately took shelter underneath it. He hasn’t budged in 3 days except for short food and loo breaks. Last evening 3 of Saagar’s friends had dinner with us. I was reminded of how much fun we would have talking about absolutely inconsequential things (drivel) for hours! The fabulous combination of a sharp intellect and a great sense of fun was familiar. Laughter filled the house. American, South African, Indian and Australian accents appeared and disappeared. Stories of travels, girl-friends, dysfunctional families, Facebook pictures and safe-spaces were shared. Opinions on demands for transgender toilets and identity politics were expressed. Future plans were discussed. B showed off her new elephant tattoo and I proudly displayed my Saagar tattoo. Food was polished off. Time flew past.

Wonder what he would have looked like at 22. Wonder what he would have done after graduation. Wonder if he would have had a girl-friend. The ‘missing’ is awful but ‘what might have been’ is killing too.

It was happy and sad. We missed him. Our love for him and his for us brought us closer together. That is the new normal – joyful and tragic at the same time – 2 sides of the same coin.

Day 788

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Even if you hold a grieviance, so be it. Come to break my heart again.
Do come, if only for the act of leaving me again.
Our relationship may not be the same now, but even if seldom,
Come to fulfill the rituals and traditions of the world.

To whom all must I explain the reason of separation,
Come, despite your displeasure, at least for the sake of the world.

Till now my hopeful heart is keeping some expectations from you,
But at least come back to put off these last candles of hope.
Too long have I been deprived of the pathos of longing,
Come my love, if only to make me weep again.
Respect the depth of my love for you a little,
Come someday to placate me as well.
It has been a long time I haven’t had the luxury of grieving,
My peace-of-mind please do come back if only to make me cry.

-English translation of ‘Ranjish hi sahi’, urdu poetry by Ahmad Faraz

Day 786

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An early morning taxi ride to Sky News studios. A brief disjointed interview. No idea where I was supposed to look as there were 3 cameras in front of me. No preparatory cup of tea, orientation or introduction. I think they assumed I was a professional when in fact I was a bundle of nerves. Despite what everyone said, I know I blew it. Well, it’s over now. A sigh of relief!

Then came another one – a sigh of sadness arising from a heavy heart, expelling melancholy from the body. My eyes fell upon his beautiful face and there… another sigh! According to old wisdom, sighing is a way of maintaining physical and mental health. It was also an accepted method of prayer, a way of communicating with the divine.

Got started with work and found more sighs of boredom, frustration, irritation and disappointment coming forth. The unburdening of the soul through a deep in-breath and out is strangely satisfying too, especially when it is not audible to anyone but you. At the end of a working day, a content sigh of a job well done.

A quiet evening at home with the cats as Si is out of town. Sigh!

“You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh, the fundamental things apply, as time goes by…”

 

Day 767

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For months I have been noticing that more often than not, whenever I randomly turn on the radio in the car or at home, I hear something closely related to what’s going on in my mind.

‘Stand by me’ was the first episode of a series called ‘We need to talk about death’ on BBC Radio 4. Given that death and dying are an essential part of the stream of human existence, many of us shy away from the subject. In this series Joan Bakewell explores the choices open to us and other questions on the subject that are most feared. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b083pd1p

Last Sunday, on the long drive home, between Bollywood and Jazz music, we tuned into the radio to check what was on. We were introduced to an enigmatic Welsh word, ‘Hiraeth’ (pronounced Here-eyeth with a rolling ‘r’). There is no exact English word for it. The best we can do is ‘homesickness’ but that doesn’t do it any justice. Hiraeth is a feeling of something lost a long time ago. To feel hiraeth is to feel a deep sense of incompleteness, a yearning for something better, a grief for something left behind, an aspect of impossibility, pining for a home or a person. It can push the nostalgia button and bring on the belief that things were better in the past. It is the signature tune of loss. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b083m307

I think I know what that feels like.