18

Today, Clea, you would have turned eighteen.

Should have been living life, your chance to dream

of careers, studies, being part of a team,

dancing at parties, like another teen.

Or would soon be travelling, seeing the globe,

enjoying food, views and towns, sending pics

of beaches or mountains, using lipstick,

buying gadgets, new clothes for your wardrobe…

I wonder who you would have liked to be:

independent young woman, go-getter

perhaps? Defiant and bold? Compliant yet free?

Would you have made me be someone better?

The questions remain unanswered for me,

older, ill, to sorrow ever fettered.

16 today

You should have been 16 today. You should have been.

I would, or I should, have given you a present today, for your 16^th birthday. A very special one. Already a young woman, or very close to being one. My little one, mi babita.

But I cannot give you your present, because you are not here.

Yet here is your present, one you would have liked to see, without any doubt. A present we can share with whoever chooses to have a look here.

A few starfish. Like the one you and I found on the southern shores of Upolu barely 48 hours before the ocean rushed in and drowned you.

That starfish was dead. These were alive and happily greeted us from the shores of a beautiful lagoon in Vanuatu. I gathered them and put them all together – like a team! So I could take the picture for you, for your birthday. Can you see them, Clea? Can you see your birthday present? Aren’t they beautiful? Beautiful, like you were, like you would have been today. 

Loveya, babita. Always.

The old house

This old building used to be my paternal grandmother’s house. Number 8, Calle Enrique Olmos, Valencia. Possibly nearing 80 years since the time it was built, it is a puzzle to me why it remains standing.

My recollections of the place are now remarkably indistinct: several flights of gloomy, stuffy stairs, an old wooden door and a small hall. Other than at Christmastime, I would rarely go there. One clear memory I do have, however, is to be standing on that balcony, calling out to my brother, or perhaps my cousins too, to come upstairs because the big Christmas lunch was going to get started.

I can hardly remember my paternal grandfather, my Iaio – he died when I was very young. But I do remember, and very well, my paternal grandmother. As a teenager I would see her often at the grocery shop she owned, the place where she worked very long hours. As she grew older and wearier, she would frequently choose to stay in the shop overnight instead of walking back to her Enrique Olmos house.

I actually think I held my first proper ‘job’ at her shop, helping restocking shelves and fridges, particularly on summer weekends, when we sold lots of bottles of beer, lemonade and Coke, as well packets of crisps, salted dried nuts and many other groceries. The pace could get frantic when we were nearing closing time, with everybody wanting to buy cold drinks and last-minute essentials. On more than one occasion we closed the shop past 2:30 pm.

Although I have no clear recollection of having done so, I must have pointed out the house to Clea during her only visit to my home town in July 2005, aged 2 and a half. Who knows if she actually understood what I was talking about when I explained it to her who Iaia Carmen had been.

To me, it is completely absurd for an old uninhabited house to endure like this for years. The home of Clea’s great-grandmother is still standing many years after her death, while my little one was buried when she was six and nine months old. For quite unexplainable reasons, I sort of resent this old house now. It should have fallen down years ago, should it not?

The vagaries of death, decay and destruction seem quite incomprehensible and whimsical. The absurdity of it all is baffling.

Presents

At Christmas time, instead of giving presents to each other, Clea’s brothers have made a valuable gift to unknown children in other parts of the world where life is nowhere near as easy as in Australia through World Vision. It is the second year in a row they have done this. At a time when the Australian Government has shamefully cut its foreign aid to the poorest countries, we continue to encourage our kids to give to others less privileged.

For quite a few years now I have made an annual donation (a modest sum) to The Smith Family to help disadvantaged Australian kids. That’s where my Christmas present goes. Yet one of the very people responsible for cutting down Australian foreign aid had the gall to ask all of us in Australia to “spend up big at Christmas”, as if by spending up big one could somehow improve the world. Definitively, stupidity knows no bounds, and seems to get voted in every few years.

