Breakfast with Friends

We get together for breakfast a few weeks before Christmas. But we don’t get together because we want to celebrate Christmas. In fact, Christmas may be a difficult time of year for some of us.

We come from various suburbs and we are from very different backgrounds. We have very different jobs and interests. We are very different people.

Our political ideas might differ vastly or be very similar, but we don’t talk politics. Our hobbies are also entirely different. Some of us are elderly, some of us may be in poor health, and some of us are middle-aged and relatively healthy. Some of us are men, some of us are women. Some of us are survivors ourselves.

Some of us write poetry. Some of us would not dream of putting a few words to paper. Some of us read a lot, but others don’t. Some of us love listening to music all day, while some of us would prefer total, absolute silence all day, every day. Some of us grow flowers; some of us cannot be bothered.

Some of us drink heavily, but some of us are teetotallers. Someone might argue that all of us have almost nothing in common, and somehow they would be right, to some extent. Still, we like to get together and share a table a few weeks before 25 December.

We sit there, at these tables, and we talk, and we may even try to joke and laugh, although deep inside there may be no mood for laughter. Not really; but we all know when to laugh, and what to laugh about.

We are perfect strangers, yet we like to get together. We seem to have almost nothing in common, but we all agree that we like to get together of a Sunday, a few weeks before that time of year they call Christmas. We do this because there is something that unites us, despite our vast differences.

We get together, and we eat a late breakfast – a very late breakfast for those of us who have been awake since 5 am, way before the sun rose. For some of us, waking up before dawn is our daily bread.

We have all brought a little something we would like to give away as a present. We organise a raffle, draw numbers and take a gift home, a gift for the one who is not there.

What is it that brings us together, you might ask? That something that unites us is enormous; it is, quite possibly, well beyond words. We get together because all of us grieve for our dead child. We all have one child that has predeceased us. For some of us, there may have been two deaths; children who have died before their parents.

We get together because we want to reach out to each other; we get together because we share our pain; we get together because one does not just “get over” losing a child. We all know that. We share that knowledge. We go through our loss every day. We get together because for some of us, the ones we might have relied upon for understanding and support have simply vanished into thin air or have cowardly hidden behind an unwritten code of silence.

We feel there is a lot of comfort in getting together. For some of us, there may be hope to be shared. For some of us, hope is an abstraction, no more. But the most important thing – at least for me – is that there is no room for pretence. There is no need to fake. There is no pressure. There is no silliness, no vacuous laughter.

For the rest of people, perhaps even for you, it may be the ‘silly season’. How silly is that?

Petals: A poem

Petals

(for Trudie)

They collect rose petals. They place them

in plastic takeaway containers; then they drive.

The road’s never too busy – it’s Sunday morning.

Two boys chatter the drive away,

past the windows and past the empty seat

that so suddenly appeared between them,

instead of their sister.

It is thirty-eight months old, but the car

slows down to twenty – ducks crossing.

A narrow steep driveway.

Stop.

Four doors open, four feet will walk slowly,

the other four race away, past the plaques

and the vases, past the windsocks, past

so many plastic flowers last night’s stormy

wind must have spread around.

They bring young flowers, blooms for an old sorrow.

They’re like silky raindrops,

like tears falling down from the sky

dropping like a warm blanket for winter.

Rose petals on the lawn:

they cover the emptiness their life has become.

So many rose petals! So delightful! So smooth!

These are teary petals,

they are grief-stricken blooms.

(c) Jorge Salavert, 2012

Penyagolosa

Penyagolosa

For many years the idea of my own death and what would happen to my body thereafter did not worry me too much. I had never really contemplated my own death as an event that was near. ‘Dead’ was not a word that I used on a daily basis. All that changed on 29 September 2009, and ‘dead’ is part of the vocabulary that reality has assigned to my life, every day, when I wake up.

And it’s not that I had not witnessed death before. As it happens to most people, my grandfathers went first (I hardly recall my paternal grandfather, he died when I was a small child – I do remember my maternal grandfather fondly, he was a loving man who was always surrounded by children; he worked as a clown for a few years after the Spanish Civil War, during which he lost his only son, Rafael, just a few months old, to disease and malnutrition).

A few years later, and over an ever-worsening process that took several months, I saw my paternal grandmother die a slow, terrible death because of diabetes and poor blood circulation. My other grandmother died suddenly in late 1995.

