Days for remembering

Memory days are perfectly ordinary days when thinking about Mottsu sort of sneaks up on me. Some days just remind me of him, quiet rainy ones in particular.

Rainy days evoke memories of Mottsu, maybe because I love how the rain falls and quietens a day. Everything shushhed, like the sound of car tyres on the wet road. I think those are days when you huddle in closer with someone, share an umbrella, shelter together. Rainy days and Mottsu and I would slip into a cinema for the afternoon. Rainy weekend evenings we’d cook, bake, roast, time in the kitchen warm and safe, nurtured. Together with nowhere else to be.

Memory days, are different to anniversaries and birthdays, or special occasions. Days when you perhaps have anticipated the remembering of someone who’s no longer here but you can just feel them present. They are days I feel more alone – if it’s possible to be more alone than everyday regular alone. Importantly I feel wistful more than bereft, and that’s comforting to recall.

He is quietly remembered and I am grieving differently. I like to remember him well.

Another shade of blue

There is a building in my street that used to be painted blue, not any shade of blue but the most wonderful shade of blue. I constantly admired it. I recall I admired it to a point of being annoying.

I would skip down the street with Mottsu (and I not he) gasping in with excitement about discovery of the most marvellously coloured wall. Blue.

In appreciating that wall I would be flooded with appreciation for the life we shared.

How lucky we are” I said.

Can you even imagine the odds of us finding each other?” I said, “ …luck of the draw, a fluke of chance to be born here, to live with such privilege…

I feel so blessed, so lucky…” I said.

We share such a beautiful life” I said.

I love our life” I said.

Notice one person was doing all of the talking.

One of us was admiring our beautiful life and one was listening and nodding. One of us would wax lyrical about the wall of perfect blue. Who was I trying to convince?

He must have nodded, I can’t recall with certainty now. His response wasn’t enthusiastic, nor mean, merely weary of natter. Blue was something different for Mottsu than for me.

The building has been renovated and painted grey. It’s a similar shade but I miss the blue. My blue was different to his blue.

I like to remember this story. I feel silly about how often, and enthusiastically, I tried to convince him of our good fortune without ever noticing that he wasn’t quite with me.

I remind myself how difficult it was at times to live with someone who suffered depressive bouts, which isn’t to say it wasn’t difficult for Mottsu…

Different blue.

Mottsu and me

This blog is mostly about the loss of Mottsu, the circumstances his depression and suicide, my struggle to come to terms with the trauma of that loss, my complicated grieving. It is hard to live with a person suffering depression. He said he couldn’t feel anything, that wasn’t always how it was. Way back, as early as our shared history stretches, we had been out for dinner with a group of mutual friends and a couple of stragglers were sitting in my kitchen close to midnight when the floors and walls shook. Each looked only at the other, both wondering if the other had felt the tremor. The earth moved when we met.

We soon learned the Turkish consulate a few streets away had been bombed that night. So it was a bomb rather than emotion that moved us. Even so our lives were changed when we met, as a couple of me people became a we.

We were a fabulous we, particularly he:
*we went to the supermarket together after gym
*he played eye-spy while we were horse riding
*we held hands at the movies
*he was a punter
*I loved him
*sometimes I was horrible to him and other times I just didn’t think
*he was a journalist and writer, who briefly kept a journal about his depression

This is my own journal. Suicide is hard, hardest on those left behind, that’s the story of Mottsu and me.

Left behind and on my own I am keeping it together. Sometimes surprise myself and I just as often disappoint myself. I keep on talking, writing and dreaming…

It’s only words

A wordle of this blog.

The super pillow incident

We were browsing through a bedding shop when I noticed the goose down pillows. They were plump and pliant and stupidly expensive. Extravagant more than generous I bought one for Mottsu. I loved that pillow, it was a spontaneous gift. I loved him.

We christened it the ‘super pillow’, luxurious and better than the average pillow. It was a gift for him and over time it was mostly me who appreciated sleeping on the super-pillow.