There are other kinds of priceless gifts, too. Someone I have only met via the internet, someone whose literary work I enjoy and feel deep respect for, will spend the holidays in some sort of psychotherapy hostel, away from his family. He is in a bad way - has been for more than a year now (and he seems to be improving, hopefully). If I could, I’d give him the present he deserves: the chance to be with his children.

Parents who have lost a child (having to bury your child is the most unnatural event that can occur to a parent) do not look forward to this time of year. As a child, I used to like Christmas Eve, or La Nochebuena – (The Good Night) as it is known in Spanish, which is really the most important date of the Christmas period in Spain – because our family all got together, because on the table there was a fabulous feast of food and in the living room there was a lot of good cheer. After losing my daughter more than five years ago, I do not look forward to this night any longer because our family cannot be together. Clea, who so loved this time of year, will be absent. She will not awake early on Christmas Day to open her presents.

The truth is, however, that we still get presents or souvenirs for Clea whenever we travel. Small things we can leave by her grave, like the ceramic puppy and the wristlet from Turkey in the picture above. Or the silken scarf I bought for her two years ago in Penang.

The night I bought this (I think) beautiful pink scarf, I bought a very similar one for a Chinese PhD student who had presented a paper at the Translation Conference I was attending. It was difficult to explain (or for her understand, I guess) why I was asking her to accept such a small gift from me, a perfect stranger. She had been able to fulfil a dream/project my own daughter has not even been given the chance to start upon.

There is only one present I’d wish for, but no one can give it to me. No one. Ever.

Soy un aballena...

I wrote this short story more than a year after 29 September 2009. Everything in it is probably true. I wish it weren't. I have not viewed the burnt DVD for a very long time. It hurts so much...

A little house at the bottom of the sea

A few years ago, my father came home one Friday evening with a video camera packed in a bag. I always called him Papá, as he came to Australia from Spain. He had borrowed the camera from work because he needed to practise; or so he said. The next day he filmed me and my twin brothers in the backyard. I saw the movie a few times after that day. It was fun and cool to see and hear myself and my brothers singing. Then he said he would burn a CD, but I didn't see the fire. He sent it overseas, to the place where he was born, for my Spanish relatives to see.

He does not want to see it too often these days; it makes him cry.

The movie is not too long, just about seven minutes. We run around the backyard while he‘s doing his best to focus and frame us. There is a moment I just lie on the dry browned summer grass and do something silly. “What on earth are you doing?”, he asks in Spanish. "Soy un aballena", I say. (Papá laughs at my mistake in Spanish.) “I‘m a little whale, I live in my little house at the bottom of the sea”, I chant in my shrill girl Spanish voice. “Get off the ground, you’re getting your clothes dirty”, he says in the stern voice he reserves for when he does mean something.

I did get up, eventually. I was only three years old.

****

We’re finally here after spending a couple of days in Apia. The sea dazzles; at noon the heat is quite intense yet bearable, there are a few clouds around but it does not look like it will rain. We flew across the ocean for about seven hours. I said to them: “We will arrive yesterday”. They looked puzzled, of course. They thought it was a joke. I guess the mix of tenses doesn’t go down well when you’ve just managed to learn to speak, and that the language mix at home may make things particularly complicated sometimes. Yet in a manner of speaking, it is true that we have travelled into the past: We left Australia on Friday afternoon and arrived in Apia on Thursday night.

Just five nights ago we were at home, practising the numbers in Samoan: tasi, lua, tolu, fa, lima… We think it’s worth showing you make the effort when you visit another country.

We’ll be staying here for a couple of nights. In one of these fales, metres away from the water. Behind the resort is the steep hill, dense with vegetation, mysterious yet inviting. The water is so clean. There is another smaller island about half a mile away, green, majestic. For thousands and thousands of miles around us, there is nothing else but water. On the horizon, the permanently white line of the reef. Hardly any waves make it to the shore. Perfect for children who are still learning to swim. They will gain in confidence.