My own father died when I was 25. He died of a heart attack on a hot August morning, and the ambulance that was sent did not have the equipment that might have saved his life. But I only found out ten days later. I was abroad and no one was able to locate me. Yes, I was young and stupid. Haven’t we all been young and stupid at some point in our lives?

As per his wishes, my father was cremated. My mother suggested that I might want to bury his ashes. I agreed, of course. I buried them under the Norfolk pine tree we had always mistaken for a fir-tree; the Norfolk pine tree now towers majestically above my mother’s house. After digging a hole and pouring the ashes in there, I put a rock on top.

I had always held on to a somehow idyllic plan for my own funeral. I had always thought I would die before anyone else in my family. I would be survived by my wife and three children. My wishes were (still are) that my body would be cremated.

My (somewhat romantic) dream was that, eventually, my daughter Clea would make the trip to Spain and fulfil my wishes by climbing Penyagolosa Mountain [the picture above was taken in summer 1992] and scatter my ashes, that what once was me out to the wind, not necessarily from the top, but at least from a good vantage point, somewhere with breathtaking vistas. Just somewhere beautiful in a place that once meant a lot to me.

I do not want my ashes to go to Valencia now. The bond that once joined me to those lands is very fragile, to the extent that apart from family and very few friends, I have no business there any more. But even if my sons offered to carry out the task when the time comes (and it will), I would say no. No, I would rather have my ashes scattered in the land of the Ngunnawal, on the petal-coated lawn beneath which my Clea is buried.

Still, I do hope that my boys will travel to Spain, and that they have a great time, or even move there for good if they wish to do that when they are older. They’ll be able to do that if they wish. They could even climb Penyagolosa, and admire the views. It’ll be their choice. But there will be no need for them to take my ashes over there, to a place with whose people I no longer feel a truly meaningful attachment. Another part of me died over the months and years after 29 September 2009, and it cannot be resuscitated.

Call that a radical shift? Yes. Is it justified? You betcha!

Strawberries

Our family moved to the house where we now live, in early December 2007. At the time there was a fairly big birdcage in the backyard, near the tool shed. Very close to it the previous owners had kept a small patch of strawberry plants.

We soon gave away the birdcage, and trying to emulate the one I used to look after in Yass, I decided to create a veggie patch where the birdcage had stood – the soil there was richer there, for obvious reasons. For the veggie patch to be of a decent size, I had to get rid of the strawberries. I spent a fair bit of time converting that area into a veggie patch that summer.

As a child I remember keeping a few strawberry plants for myself, and I would be incensed whenever my brother ate my strawberries. Before throwing away the strawberry plants, I asked the neighbours, who were not interested. Then I asked Clea if she would like to keep any. Yes, she said. Clea loved strawberries – she loved just about any kind of fruit, actually.

So I moved the plants to another area in the garden where nothing was growing then. It was (still is) a smallish corner, and at the time it was covered with some weathered mulch and nothing else. I dug up the soil as well as I could, and pretty soon we had a few strawberry plants growing; we even managed to eat a few strawberries – just a handful – later that summer.

In 2008 Canberra was in drought, like most of Australia, so 2008 was not a great year for strawberries, but the few small ones we collected Clea would take to school for her fruit morning break. Like with any other fruit, home grown strawberries do not grow to be huge like the supermarket ones; but they are definitely tastier.

In 2009 I decided to give the strawberries a good boost and applied a generous layer of Moo Poo to them (Moo Poo? – yes, that’s the brand name of the fertiliser!). Some good rains that year – I remember seeing full dams everywhere that October day when we were finally able to return home from Samoa – produced a bumper crop. But Clea was not here with us to eat them.

Clea’s strawberries have kind of gone wild all over the place. These days they grow by the veggie patch (which is rather neglected, I must admit); they also grow beneath some rose bushes on the western side, and they now have invaded part of the terraced garden at the northern side. Recent rains have helped the plants produce wonderful blooms, and the coffee and tea dregs we pour on them seem to give them some extra strength, without resorting to Moo Poo.

One of the sonnets I wrote in late 2010 began like this:

Shall I imagine an infinite field

of strawberries for you, …

Amid an endless field of strawberries – that’s where I would have wished Clea to be then. Yet I knew she was gone forever. Depending on the day, my wish (not a hope… What on earth is hope? What is it for?) may take one form or another, but in actual fact, it never materialises. But let Clea’s strawberries grow, let the plants take over the whole garden if they wish to do so.