The week Mottsu started his journal I was in New Zealand working. My Saturday flight home was delayed for more than 8 hours due to rain in Auckland.

I spent the afternoon and evening in the airline lounge. Mottsu was updated about my lack of progress home by phone. I wouldn’t be home for dinner, I would be lucky to be home that day. I looked forward to eating and sleeping on the plane. The longer I was delayed the more home was beckoned. When it finally departed, the flight was terrible, through storms, and circumstances dictated that the flight was un-catered. I arrived home after mid-night hungry, grumpy.

He hadn’t waited up, I was annoyed and disappointed. 002

He was asleep, I didn’t know he hadn’t been sleeping. I muttered away to myself and got ready for bed, and noticed his was head was resting on the super pillow. Annoyed I ripped ‘my’ pillow (the one I had bought for him) from under his head and flounced onto the mattress. Feeling unappreciated I made my point vengefully. Petty, I didn’t know he’d been to consult a psychologist that week.

I grabbed the goose down treasure and yanked, without thinking. I ripped the pillow from under his head.

If I could turn back time, I would have left the super pillow under his resting head and I would have recommended reading an author other than Cormac McCarthy.

Non, je ne regrette rien, I am vaguely haunted by the guilt of the damn super pillow and the gloomy book …

“Life is a memory, and then it is nothing.” Cormac McCarthy (The Crossing)

I am a reader, I love books and stories. When Mottsu wanted to read something lighter than his usual fare of news and politics has asked me to recommend a fiction book, one with emotions and feeling.

the border trilogyI had just finished reading The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy, I recommended it, almost, without hesitating. It’s a powerful book the central relationship between a boy and a wolf is very moving, Mc Carthy’s words a pleasure to read. He is a peerless author, if bleak.

I’m a little haunted by just how bleak some of his works are. What was I thinking? I had thought, I might have considered what a desolate story it told. I might have considered Mottsu’s state and considered something cheerier, actually that’s not true. I did consider Mottsu’s state and I thought the writing was so moving, so compelling, it would touch his heart like it had squeezed my own.

The Crossing is a melancholic yet redemptive read. I thought Mottsu would find it as uplifting as it is grim. Regret is inevitable from time to time, now I wish I had recommended a different book, a bright happy book, something less harrowing than McCarthy’s incomparable prose.

I can’t think of an author but Dr Suess who writes bright and happy, and Dr Suess would not have worked either.

“He saw very clearly how all his life led only to this moment and all after led to nowhere at all. He felt something cold and soulless enter him like another being and he imagined that it smiled malignantly and he had no reason to believe that it would ever leave. “ Cormac McCarthy (The Crossing)

Displaced Anger

I am still pondering on Stage 2 of Grieving. The stage about Anger and Resentment, how I did and didn’t experience anger.

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Dr Kubler Ross suggested that Stage 2 is characterized by fury at whatever caused the loss and that I might find myself enraged at the world. I don’t know about enraged with the world but there was a moment one evening when I was outraged/enraged by a friend of a friend. I think it was displaced anger, something undoubtedly well intended that the antagonist, Mikey, said ignited instant sparks of temper.

Mikey was someone I didn’t know very well, but had known over a long period. A friend of a couple of friends. In the early days of my aloneness he had suggested that it might be nice to catch up occasionally to go to the movies, an outing usually enjoyed more with a friend than on ones own. I was enthusiastic about the idea, I was keen for company, and Mikey would have been company. Time ticked by and we didn’t made it to the movies, one never made a call to the other.

The mutual friends, Mikey and I went to dinner one night. We dined well, we shared banter. I was a little tetchy and sensitive, it was becoming my modus operandi, wounded, prickly and defensive. 004Nonetheless we enjoyed the evening, but we didn’t linger. It was a work night, each had to get home.

We stood in the street to say our farewells. That’s when Mikey made his offer, in a moment of unprecedented and unparalleled chivalry Mikey asked if he could walk me to my car. Anger ignited and I held it in, smiled, shook my head, and walked away fuming. Furious with (possibly) displaced anger.