After lunch we take a walk along the beach. Later we all put on our swimmers, make sandcastles and splash about. Everybody is having a great time, but she seems to be enjoying Samoa more than anyone else. She looks radiant, beautiful, so full of life. Her skin has quickly tanned under the Samoan sun. It’s taken just a couple of days for her to go very brown. She has my Spanish complexion.

****

My twin brothers woke up early – they still do. No rest for the wicked. Mummy said we wouldn’t get breakfast until nine, so she gave us fruit to eat. I ate my pear on the sand, looking at the beautiful blue water. I finished it and then Papá gave us some biscuits. He said they were from Chile, from across the water, and he pointed to the west. Then suddenly the ground started shaking. It was quite strange. The fales were rattling for almost a minute. Mum and Papá looked at each other and talked briefly. They looked at the other tourists. They looked at the local people, the ones who ran the resort.

We then went for a walk along the beach, like the day before. I saw the local kids on the road, wearing their school uniforms. I asked Mummy why they were going to school. She said they weren’t on holidays. We were on holidays. We had come from Australia for a holiday. On the beach I followed Papá, I was skipping on the sand, carefully putting my footprints on his. It was fun but difficult. He has such big feet I could not stretch myself long enough.

Suddenly Papá shouted: “Corred, corred”. He sounded very serious. We ran. We crossed the road. We were barefoot but kept on running. Papá was again yelling, but this time in English: “Run! Everybody run!” His voice sounded really scared. We just ran. We ran past a house. A woman was on the ground, crying. There were a few piglets, trotting around. They seemed scared, too. I turned around. I did not understand. Why was there no sky now? What was that water coming towards us? And that roar?

I was still holding Mummy’s hand. So was my brother Om. My other brother, Jay, he was with Papá. We turned and kept running for the hill. Then the water came. The water. So much water. It was so strong I immediately lost Mummy’s hand. The water dragged me up and down, it swirled me around. I hit a tree or something else. Lots of different things hit me: bits of coral, pieces of wood, rocks, tree branches… they hit my legs and my arms, they hit my back and my head. I could not come up for air.

I stayed at the bottom, like the little whale of my silly singsong a couple of years before. I think I became a whale-loving mermaid.

But Mummy and Papá cried a lot afterwards.

Father's Day

This is me. My portrait, made by my daughter at school, for one Father’s Day many years ago. It is, more or less, true to life – no hair at the top, very dark eyes. My Father’s Day today was rather uneventful. I actually had to go to work in the morning. Like so many other so-called ‘special days’, we really had nothing to celebrate. Which is just as well.

Today I just feel like saying that I have the best daughter in the world. She is indeed the best, the nicest, the cleverest and the most beautiful daughter in this whole world, and her name is Clea Soledad. She is 6 and 9 months old.

But she is gone. Like so many other children on 29 September 2009, she was taken away from us by the ocean, while all of us were walking on a paradisiacal beach in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. She was, she is, she will always be, the best daughter in the world.

I miss you, Babita.

Two Hearts Beating

“and once my mind is free and empty I hear the rhythmic hoot of owls. The two birds call each other and when suddenly one of them fails to respond my heart stops for a moment, waiting for the call. It soon follows and a strange pleasure begins to pulsate through my body.” (Subhash Jaireth, To Silence, p. 17)

The above caught my attention while I was reading my friend Subhash’s book. I’m not sure why exactly, but the passage brought back to me memories of the first night I was left to look after Clea on my own. She was just over seven months of age, and Mum went away for a much-deserved girls’ night on her birthday, her first night out in many years. Not that I was overwhelmed by responsibility. Far from that. I actually felt elated to be alone with my daughter.

It was, of course, a cold July night in Yass. After giving her dinner and her daily hot bath, I proceeded to hurriedly eat something. Then I sat down next to Clea. We read books and sang songs, played silly little games and had some giggles. At some point I went back to the kitchen and got myself a glass of red wine.