Clea’s brothers will soon be eating all those strawberries she cannot eat. As for me, if I were able to share one last handful of these home grown strawberries with her, the last one, something in this new life I have to live would make sense, somehow.

Blow, wind, blow: A sonnet

For Laura

Blow, wind, blow this piercing sorrow away,

Swell this lively windsock her forlorn friend

Made, her remembrance of much sweeter days,

When their playtime was not supposed to end.

Shine, oh sun, shine, dry all my loving tears,

Give blooms the life my darling was denied

On far-off shores; she’d lived only six years

And nine months, she was still a little child.

Their windsock soars today, it flaps and sighs

Proud yet feisty, suspended in the air,

Persuades me to pursue it with my eyes

Beyond space and light, an unknown place where

Happy giggles mark the passing of time

Pain fades to oblivion, grief has no rhyme.

(c) Jorge Salavert, 2012. 

I spy with my little eye...

Clea’s paternal grandmother, her iaia, has been to Australia three times. The first time was in late 1996, soon after I came to live in the ‘lucky country’. (I see a great deal of irony in that moniker for Australia. Do you see it, too?).

My mother made the drawing above, in return for a drawing Clea made of her family, and which I duly mailed to her. It’s a silly yet affectionate drawing; it was inspired by a photograph of the children at Christmas. Clea was wearing the typical reindeer antlers and her siblings had red caps on. The drawing has been on the fridge door for a long time, held in place by a fridge magnet.

My mother's second visit took place a year after Clea was born, in early 2004 —we actually travelled to Singapore to meet her halfway. That helped her split her long trip from Europe in two stages. For a few days I walked Clea around Singapore in a very comfortable baby backpack we had bought for her. From up there she was able to see a lot of the world, and she was of course admired and talked to by lots of people in Singapore. Asian people love children, as you know. She was a little princess, a starlet everybody smiled to.

The third and last time was in late 2008. My mum flew without any overnight stops to Sydney; I drove to pick her up on a Thursday night; Clea had the last day of the school term off because she wanted to come along on the three-hour drive; there would be at least a one-hour wait and then another three hours back to the ACT. We would probably go to sleep at around 3 am —which we did— but she did not mind.

I would like to share a memory of that first hour of driving, between Canberra and Goulburn. We set out after dinner, just as the sun was starting to set. Clea and I spent almost a whole hour playing the Spanish version of ‘I spy with my little eye…’ (veo, veo). Eventually it became a little difficult to play the game; it is not so much fun when you start repeating items! Apart from passing trucks and cars headlights, there was hardly anything else you could see.

At some point, when it was my turn, I began with my “veo, veo…”. Sitting at the back, excited about this night trip to the big city airport, Clea asked: “¿Qué ves, Papá?”. I paused for dramatic effect and then blurted out, feigning shock: “NOTHING! I CAN SEE NOTHING! It’s too dark!”

Clea cracked out laughing. She thought it was a hilarious response to the game, and I guess my contrived surprise added to her hilarity. Eventually we reached Sydney Airport, picked up Iaia Marisol and her luggage, and drove back to Canberra.

While my mum was here in Australia, we did lots of walks around the nearby lake. One afternoon we stopped at a park where the children could play. Suddenly big dark clouds were gathering to the west, and I realised a big storm was on its way.

We all got caught by the heavy rain; we were drenched to the bone by the time we got home. We rushed as much as we were able to when we got closer to home, but Clea stayed with her Iaia, who did not know her way home and who could not run or walk too fast. It goes to show how much she cared for her own family.

I don't expect my mother to visit again. In fact, I would rather she did not come over. I would rather not take her to see Clea's grave. I would rather she did not have to see what a sad person his son is: the grieving father.

I have often been told to hold on to hope, whatever that might mean. Yet like that night on the Federal Highway, I see nothing. Unlike then, though, I'm not trying to make anyone laugh.

29 September 2009: The children

The children’s names, their age.

Those of us who were there under the water but were lucky to survive, will never forget them. Never.

