Monthly Archives: January 2010

A high functioning zombie

January 28, 2010

define aliveDetectives investigating the disappearance of a Melbourne businessman are reportedly confident that he is still alive.

Define alive, detectives.

When Mottsu was missing I never felt confident that he was alive. Perhaps dragged down by depression, he hadn’t been truly alive for a while before he left. Alive could be a matter of definition.

On his last day Mottsu said “I think there is something wrong with me, I can’t feel anything”. I’ve said the he said the statement, it was more of a wail, a dull monotonic lament.

I heard his words and the earth stopped spinning on its axis, for a long time I didn’t hear either of us breathe. If ever there was a moment in which to slip into to another reality it was then, a black hole…

Gasping for air, wanting to live and grasping, I clutched his hand then strengthened my hold to full wordless embrace, my last ditch attempt to resuscitate him.

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Missing

January 26, 2010

It is unbearable when someone is missing, not knowing where they are and imagining them cold, or hungry, disorientated or unable to come home.

Mottsu drove away on a Monday morning. I expected him home by lunch although he hadn’t stated an ETA. Lunch passed, the day slid into late afternoon. I rang his psychologist, the appointment he had left the house for. There had been no appointment.

From there everything unravelled. I contacted friends, reported him missing to the police, at night I sat up looking out the window case he drove by.

I rang his work. Debated with myself about when, if ever to share my concerns with his family, or my family. I wept and I answered the phone. Calls came in as concern spread, and there was no news of his whereabouts, it is difficult to find someone who doesn’t want to be found.

MissingFriends wondered whether I was over-reacting, I’m grateful that the police treated my concerns seriously.

Wednesday, day 3, and C. Robin did a mercy dash from interstate. I had told him not to hurry and I was glad he hurried. He insisted I get out of the house and accompany him on a walk around the block.

I left a post-it note on the front door, so Mottsu would know I would be right back. Something told me it was futile, and I also could not bear him coming home, with me not there to embrace him.

I staggered around the block, one unsteady step at a time, almost needing the support of a walking frame. I had C. Robin’s support and the world at large was unfamiliar and swirling. I felt so lost. The police rang to check bank account details, to let me know they were doing all they could, and there was no news.

The newspaper he worked for considered printing a paragraph describing the car and saying that concerns were held for him. That’s when I contacted family, the distressing news would come from me, not another source.

The paper held off. Confident he would return? Not wanting to have created a fuss that Mottsu might have to live down when he returned. I only wanted him found. Fuss could be dealt with. It was unbearable to have Mottsu missing.

Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief. C.S. Lewis

When police came to the door late on the evening of day 4, I was relieved. Mottsu’s body had been found and recovered from the river. There were no suspicious circumstances, police-speak for suicide. He was no longer missing, he was gone.

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It’s just unbearable…

January 25, 2010

A Melbourne business man is missing, the newspapers have been reporting the story for a couple of days. It’s distressing, a loved and loving man has failed to come home.

His wife said in interview “You just can’t imagine what it is like, it is just unbearable.”
I can imagine a little of what her distress might be like, I remember what it is like to wonder for four days where somebody is. It is unbearable.

‘‘…completely and utterly out of character’’, said the business man’s wife on the radio today. It was out of character for Mottsu as well, it happened only once.

Waiting and searching for someone who is not coming home is heartbreaking torture.

I watched the local news story with family last night.
I bit my lip as details were reported, and someone said “It must be foul play”.
I said “It might be suicide”
“No”, the other said, “he was just back from a business trip”
“People who travel on business trips die by suicide” I said.
“He had a nice car” the other said.
I said “People with nice cars die by suicide.”
“No” said the other, who may have forgotten Mottsu’s death, “it doesn’t make sense”.

Suicide does not make sense, and this case may not be suicide; the business man is missing. There are some similarities with Mottsu’s disappearance. I hope this man, who I don’t know, makes it home.

The story makes me sad.

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It’s only words

January 24, 2010

A wordle of this blog.

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I’ll take the force of the blow

January 21, 2010

Sometimes song fragments hum around in my inner, a refrain singing to the outer.

Browsing around Powell’s, a great bookshop in Portland, a remnant of a song I didn’t really know was whispered by my inner, wanting to be known.

“I’ll stand in front of you and take the force of the blow…”

Book browsing abandoned, I tried music shops singing the only line I could recall of the song sung by artists I didn’t know. The listeners, the CD sellers, struggled to recognise the song. It took some days to track it down, not only due to the quality of my singing, the song was 10 years old.