As the night progressed Clea became a little restless and began crying. I turned on the TV, put it on mute and picked the channel that was about to show the Bledisloe Cup match between the All Blacks and the Wallabies. I downed the rest of the wine and placed Clea on my abdomen, and a blanket on top of us both.

Heartbeats synchronised. Breathings became relaxed, restful. My mind was free and slowly drifted into sleep while the two hearts, father and daughter, beat in unison, a strange and rare joy of living synchronicity. A heart pulsating, calling on another heart, the heart of a pulsating being that is your own flesh and blood, to reply. Can anything else feel closer to the sense of a perfect union?

As weeks, months and years pass I find myself clutching at things, sounds, smells even that can prod my memory, willing myself to bring as many memories of Clea back as it is possible for me to do. G.W. McLennan’s One plus One was one of the songs Clea would sleep to during her first year’s afternoon naps. Two hearts beating, Papá y Clea, One plus One.

Swallows, show me the way: A sonnet

Swallows, show me the way

Where will you be found, since I am so lost

without you? What winds will my sails follow

across these desperate seas? Will swallows

show me the way to you? Will my soul, tossed

this and that way, find some peace and relief?

This is hellish living, of you deprived.

On a vain hope my loving feelings thrived

for so long, holding on to this belief:

Oh, yes, we will be together once more,

and we’ll hold hands, and dance; I’ll smell your hair,

and gaze at those hazel eyes I adore,

hear your voice… We’ll enjoy the love we share,

smiling, giggling, the way it was before,

where nothing matters, as we’re past all care.

(First published in Azuria#3, Summer 2013-14). Azuria is published by Geelong Writers, ISSN 2200-2367).

Writing and Bridges

Last year I took part in a small symposium in Wollongong, south of Sydney. The title of the gathering was In All Languages: Translingual Cultural Production. I had been invited by Michael J., an academic who has a strong interest in transnational writings, and who was the first person to show an academic interest in my book, Lalomanu. I still remember the moment his email appeared out of nowhere (as only certain emails do and actually change your life, don’t they?) inquiring about how he could purchase a copy of this very intimate book of poetry I wrote and published myself. Lalomanu was not for sale, I explained in my reply. I sent Michael a copy, naturally.

Michael presented his paper a couple of years ago; it has recently been submitted to a journal and might see the light of day soon. Michael has also very gently and convincingly suggested that I write a paper about my own writing, particularly on the topic of translingual literary production. Michael is of course aware of the emotional toll it does involve for me, yet on the other hand his appreciation is that I have a lot to say. And I obviously thank him for that.

Talking of writing: a couple of weeks ago I found a totally unexpected comment in my literary blog. It was left anonymously, but the person who wrote it has obviously known me for many decades (at least since high school, which he mentioned in the message) and more than likely used to be a friend of mine. He is not any more. Contact was interrupted for good (pun intended) more than a decade ago. It was not my decision. Anyway, the comment addressed me personally and pointed out how I had changed my mind with respect to tobacco being a drug since the days of high school, in the late 70s and early 80s.

It was a mildly abusive comment, one whose tone was mean and embittered. I deleted it, of course. What I find the most puzzling about this is the fact that whoever this person is (of course I do have a very good idea of who he is), he was incapable of acknowledging my daughter’s death by means of a message of condolence or some sort of attempt to get in touch. The question is: what is the point of re-barging into someone’s life (albeit in cyberspace) after almost twenty years, if all you’re going to do is taking such a bitter pot-shot? How low can people get? And why do they? There may be no answer.

A friend of ours recently remarked that we (my wife and I) had stopped writing in our blogs. She wondered whether we felt we have nothing left to say. That’s certainly not the case. I feel I still have lots to share, to write both about Clea and about myself. A small yet significant aspect in the rationale for having a blog is to receive responses to what you write (especially if you allow responses – not everybody does). I guess one of the reasons I write less frequently here is because I do not get as much of a response as I might have expected.

