Nothing to say

About four or five months after Clea died (sometime in early 2010, it was probably mid-February) I got home one afternoon and found a message on the answering machine. It was partly an offer of employment, partly a request for assistance. The message had been left by someone who I used to work with. Someone who had known Clea, had held Clea as a baby in his arms, had talked to her and praised her. This same person had not been brave enough to call or write to offer his condolences, yet barely five months later he was choosing to call at times when he knew I would not be home.

I did not return the call. The caller insisted a couple more times, leaving messages about this stupid job but not once saying anything about our loss, our trauma, our grief. I never returned the call.

On the one hand, I was not interested in the job I was being offered: I had a permanent full-time position in those days, so there was no way I would have quit in order to take a few hours of tuition as a casual. On the other hand, it felt absurd to return a call from someone who seemed incapable of acknowledging my daughter's death. I know for certain this person knew what had happened to us in Lalomanu on 29 September 2009.

Fast forward three years. Yesterday I saw this person again. He was at the school Clea used to go to, the school where her brothers are receiving an education. This person must have walked past the little plaque by the bottlebrush bush that the school planted in memory of Clea.

One of the things I have learned from having had a very close brush with death is this: I do not need to pretend I like people. I do not need to feign interest in persons I have no interest in. I can speak my mind: I can voice my feelings and can express what I think. I have nothing to lose.

I did not speak to this person. I did not want to. I don't have anything to say to him anymore.

“I no longer know you that well”

I received an email from someone I have known for many years. The message was very brief:  apart from some supposedly funny jokes, this former friend seemed to imply I no longer cared about our friendship.

I decided I would reply.  “Nothing further from the truth”, I said. “It seems a difficult task for lots of people to accept that the Jorge they once knew died on Lalomanu Beach on 29 September 2009. He’s not coming back. […] The dead never come back to give us peace, to reassure us that everything is alright  Because in fact, it is not.” I attached a copy of a sonnet I recently wrote, one that has not been published yet. It’s not every day that you send poetry to people you know, is it? It might be seen as something special...

A longer reply came back a few days later, the first truly meaningful message in three and a half years. Well-meaning, of course. It reminded me (as if I did not have all of this before losing my daughter) that I “still have a wonderful wife and two sons”, that I am “in good health” (how do they know? Have they spoken to my GP?) “a job” (Wrong! Not true! I quit my job more than a year ago, and I work from home now…) “a healthy household economy” (again, how have people gained access to my finances? I must speak to the bank manager about this soon…) and also that I have “intelligence”. The icing on the cake is that “that is a lot in a world where, you know only too well, there are plenty of people who lose their loved ones, and on top of that, they have nothing at all”.

Perhaps the person they once knew they no longer know. Or perhaps, they can't be bothered to make the effort (yes, I acknowledge it takes some effort) to reconnect with the new me I am. Perhaps this me I am in 2013 is altogether too painful, too raw. It takes guts to reach out. It takes guts to pick up the phone and hear my voice, the voice of a broken father, the voice of a sad man nearing his 50^th birthday and who still cries every morning because his only daughter was killed by a tsunami during a family holiday, and although he saved one of his sons, he was unable to save her and could not find her body despite searching for her for hours.

I guess I should seek forgiveness from them. For my shortcomings, for my inadequacies, for being unable to realise “how lucky” I should feel. Perhaps I should seek forgiveness for having bared my soul to them by means of a book, a book that I wrote, published and mailed to so many at my own expense.

I mean, how or why did I dare reveal my trauma and my grief? Stepping across the comfort zone? Heavens forbid! Surely I should have kept all of that to myself, so as not to disturb sensitivities…

“People think they know you. They think they know how you're handling a situation. But the truth is no one knows. No one knows what happens after you leave them, when you're lying in bed or sitting over your breakfast alone and all you want to do is cry or scream. They don't know what's going on inside your head – the mind-numbing cocktail of anger and sadness and guilt. This isn't their fault. They just don't know. And so they pretend and they say you're doing great when you're really not. And this makes everyone feel better. Everybody but you.” 
― William H. Woodwell Jr.