Eliza Taamilo 2

Sio Taufua 11 months

Dmitry Kikhtiev 1

Clea Salavert Wykes 6

Teancum Schwalger 2

Abish Schwalger 1

Joseph Purcell 4

Pili Poo 4

Maupenei Tofilau 1

Nonumaifele Tofilau 3

Siliva Eteuati 1

Amataga Tiotio 11

Vaisigano Lauvai 3

Rosa Lafaua 3

Filisi Tavita 11 months

Hatonaina Lauvai 2

Siaea Areta 1

Sima Sepelini 3

Manino Faaaliga 2

Aloalo Sao 6

Ana Iulai 5

JayJay Ulugia 2

Pefata Sau 2

Aneti Lueafitu 2

Togafalea Alesana 3

Kapeneta Viiga 3

Alema Tofu 3

Precious Malaga 5

Rachel Leuelu 5

Marilyn Ulugia 3

Quezon Lesa 3

Junior Livigisitone 2

David Sootaga 7 months

Tapuloa Taimane 4

Satelite 1

Losivale Faapoi 10

Lutia Faapoi 2

Gwenlyn Taufua 4

Aleki Taumoe 1

Aliceann Meredith 4

Malo Mikaele 3

Siu Pritchard 2

Ardmore Meredith 3

Gardenia Meredith 1

Shanna Lanu 2

Moanalei Long 9

Jayson Siu 6

Nifo Siu 10

Tuese Peilua 1

Anesone Gali 3

Leuti Sio 8

Maliumai Anetone 5

Etimani Taufua 9 months

Sili Taufua 11 months

Frazer Faaleaga 2 months

Tiloni Sio Pati 3

Seea Peilua 3

Feagai Fatuesi 2

Pelesasa Etimani 4

Ronaldo Aleni 5

Falevalu Segifili 9

Malo Vai 4

Willie Leio Taamu 5

Aleki Vai 1

Savelio Taeao 3

Jamie Viliamu 3

Alfie Cunliffe 2

The Magpie

Spring in Canberra can be a beautiful time of year: flowers are blooming everywhere, the grass is greener than ever, and daytime temperatures are usually mild and pleasant. Yet springtime is also the magpie swooping season. Australian magpies are very curious, inquisitive birds. They are known to approach people with some confidence and easily accept a feed, but they are also extraordinarily territorial animals; so much, that for as long as their little ones remain in the nest, they will harass anyone who approaches.

I was walking back from school the other morning, reading a book as is my custom, when I was suddenly attacked from behind. The magpie gave me a bit of a fright; my sunglasses fell to the ground. Much more hassled was a girl who was riding her bike to school; she eventually had to dismount because the magpie would not stop attacking her.

It feels as if it were only last year when Clea came running into her grandparents’ house, crying and holding her head. She had been playing outside, in the paddocks near the hay shed, when a magpie swooped down from one of the old gum trees on the farm and scratched her, drawing a little blood. She was very upset. I recorded the episode in a poem I wrote more than a year ago, ‘Whisper Her Name in the Wind’.

The magpie was simply protecting their little ones, I tried to explain, and did not mean to hurt. All animals have developed a sense of protection in one way or another. It is in every parent’s nature and instinct to protect our little one. Like the magpie, I would have done anything to be able to protect my little one.

When you lose your little one, the world becomes meaningless, and perhaps it can regain some semblance of consequence and logic after a long time.

In the garage: A sonnet

In the garage

Tedious tasks bring these days brushes with sighs.

On each item a leaden shadow lurks

heavy, the air hints a frown as pain works

its ruthless certitude before his eyes.

Her pink bicycle, her scooter, her kite:

they’re but musings, shades of days masked by time

and sorrow, echoes of giggles, the rhyme

of memory; the grief he could recite.

Outside the winter rain pummels the pane.

The cruel void crunches and batters his heart;

a dense spectre of sadness hounds his brain.

Thus he retreats into this shrouded art.

The disguise beneath numb words keeps him sane.
For months ago her death tore him apart.

I wrote this sonnet in the early spring of 2010, and sent it to a local poetry competition; to the judges, it must have been a fairly unremarkable poem. And that’s fair enough, I must add.

With poetry, what some believe wonderful is rather unexceptional to others. Poetry is a very personal experience, for both the composer and the reader. At the time, I thought it was very fine poem: it tells a story – a father doing his everyday chores in the family garage – and describes the sort of thoughts and feelings grief prompts in the bereaved.

I still think this is quite an expressive sonnet. Poetry – or literature in general – affords me a space where I can express myself in words, rather than in tears. Tears are more visible, but they vanish once they stop flowing. Words remain, and may reach out to others in ways we do not fully comprehend.