“Giving shape to a painful experience is powerful because it helps us to see first, how we got through it; second, how we can share it. The experience doesn’t stay trapped within us, unspoken, curdling — instead, the art of arranging and transforming it reduces the burden. It no longer belongs to only you. […] Each sentence contains the chaos — our experience becomes what we perceive. And the honesty in these perceptions, whether true or invented, creates a bridge to another person.” Karen E Bender, ‘The accidental writer’, The NY Times, 25 January 2013.

He, the embittered one, has certainly burnt that bridge. But I think I will write something for Michael, though.

Your Birthday Present: A sonnet

What present would I have got you today?

A new bicycle? A gadget? How cool…

Something I’m certain you’d have loved to play

with? Perhaps something to show off at school?

We would have got you a chocolate cake,

or would have gone out to dinner – Thai, Chinese…

or a very special dish Mum could make.

You were not too tough a diner to please.

Would have loved the mangoes so juicy and ripe,

Or a cooling mid-afternoon iceblock:

raspberry, orange, or lemon and lime.

Another birthday, one more year to clock.

Yet all I can give you today: my tears.

This grief beyond words, not having you here.

¡Andando!

About a month ago I had a car accident. Another driver called Anwar Kamal S. sped through the GIVE WAY sign at a roundabout and hit my Mazda 2 sideways. Luckily, I was not hurt. The car was written off, though. The accident temporarily revived some fleeting memories of feeling (seeing) my own body pushed, pulled and dragged by a force way beyond my control more than four years ago, in very different circumstances.

Over the next few days many different thoughts crossed my mind. I thought about Jason Carney and his best friend Alina, both of whom lost their lives after being broadsided by a drunk driver twelve years ago. I never knew Jason or Alina, but I feel sorry for them, for their senseless, absurd deaths, for the unbearable pain their parents were inflicted. I also thought the same could have happened to me – except it was at a roundabout (you have slow down even if just a little!) and in my case the driver (I firmly believe) was not drunk. Muslims (the vast majority of them at least) do not drink.

As days went by, I also thought about how the little car had been an integral part of our lives, Clea’s life included. Not that I feel any special attachment for the car itself, but rather for those indelible memories I cherish more and more as I get older.

The Mazda was the car in which Clea and I drove together to Sydney Airport one unforgettable night in September 2008. It was also the car where Clea and I shared those morning conversations every parent loves to have on the way to school. I reminisced about her first year of schooling, when her brothers went with their mother to a Childcare Centre in a different part of town, while Clea would jump in the car with her school bag, so full of vitality, so keen to learn.

It was the car whose engine I often had to turn on five minutes before leaving because the frost would make it impossible to drive off to school straightaway. I thought about Clea’s reply whenever I locked the home door and said ‘¡Andando!’ (literally, ‘walking’, but it’s one very idiomatic way of saying ‘Let’s get going!’). Although she already knew what it meant, Clea invariably said: ‘Andando no, ¡en coche!’

I have also been thinking that, regrettably, somewhere, there will be parents who will return home after the summer holidays without their child. Nothing can prepare us for the loss of our child. It is utterly unthinkable to consider that our child may predecease us. Nothing can bring them back. All we can do is to face up bravely to a new day every day. And that does feel too much sometimes.

¡Andando!

Torrijas

It is her favourite breakfast. Days-old bread soaked in warm milk, lightly coated in beaten eggs, then fried in olive oil until golden and finally sprinkled with sugar (and too much sugar would never be enough, of course!). Also known as French toast, I have always called it torrijas, and I still recall my parents frying torrijas of a cold winter morning, sometimes accompanied by thick hot chocolate.