Peladillas

In May 2009 I went to Spain for a brief visit, and among a few other things, I brought peladillas home. Peladillas [literally, little baldies] are sugar-coated almonds, and are still extremely popular in Spain, of course. Despite knowing that nuts are not allowed at school, Clea was so insistent that she should take a pair of them in her lunch box that I made her promise she would not share them with anyone. I can very well imagine her showing them off and explaining to her friends about the Spanish origin of the lollies she was eating, and carefully pronouncing peladillas for their benefit.

Lollies and children go together. Their faces light up when they see the sweet treats. In our house, the Easter chocolate egg-hunt used to be an incredibly exciting event, both in Yass and in Canberra.

Clea tasted chewing gum only once in her life. It happened on Lalomanu Beach (Samoa), in the late afternoon of September 28, 2009, the last day Clea lived to see the sun set. And what a sunset that was! Beautiful beyond description. Having spent almost all the afternoon on the beach, we took a walk towards the village; it was hot, so we were looking for an ice cream shop; no ice cream was to be found (it is a difficult product to sell in a country where blackouts are normal).

Not far from the beach and the resorts, we found a shop by the road, just around the bend, right on the seashore. We bought something: a few lollies and potato chips, probably (my memory might be failing me on these details). The lady who ran the shop chatted to us and then she insisted on giving the children some chewing gum. The children had never tasted chewing gum before, so we explained to them that it was not to be eaten, but chewed on and on until all flavour was gone, and then wrapped back and disposed of properly.

Now, I prepare Clea’s brothers’ lunch daily; sandwiches, rice crackers, cheese, fruit, dried fruit… and sometimes, more often than not, I will include one sweet treat, which I call the ‘surprise’. After all, I keep telling myself, why shouldn't they be allowed to enjoy all those lollies their sister will never be able to eat?

I fondly remember how special my grandparents would make me feel as a kid when I was given sweet treats. My maternal grandparents owned a groceries shop in the working-class barrio where I grew up, and invariably I would be given the choice of picking one thing to eat, every time I went there. They did not sell lollies, however, but those sugar-coated donuts or chocolate-filled croissants were amongst my faves.

On the morning of 29 September, that shop on the Main South Coast Road in Lalomanu was wiped out in seconds, just like everything else on the beach. Unlike the resorts on the beach, it was not rebuilt. These days, only the remains of the cement floor tell the visitor that there used to be a small building there. The rusty remnants of a crushed car nearby could prompt your imagination (if you tried) to create a mental picture of the terror of those minutes. I don’t know whether the lady who gave Clea her first and only chewing gum survived or died.

I wish we could all have a never-ending supply of peladillas, and so bring a smile to a few friendly faces.

The Invaluable Gift of Poetry

Last Sunday I received an email from someone I have never met. The email had a Word attachment. The file name just read: Ode. I opened it.

It was a poem.

Ode to a little girl lost at sea

The wintry wind blusters

Through pine boughs

Whistling through ashen eucalypt

Across rosy-hued skies

It gives no solace

This pomegranate sunset

For my mind is awash

With your papa’s words for you

Words enmeshed in love

Born of terrible grief

His rhymes of anguish

They anchor me

Last night I dreamt

Of a colossal wave

A lucent barrier

In terror I ran as you did

But it overtook me too

I think

The core of the force

It was a blur

As visions go

I couldn’t tell

But I heard the cries

Was it that tsunami?

Was it a wall of Living Sorrow?

I couldn’t tell

I woke up and wept

Grabben Gullen, July 2012

The author’s name is Samantha Sirimanne, but I have never met her in person. Sam (I think she prefers it if I refer to her that way) was one of the many contributors to the first issue of Hypallage, a little dream or project I have helped create for the Multicultural Writers Association of Australia. We had corresponded by email and shared a few of our poems. I passed on the link to the online version of Lalomanu, which can be downloaded as a PDF from ISUU.

