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.