These days I simply use French sticks (which I allow to ‘age’) from the supermarket, but the best are always the ones made with Pane di Casa, thicker Italian-style loaves you can cut into any shape that takes your fancy.

We had perfected some sort of family comedy routine. When the plate was full, I would sit at the table and stare at them, at Clea and her two younger brothers, and very seriously declare my breakfast was ready, so what were they going to eat for brekkie? She would immediately reply in an indignant tone: ‘¡Son para todos!’ They’re for everyone, they’re to be shared!

I still make torrijas as often as possible. Her brothers have elsewhere declared it one of the best foods in the world. I still will sit at the table, place the big plate in front of me and announce that my breakfast is ready, and what is everyone else going to eat?

I still hear Clea in my head, crying out that the torrijas are for everyone, indignant at the sheer injustice of her father promising to eat all of them by himself.

How can such a sweetly perfected family comedy routine vanish? Why?

I’d pour tonnes of sugar over them if that could lure her back, and I’d feel no guilt or shame for giving my child all the sugar she wanted. Just this once.

Thoughts and Feelings

The following headline, preceding the interview Eleanor Catton gave The Guardian caught my eye: ‘male writers get asked what they think and women what they feel’. It’s symptomatic, isn’t it?

To be accurate, Catton’s actual words were ‘I have observed that male writers tend to get asked what they think and women what they feel’. It certainly is an interesting and fairly sharp observation, but perhaps it may be worthwhile to go beyond the realm of literature.

I may of course be wrong, but according to my experience, males in general hardly ever get asked what they feel, let alone how they feel, particularly when the one asking is another male.

This might be a fundamentally Australian way of going about things, that is to say, a cultural trait. After all, Australia is such a weird place, where the question, ‘How are you?’, does not really mean ‘How are you?’ It is merely a greeting, not a question. Perhaps I’m clutching at straws there, but anyway, I’ve said it.

A few months ago, a TV campaign was launched by Beyond Blue to raise awareness about anxiety and depression among male Australians, particularly among the younger section of the population. It is of course an extremely laudable effort at making the community at large understand the issues of depression and anxiety, in an attempt to empower them to seek help when they feel or think (playing it safe here, I know) they need it.

What I found surprising (though nothing should surprise me anymore, really) about the campaign was the tongue-in-cheek approach adopted. The public face of the campaign is a doctor (an actor in real life, of course) who says rather funny things while encouraging viewers to go to the Man therapy website.

I found it rather sad that the (apparently) only way they could think of, in order to reach out to them, that is, so as to get males to take some interest in their own feelings, had to be through making fun of them.

I think it says a lot about the Australian male psyche. About how vulnerable it is, really; it also says a lot (and not too good) about the sadly frail façade many males hide behind in order to feign, to show themselves as joking, light-hearted blokes rather than genuinely disclose their own feelings to others.

But then again, authenticity is hardly something that defines our times. Or is it?

Tenses

A few weeks ago I read a blogpost titled ‘Forever 19 or What if?’ by Rebecca Carney, in her blog Grief:A Woman’s Perspective. Like with everything Rebecca writes, her words resonated in me, they made me think. This one post, however, made me think especially long and hard about language, not just the words in her post but rather about how our daily grammar has changed.

You see, I can't help being a linguist. A philologist. I have taught English and Spanish as second languages for many years. I have also been a translator and an interpreter for many years. I take notice of language and grammar. I perceive changes when they occur.

The conditional perfect is defined as “a grammatical construction that combines the conditional mood with perfect aspect”. One typical example of the conditional perfect in English is ‘I would have done things differently’. Thus, the conditional perfect is “used to refer to a hypothetical, usually counterfactual, event or circumstance placed in the past, contingent on some other circumstance (again normally counterfactual, and also usually placed in the past)”. All of those quotes are from Wikipedia.

For most people, the verbal tenses of their daily lives are both the present and the future. The rhythms of the everyday dictate their lives: the things they do or are doing at a certain time of the day, but also the things they plan to do or wish to do in the short and the medium term.