You can read another two poems by Sam (‘Migration’ and ‘Differing Opinions’) here.

Sam began her email with an (unnecessary) apology; then she wrote:

I had randomly read the poems before but wanted to be able to read all in one go before writing to you.

Your poems are so hauntingly poignant. They moved me very much - despite the heartbreaking subject, there's a quietude & elegance in your writing which is really beautiful. Thanks so much for sharing it with others. Though you don't know me - through your writing, I feel your family's pain.

Attached is a bit of free verse for Clea … jotted down after reading Lalomanu. As a poem, I reckon it's nothing much in artistry but more just my thoughts...

In a later email, Sam acknowledged:

Verse very rarely moves me to tears – I can’t recall the last time before I read your poetry. So, it’s a testament to the huge power of your writing that made me feel your burden.

I wish I could thank Sam appropriately; not because of the praise she pours on my book, but because of the tribute she pays to Clea in a very graceful manner. Any expression of gratitude for such a wonderful response will always be insufficient. Because it was unexpected, it meant so much more. Sam has made a beautiful, sensitive and meaningful tribute to Clea and to the cry of pain I wrote after losing her in such traumatic circumstances. Sam is a perfect stranger, but she is a brave human being, brimming with the kind of human energy other people are either unwilling or incapable of finding within themselves.

Lalomanu travelled a long way. It was posted (at some considerable expense, although that was the least of my concerns at the time) to many people in many different places all over the world.

In some cases, Lalomanu did not seem to even deserve an acknowledgement; silence was the preferred response from some people I used to think of as close and caring. Silence can be deafening, though.

Moltes gràcies, Sam.

Otele

The Samoan Tsunami Victims Memorial outside Apia.

Returning to Lalomanu in October 2010 was difficult. That’s an understatement, of course. Whichever words I might choose to describe the many different emotions in the many different places in Samoa a year after the tsunami and losing Clea will be meaningful to me, but I doubt they could be meaningful enough so that you, the reader, could actually understand them.

There were of course many instants full of pain, there were sorrowful moments; there were bizarre circumstances and truly uncomfortable situations. Yet there were also encounters that gave me hope that humankind is not as foolishly hopeless as I often rate it.

One of those moments took place when we stepped back into the Taufua resort on Lalomanu beach, rebuilt twelve months after the catastrophe of the early morning of 29 September 2009. I felt very uncertain about going back to that place; I had strange, mixed emotions, the fear of reliving the horror together with the need to revisit the place where so many people perished.

It was mid-morning and we had parked the rental car. We walked across the road; I could see a few tourists on the beach, near the new fales. Everything seemed almost normal, as it was on 28 September 2009. Inside the restaurant, a few more tourists were seated and gazed at the idyllic blue of the beautiful Southern Pacific.

I had taken a few steps inside the restaurant, uncertain about where to go, what to do. My mind was racing with contradictory messages: ‘Get the hell out of here!’, or ‘What will these people say when they see us? Will they recognise us?’. I hesitated.

Then my eyes met another pair of eyes and there was an invisible spark of recognition. I saw how one of the waiters at the resort dropped whatever it was he was doing and came straight towards us, his arms wide open and a sorrowful smile in his face. Otele had recognised us straightaway. He hugged me, I hugged him. I was crying, and I couldn’t give a damn what the few tourists at Taufua may have thought.

Otele Samuelu will probably never get to know this, but if he does, I hope he will appreciate my humble words of gratitude and recognition. That brief moment must have been one of the most heartening, enriching moments I have had in my lifetime. The fact that he recognised us and instantly dropped everything and came to embrace us speaks volumes about the kind of person he is.

What you, my patient reader, may not know is that Otele Samuelu is a true hero. But not the sport-type the media go on about. No. Otele Samuelu is a very humble sort of guy. Otele risked his life to try and save as many people as possible just before the tsunami struck and then jumped into the water to rescue the injured and the dead.