The poem was inspired by the sight of Clea’s bicycle, abandoned in the garage. Only a Samoan girl, who happens to be from a village (Lepa) which is not far from where Clea drowned, has since ridden the bike. She was a member of the taekwondo team that visited Canberra two years ago; we invited them for a barbeque the night before they returned back to Apia. They all had a good time, playing table football (I beat them all, of course!).

Clea’s bike was a find. The bicycle had been left under a tree near outside a church where I used to park the car on my way to work. It wasn’t new, but Clea did not mind. Side wheels were duly attached to it for safety, and she was soon pedalling up and down the flat driveway of our home in Yass. Eventually she mastered the cycling and the little wheels were discarded.

Her scooter was a present she got from my mother during her visit in 2008. It had to be pink, of course. Clea was so excited about having her own scooter! It was something she truly enjoyed.

We used to go for rides around the neighbourhood, on bikes and scooters. For a fairly long time after Clea’s death, we stopped doing that. Her bicycle remains in the garage. The tyres are flat. A thick film of dust is slowly gathering on the seat and the handlebar.

Someone said to my wife the other day that three years have gone fast. I was baffled. Well, I say, it’s all relative, isn’t it? For me, some days feel like an intolerable eternity. Talk about time passing fast...

The passage of time does not - it will not - bring our child back; time does not fill the void, nor does it attenuate the pain.

There is always the poetry, though.

The Force of Nature

This is one of the last photographs of Clea. Our own camera was of course lost in the 29 September 2009 tsunami; all the photographs we took while we were in Samoa – and there quite a few of them – were gone with the wall of water.

This photograph was taken at the top of the Telstra Tower in Black Mountain, on the 24^th of September 2009, less than a week before she died. Clea went on a school excursion that day; she was so excited! It was going to be her last day of school for the term – it ended up being her last day of school ever. The next day we drove to Sydney and boarded our flight to Apia.

On the plane, Clea was sitting next to me during landing. In those days, you had to cross the dateline to go to Samoa, so we arrived the day before at night time. The dim lights we were able to glimpse through the window were those of Apia: little shiny specks amid the immense blackness the ocean is at night. The plane appeared to be shaking a lot while we approached the runway, far more than I am used to, to be honest, so the landing felt kind of bumpy. Clea got a little scared until the plane touched down and ran the length of the tarmac.

For some reason, this image of Clea haunts my imagination in ways I cannot describe – nor would I like anyone to have to imagine. I see a vulnerable little girl, recoiling, holding on to her hat (which, actually, she lost that day!) and grimacing against the very strong, cold winds that swept Canberra that early spring day. I see the image of my daughter against the force of nature; I don’t think anyone could argue that, the impression you get on seeing the image is that she was not having fun as her teacher took the photograph – by the way, I have cropped it so that other students are not seen. Her jumper is zipped up tight; her hair is a real mess, hardly held in place by the pink hair band I now wear on my left wrist every day, wherever I go.

No, her facial expression definitely says that at this moment she was not enjoying being up there, at the top of the Telstra Tower.

For a few months after our return to Canberra, I had frequent nightmares, reliving the tsunami. Even now, nearly three years later, I occasionally may wake up with a start in the middle of the night, and it may take me a long time to settle again into a normal rhythm of sleep, if or when I do at all. Normally, I have no idea of what is it that woke me up. Yet something wakes me up. Believe me: it’s neither the carbon tax nor the prospect of another boatload of asylum seekers approaching the very remote islands to the north of the very remote northern coasts of Australia. Those are not things I would lose any sleep over.

It’s not as if I were consciously trying to keep memories of those horrifying moments. In fact, I wish I could forever forget the panic and the terror; if only I could erase those from my memory for good… But the truth is I cannot. Our imperfect brains: We forget what we want to remember, but what we would like to forget keeps coming back to haunt us.

This is not too dissimilar from the widespread notion that with time we, the grieving parents, have to somehow “get over” our child’s death. I’m sorry if I disappoint somebody: we just don’t. We never will. We just cannot “get over” it, because we will never be able to retrieve such a big chunk of our future. yes, it is their future that we have lost forever. How can one get over the fact that your child’s future (which is also yours) suddenly snaps and then is gone? Does anybody know?

I do know, however, that my daughter Clea died a terrible death. She perished under the unstoppable violence of nature, the victim of an incredibly powerful, relentless natural force. It is almost impossible to comprehend – and even for us, who were there and survived, it seems unreal now.