But for the parents of a dead child, their present and their future have been truncated. Their lives are anchored in the past, in a past that has become a ‘forever’. Forever 19. Forever a young man full of promise, like Jason Carney. Forever 6 years and 9 months. Forever a schoolgirl enjoying her first real holiday on the tropical sands of a paradisiacal beach in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, like Clea. Forever.

The conditional perfect is the verbal tense that defines the daily life of the grieving parent. We no longer think about our child in the future tense. We think about them – a lot, constantly, continually – but we do not think about what they will be doing in months or in years. We think about them and use the past tense as we reminisce about their interrupted lives. We think about them and use the conditional perfect as we muse over who they would have been, about what could have been, what should have been, what might have been.

For the parents of a deceased child, “What if?” is a ubiquitous question in our lives. And the answer is always in the conditional perfect, never in the future, forever in the past.

Snow

Snow has again covered the Brindabellas. Overnight, a white blanket had fallen on the hills and created a marvellous sight for Sunday morning. It will not stay there long. When snow makes its rare appearance on the smallish hills that surround Canberra, it is never a lengthy stay. It hasn't been a cold winter at all, and before we know it, it will be over. The chill in the wind will soon be the only reminder of the presence of the snow to the south-west.

I vividly remember the few times my parents would drive us outside the city of Valencia to see the snow. It was a rare phenomenon, too. But as a child I was mesmerised by it: there was something magical about so much whiteness. By the road, however, snow would become slushy and dirty; you had to walk away from the car park to see big stretches of the cleanest white stuff. We never had proper snow gear, and invariably would get cold and feel miserable. These days I think I actually dislike the snow: I can’t ski, I don’t see myself trying to learn now, and I much prefer the company of a book by a warm radiator, with a hot cuppa nearby.

This photo is the first time Clea saw the snow. It was September 2008. After the solitary wintry blast of the year – for that’s what it has become, winter: one very cold weekend per year! – we drove to the Brindabellas and parked the car near the Corin Forest Mountain Retreat. There would be another trip to the Selwyn Snowfields for a one-day snow ‘treat’. Quite uneventful, really.

There wasn't much snow on the ground, but it was enough to make a few snowballs and throw them at each other. Clea enjoyed the battles with her brothers and took aim at her parents. Laughing. Giggling. Shrieking with joy. Shocked when a snowball hit her near too close to her face. Feeling the cold in her hands. She looked beautiful, pure, as beautiful and pure as snow. My beautiful babita. I miss you, mi amor.

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.

Treaty yeah!

A great Yolngu man died yesterday. Yunupingu died of kidney disease at 56 years of age, at an age much younger than most Australians have died or will die. Like so many of his indigenous people, he died too young. Australia has lost a great man, a great artist and a great indigenous leader.

Yunupingu was the leader of Yothu Yindi, a fantastic band. In 2009, during one of the school assemblies, my daughter Clea and all the students in her year danced and sang along to one of Yothu Yindi’s greatest hits: Treaty. She played these bimli, the clapping sticks, which she had hand-painted herself. It was a fantastic display of energy, of commitment, of youth who could believe in themselves and in a more just future for all their connationals.

It feels it was only the other day that I was standing there, watching and clapping along, encouraging the very young school kids in their singing and dancing, in their embracing the indigenous culture of the First Australians, in demanding a Treaty for this country.

Maybe one day there will be a treaty. Probably not in the next few years, I'm afraid. I think Clea would have liked to see a treaty for all her people, indigenous and non-indigenous.

She's now buried in this Ngunnawal land, where she was born: she's also part of this land.

Blueback

We like to talk about books at home. Even if we do not actively discourage watching TV, it is our firm belief that a book tells you a lot more than any movie or TV series can. It is all about how you read, actively engaging your imagination and allowing your imagination to be engaged, in ways that are far more rewarding than the passive intake TV usually means.