That day in October 2010 Otele told us he had been desperately knocking on the door of our fale, in the belief that we might still have been inside, asleep. Otele saved a New Zealand girl who was badly injured and who would have certainly died had he not acted so decisively. There were many other heroes in Samoa that day, but what I feel for Otele is special.

In his basic English, Otele explained how he still remembered our girl, our Clea, from the night before. He remembered Clea because she refused to shake his hand and frowned at him – how unusual of Clea!. He also remembered Alfie. He remembered it all. That night of 28 September he was serving dinner to the groups of papala’agi who, like us, were enjoying a wonderful, beautiful spot on the island of Upolu. There were many bottles of cold Vailima, some wine, cold soft drinks, cold water and delicious dishes on the tables. It was very noisy, but the atmosphere was one of friendliness, of camaraderie, of companionship. Hosts and guests were enjoying life, food, the ocean breeze, that magnificent view of an ocean that the next morning was to surge out into the land, a black ruthless monster of water that nothing but the hillside could stop.

I will always think of Otele as my friend. Even if I never see him again, I will always carry with me the memory of his hug that day in October 2010. I will always acknowledge that initially I was only able to respond to his hug with my tears, and I am not embarrassed to acknowledge that, not one bit.

Otele knows.

Mute Friends

People often ask me how my two boys are, how they are doing, whether they show any signs of trauma. The truth is, they are very normal children: they like playing football, they love their Auskick, they play games on their Nintendo and on the PC. At school they are inconspicuous, just another two boys who mingle with their classmates and make the most of their day. No one knows that the only difference is their tendency to create mini ‘tsunamis’ in the bathtub, where their ship is wiped out and many pirates fall into the water and drown. I doubt many children will do that at bath time.

So I’ll say they are well and they show no signs of trauma. Yet the truth is it could be very different. After all, they survived a catastrophic event in which they lost their sister. Two minutes earlier they had all been walking together on a paradisiacal beach. Then a mountain of water came and it swallowed the five of us and everything else, and they never saw their sister again.

They also lost what they had taken to the beach. They were just toys, you might argue, and they might be replaceable; still, they were part of their daily lives. They shared their beds and their dreams, they were the tireless companions of their childhood games. It is impossible for us adults to have a proper insight into what children feel when they suddenly lose their favourite toy, the one that keeps them safe in bed at night.

Clea lost Chuchi, the fluffy puppy that was the silent witness to her endless discussions with her dolls. This was Chuchi, whose name had obvious Spanish connections (‘chucho’ is a colloquial term for dog in Spanish).

O. lost Blah-blahs, a bizarre-looking pinkish rabbit who used to have a sound recorder inside, so when you squeezed him and talked, Blah-blahs would repeat what you said. Blah-blahs came from Spain, but the recorder was soon destroyed. Though mute since then, Blah-blahs kept O. company and was always happy to be thrown into the air and fall wherever; he never complained, so he was the ideal playmate. I was unable to find a picture of Blah-blahs, but we all remember him (or her?) fondly.

J. lost Tigger, that eccentric jumping tiger in the Winnie the Pooh story. Tigger was a very tiny toy but would go with J. wherever they went.

Chuchi, Blah-blahs and Tigger: all three of them accompanied our three children wherever they went if they were to sleep the night away from home, and would always keep them company. They were loyal. Admittedly, they were mute and never said anything much; unlike persons, however, they did not have the means to express themselves. It was not their choice to remain silent.

They don’t get talked about much these days, but they must be missed.

I miss them, too.

An Amazing Voice, an Amazing Woman

A few days ago I was again wonderfully surprised by someone whose musical skills and talents are only matched by her profound sense of understanding and her big-hearted display of friendship.

More than a year ago, months after I had written and printed Lalomanu, I learned that musician and composer Faye Bendrups had put music to one of my poems, ‘Roto’ [‘Broken’]. Faye transformed my poem into a beautiful milonga, a type of Argentinean melody that preceded the internationally better-known tango.

‘Roto’ was first performed at University House, in Canberra, in 2011. There is a video on Youtube that I recorded (here) and, despite its poor quality, you can get an idea of Faye’s amazing voice and musical flair in TangoMundo’s extraordinarily beautiful rendition of the poem. Even today I cannot comprehend how Faye was able to give such beautiful music to my words.