Here I was coping, grieving, taking my bins out on the right night of the week, alone, bereft, abandoned and often longing for company. Of all of the things Mikey could have offered to do, walking to my car was the least of them. I did it all the time, walked myself to my car, I mean, – a necessity.

He could have offered to change a light globe, clear the gutter of leaves, mow the grass, chat over lunch or go to the movies with me. Walk me my car? I was angry hurt and scornful, I haven’t seen those friends again. Long story, the loss of a player in our relationship(s) was too much, we didn’t ever recover (maybe it was me and my scatter gun approach to expressing anger).

I walk to my own car. I always did. I felt anger too, from time to time…

Cup Day

We met on Cup Day, he went to the Cup. 026

I didn’t.

He and my house mate, Orvil, arrived home after a day at the races and I met Mottsu on Cup Day. Sometimes I have better luck than a punter.

Today I went to the Cup and he didn’t. Punter’s luck…

Derby Day

Today is Derby Day.

Today is Derby Day and I am heading to the races. It’s a sort of memorial trek to the track, Mottsu was a keen punter and race goer, Derby Day was an annual highlight in his calendar.

Spring Carnival’s Derby Day is the highlight in many racing calendars. It is considered by most racing enthusiasts to be the best day of thoroughbred racing in Australia, if not the world.

On Derby Day November 1, 2003 Mottsu picked the quadrella, considered by many betting enthusiasts to be the on of ultimate punting challenges. A quadrella requires four winners of four races in a row. He tried every year for more than ten years, always confident of having picked the winners up until some outsider thundered to the post before a favoured choice. Many near misses with three of four legs and no quadrella victory. We were there on Derby Day 2003, as we were on every Derby Day, with the traditional cornflower worn in his button hole and a well studied form guide in his hand. A hat on my head, laughter, horses (of course), an all day carnival complete with champagne and post race blisters on my feet: he wore sensible shoes.

2003 was a big Derby Day, four months before he died, his Derby Day dream.
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Race 5 Qantas Wakeful Stakes no 3 Timbourina
Race 6 AAMI Victoria Derby no 3 Elvstroem
Race 7 Thrifty Mackinnon Stakes no 13 Casual Pass
Race 8 Seppelt Salinger Stakes no 9 Ancient Song

Four winners of four races a dividend of thousands of dollars and we laughed and celebrated. His best Derby Day ever. His last Derby Day. No visible signs of distress, not yet anyway.

He confided his delight of enjoying a perfect race day, in a way he never confided his ensuing despair.

Today, I’m off to Derby Day, I been have every year since that winning celebrated one. I have my hat, and my shoes that will make my feet pay by the end of the day, and no form guide. I am all carnival and little punting.

It’s not the same without Mottsu.

I spy with my little eye

I remember our first date. Date? It was more like a “Why don’t you come horse riding with us?”

Mottsu was a friend of my house-mate and “us” was a group of his friends and house mates. The invitation was to join them on a bush ride 5 or 6 hours on a horse. Horse riding sounds easy enough, you sit on top and the one under the saddle does all the work.

An all day horse ride sounds deceptively easy, it is body bruising work. Unfamiliar with the inevitable muscular outrage I readily agreed to go.

It was a fabulous day, a memorable first date, I paid for it later with all over body distress and that’s not my lasting memory. I vaguely recall the physical torment.

There was some natural awkwardness during the long day, it was difficult to converse with ease, from horse back to horse back. Sometime mid-afternoon I felt a particular silence was a tad pro-longed and I scanned my head for things to say when Mottsu, a laconic easy rider, started with “I spy with my little eye…”. We slipped into an unanticipated game of I spy.

WTF? I spy? It wasn’t exactly conversation.

Far out, I spy.

I was delighted by his unconventional wit and style. Unpretentious, the perfect foil for my own uptight sensibilities. I was hooked with a game of eye-spy.

There all sorts of things you love about someone, all sorts of reasons.
Right there, ‘I spy’, is why I loved that man