After the Japanese tsunami happened more than a year ago, for a while I kind of expected people would ask me about it. For the first time in human history, a tsunami was broadcast live on TV. It was possible for people to gain a better understanding of what it is like to be there, so vulnerable, so small under the colossal force of nature.

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.

Learning

For the last five months I have been a Team Manager, helping the Coach of the Auskick team my two sons belong to. I have witnessed and admired this man’s patience while training ten rather rowdy and often undisciplined boys. I wish I had just a mere 1% of the patience he has shown. I think all the players have learnt a lot from him.

A few months ago I began teaching Clea’s brothers to use a fork and a knife to cut their steak. Like most boys, they enjoy eating meat. It felt good to witness their first attempts to use a knife; you could sense in them some sort of achievement, their realisation that they could now divide a largish chunk of beef into smaller, more manageable pieces.

That sense of achievement is in other words the awareness of learning, and I’m sure every parent will agree that it’s a joyful, fantastic feeling, being there to witness it. It is something to relish; it becomes a memory to cherish, too.

There will be many other skills and aptitudes these young men will need to learn before they can fend for themselves. And it will be many years before their parents can feel confident enough that they can go and live their own lives. And even then… who knows what the future may bring.

This brings me to the realisation that we all need to learn all the time. If we don’t, we become stagnant, stationary, helplessly fixed on what we already know.

I am learning, too. For two years and eleven months now I have been learning to live without my daughter Clea. I’m still learning, day after day. I often feel I will never stop learning, because this is a never-ending process. As I wake up every morning, as I (sometimes reluctantly) immerse myself into a state of consciousness, a bitter realisation dawns on me: yet another day of this learning has begun.

What is it like, you may ask yourself. Well, some days you feel you have the energy and the will to learn; other days, you feel you don’t have any energy at all, let alone the will, so you could easily give everything up, because you feel trapped in a place and time where you don’t really want to be. You would want this loathsome reality to shatter, so you could start anew.

It is a fraught process. I guess it cannot be easy for most people to understand what I mean — unless they are in an analogous position. And I do not mean the loss of a parent: I lost my father to heart disease when I was 25; he was 58. It is not comparable. The loss of a loved one is always a terrible experience, but I believe losing your child takes you to a different dimension. It is a dimension most people would not even wish to contemplate in their own lives. That is, of course, quite understandable.

I am learning to live a life I did not choose to live. I see it is as a burden I have to carry; I have accepted the fact that I have to learn, one day at a time.

Yes: I am learning to live without my daughter. I do know I can be a difficult person to be with, to talk to, even to look in the eye. This is not what I thought I’d be doing in 2012; this was not the life I had planned to live when I would turn 48. Learning is what I’m most likely to be doing in 2013, 2014, 2015, etc.

I’m making the effort to learn something that probably I will never learn completely. It’s quite difficult; still, I’m trying to be patient with my own learning self. After all, what other choice do I have?

The Little Artist

Clea Salavert, Mother and Daughter Sitting on a Rock (scanned copy of lost original, circa 2006)

It is just a drawing by a three-year old. There is nothing special about it, except that when I first saw it and I asked Clea what it was, the explanation she gave made a lot of sense to me. Once we grow older, we cannot see the world through the eyes of child anymore, so when — or if — we come across a representation of the world as a child sees it, and we are somehow able to trace the interpretation they have made of the world around them, I feel it is a nice surprise.

Of course, at the time I never thought I would end up treasuring this picture the way I do now. It somehow became stuck to the fridge door and stayed there for many years. It is still there, reminding us daily of the little artist she could have been when we fetch the milk for breakfast. The original, of course, was destroyed: it ended up in the recycling bin, like all the many other drawings Clea would make in her early years. I guess I should be glad that one day I took it to work and scanned it. I used Photoshop to add the title Clea had given it, and her name.

It was really meant to be kind of a joke: I would hang her masterpiece on the wall and admire it with a feigned critical eye, making teasing comments such as ‘the evident masterful combination of light, shade and colour’, or ‘the expert control of the line where the absence of light would make it invisible’; nonsense of that kind she giggled to. Now, I cannot remember exactly when she made it, but you might wish to consider that this is one of the few ways of escape we, the grieving parents, have at our disposal: to fictionalise their past, since we have not been given the chance to create a record of their future.

Clea enjoyed all make-believe games. She loved impersonations, and in her rather original games she loved to pretend she was someone else. I wish I were someone else, too, so I could fictionalise a present and a future that did not include her absence as the overwhelming feature.