While in a recent visit to Melbourne, Faye surprised us again by giving the most beautiful gift a friend artist can give: she has put music to another one of my poems in Lalomanu, ‘Epilogue’. ‘Epilogue’ is the final poem in the book. I could never thank Faye enough for the gift she has created and shared.

Given the muted response Lalomanu received from some quarters, I am not only immensely moved but also forever grateful for this amazing woman’s respectful, artistic homage to my poems. I still believe the Lalomanu poems are simply words of immense sorrow, of unspeakable terror, of indescribable pain.

Let the world know that I feel privileged beyond measure. Thank you so very much, Faye.

Last Words

‘Run!!!! Everybody run!!!!!!’

Those were the last words my daughter Clea heard in her far too short a lifetime. A few seconds before them she heard me say very much the same in Spanish: ‘¡Corred! ¡Corred!’

I have often wondered if Clea was able to detect the absolute panic in my voice. It all happened so quickly that we did not have a chance to do anything other than run. I have never asked her twin brothers if they remember the sheer panic in their father’s voice, the urgency, the fear of the monster I saw coming towards us.

In fact, I don’t really want them to remember. Whereas I cannot forget. One day, probably in quite a few years’ time, they may want to know more. As a matter of fact, the story has already been written for them, and I don’t mean Lalomanu. They’ll be able to read it and find out about things they will have forgotten or we have kept away from their innocent childhoods. I wrote it in Spanish.

Every night, they both come into the study to say good night. They always find me writing something on the PC: it might be my own things, or a review, or for the blogs I keep. Stuff, as someone would say. They often stare at the screen and read little bits of what I’ve written. Their curiosity has been increasing lately. They know I have written poetry and have (awkwardly at times, of course) listened to me reading out to them. They seem a little uncomfortable, though not embarrassed.

I also wonder how they will react to my words in maybe ten, fifteen years, whether I am alive to discuss it with them or not. At the time I wrote it, I felt it was necessary to record it, just as I felt it was necessary for me to write the book of poetry.

Yet I confess I made a mistake. I shared the recount of that morning with people who probably did not want to read it. Perhaps they did not deserve to read it. My bad judgment? Possibly. There was too much to confront? Too much horror to witness through my words?

Who knows, it may have been too human… And that, it seems, is the scary bit.

My Own Family Sticker

You see them every-bloody-where, but they’re most prominent on the rear windscreens of people-movers and 4WDs. They depict happy families: dad, mum, eldest child, second child, sometimes third and even fourth child, dog, cat, goldfish: the works. All smiling faces.

I did a bit of a search on the web, but was unable (not totally unexpected) to find the sticker that describes my family. They don’t seem to have drawings for a very sad father or a grieving mum, not to mention the drawing of a plaque in the cemetery where the eldest daughter is buried. That does not sell too well, I suppose. So I guess we’re not within their targeted market segment, and somehow that feels kind of a relief. Honestly, it is such a banal concept, but of course everybody seems to fall for it.

If I were to make an accurate drawing of our family, I’d go for something this: try and picture a taciturn, sad dad who is regularly woken up too early and sits down to write in an effort to stop himself from crying his heart out; a desolate mum who chooses to punish herself at the gym so she does not have to think too hard; two boys who love each other but fight each other all the time because the gentle judge who would sort out things between them two is no longer there; these twin boys look indeed quite happy and healthy. Anyone who has seen them in action will say so, but I bet inside their minds they would rather be forgetting what happened to them and their sister; I bet they both see the future (the rest of their lives) in a totally different way to that their two parents see the rest of their lifetimes. One can foresee some serious conflicts down the path of years to come.

I’m quite certain such a figurative drawing is almost impossible for anyone to imagine. Too dreadful. Not nice. But what is probably worse, for some the reality such an imaginary drawing would represent appears to be almost unbearable to look at or to come anywhere near to.