The other night, the boys were discussing the Lockie Leonard TV series. They were both quite surprised when they were told that Lockie Leonard is actually based on a series of books by an Australian author, Tim Winton (who happens to be one of my favourite Australian novelists, by the way). They both think the Lockie Leonard TV series is quite cool; I explained to them that while the TV episodes are very funny, the books are even more.

That brought to my mind another book by Tim Winton, Blueback. Blueback is a story about a young boy, who meets a giant blue groper while diving near his home on the western coast of Australia. The boy will grow up developing a sense of affection and protection for the fish, and in adulthood he becomes a marine biologist.

I mentioned Clea had once begun reading the book, which she stopped reading because it was way too hard for her level. I also said how sad it is that she was unable to finish it. So sad, so very unfair. Her brothers’ response was one that makes me very proud of them. They are not afraid to express their emotions. They are learning to be real, genuine, and that makes me feel good, despite being sad.

I will one day reread Blueback. And I will be thinking of my daughter, I will be wishing she could read it herself. At 10 years of age, it would certainly be at her reading level now.

“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.

Lily and Huff

Perhaps I have imagined this: during the (occasionally unendurably) long hours I spend home alone I have recently walked into Clea’s bedroom; I have sat there and have grabbed some of her books from the bookshelf.

Maybe I have started reading out this story, Lily Ladybird, once more, the way I used to read it out to her when she was a toddler, she sitting on my knees after her bath, smelling clean and fresh and so, so very full of life. Maybe I have read it again translating the story into Spanish, the way I used to read it to her, even though the book is written in English.

It is just possible that I have been unable to finish it, but I remember it well. It tells the story of a good little ladybird who lived in an enchanted garden. One day she lands on an old branch that happens to be the nose of very horrible witch, who gets very cranky with Lily and casts a spell on her. “No longer will you be good and kind and helpful!” says the witch with an ominously wicked, croaky, throaty voice, and then lets out the most horrible laughter a daddy pretending to be a witch can put on.

Lily’s nose gets all twisted and crooked, and she starts behaving really badly. Her poor mum cries. Her friends stay away from her… Where was her father, by the way? He never gets a mention in the story… But Lily makes new friends: a hideous spider, Dolly, and a very slimy toad, Tony. And then one night they steal a magic wand from a fairy, and start mucking around… and suddenly, the spider turns into a carrot, and the toad turns into a bunny! That'll teach them a lesson! So the fairy sees that Lily is actually good-natured but she’s under the malignant spell of the witch, and so she turns her back into her good old self.

Perhaps I have had to put Lily Ladybird down. It is just possible that I could not go beyond the wicked bout of laughter Clea loved to hear. That childhood excitement of being suddenly given a little fright…

Maybe I have then taken in my hands this other very old book, called Huff the Hedgehog. It actually belongs to Clea’s mum. Her name is still handwritten on the cover. A very very old Christmas present.  Huff is a very hungry hedgehog, who goes around looking for food. He repeats his little rhymed self-introduction to every animal he comes across. I remember that when Clea first asked me to read this book, I had of course to come up with a rhymed version in Spanish. I did, and I suspect it was probably nearly as good as the original:

“Soy Huff el puercoespín,

todavía no he cenado,

si no como pronto,

voy a quedarme muy delgado."

Every time Huff finds something edible, a farm animal comes up and tells him that it’s their food Huff is taking. He walks away every time, hungry and disconsolate, knowing that if he does not get his dinner, he'll “get thinner and thinner”. And eventually he meets a lovely blonde girl who gives him a bowl of bread and milk. Huff loves it.

Maybe someone was listening, maybe not. Perhaps tears welled up and then they were falling down my cheeks, and desperation again filled my mind. It is just possible that I had to close the books and put them away.

I think maybe Huff and Lily felt lonely, perhaps even a little sad, when I tried to read their stories.