“I’ll stand in front of you and take the force of the blow…”
I hummed the words about actions I’d failed to fulfill. I hadn’t taken the force of the blow.

Haunted by a partly remembered song line and unsure of what my inner needed the outer to know…

There’s another part of the song I take solace from. This might be what my inner was singing for my outer to know:

“Now I can’t change the way you feel
But I can put my arms around you
That’s just part of the deal
That’s the way I feel
I’ll put my arms around you…”

I couldn’t change the way Mottsu felt, I did put my arms around him.
My outer is still learning, that I can’t take the force of the blow on behalf of someone I love. I wish it were possible.

…but I can put my arms around you. I can sit by you. Hold your hand. Be close by, if you have to suffer the force of a blow, or dark forces unknown.

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The burden of one’s own story

January 17, 2010

If traumatised by events in your life, trying to slip back into the world you used to inhabit is difficult. I found it difficult. Scarred and bruised, but somewhat patched up, I returned to work only to encounter an environment where there was little room for acknowledgement of events I had been through.

I became burdened by my own recent history. Like a little Greek Island donkey laden with baggage and plodding to somewhere with a stubborn donkey brain determined to make it to the destination; my own stubborn head was looking for normal.

In trying to get back to normal, I didn’t necessarily want to talk about what had happened, Mottsu’s suicide, and yet it was important to be able to tell chapters of my own story, have scraps of it witnessed. The traumatic needed to be integrated with the everyday. Normal couldn’t be attained by papering over or ignoring what had happened.

Returning to the office was distressing. Pleasantries exchanged while ignoring my recent history became unpleasant. When I knew that they knew and said nothing, it was a struggle to maintain a polite composure. I wasn’t always composed, it wasn’t possible. The steeliness of others in not acknowledging any of what I had been though was unendurable at times.

The workplace can be tough, tougher than it is supposed to be, or is typically regarded as being…

At the same time I loved my colleagues how didn’t know what to say, those who were taken beyond the “edge” of what is possible to perceive and respond to, and then said “I don’t what to say…”

Those words were a great gift, gratefully received.

I’m not sure I knew what to say. I do remember sitting at my desk and quietly weeping when words were both too much and not enough.

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Stage 5

January 14, 2010

The fifth and final stage of grief as described by Dr Kubler-Ross suggests there is an end point:
Acceptance

When anger, sadness, and mourning have decreased, the reality of the loss can be accepted. Life, although changed, continues. Growth and triumph are not only possible but inevitable if you allow yourself to travel through each stage.

My version of the fifth stage of grief, would be more open ended:
Emptiness

I’m living my new life still surrounded by the debris of my old one. There are ups and downs and slowly the balance tips to favour the ups. A time of personal growth and accepting that the person I am is more vulnerable, more emotional, more confronting, more accepting, more than I had known.

My sense of loss calmed rather than diminished.

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Departures

January 11, 2010

Remiss of me to write about movies with themes around death and loss without mentioning last year’s affecting Japanese film, Departures.

Departures is about the transition between life and death, and about the resultant loss and inevitable grief. The film is presented in a quietly captivating way, with great reverence for the dead.

This is a gentle and very moving movie that honours the dead and with respect and ritual.

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At the movies

January 10, 2010

I can’t imagine why someone who is grieving would want to watch movies about grieving and grief behaviour. I did, there’s no why. I have written about watching Truly Madly Deeply over and over. I watched it, and found it consoling.

I saw a couple of movies last year that depicted life after a death in the family. I appreciated that what might have looked like odd behaviour on the big screen reminded me of what normal can be like.

I recommend (and have reviewed):
• Genova – the character studies are intelligent, multi-layered portraits of grieving.
• Quiet Chaos – is a subdued but sure-footed meditation on grieving as lives and priorities are reassessed.

As with Truly Madly Deeply, it’s deeply gratifying to see a difficult theme faithfully handled without unnecessary tragic overtones or a weepy soundtrack.

I have to mention Ghost as well, mostly becasue of my supermarket episode. . Ghost is more weepy and Hollywood in style than the other films, just so you know.

Four Weddings and Funeral, fast forward through the weddings just to hear the reading of W. H. Auden’s moving poem:

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

The clocks stop.

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Moving forwards and backwards

January 9, 2010

“Biography is not destiny” says Tony Robbins, “…the past is not the future.”

Thanks Tony, only it seems that way sometimes. Makes me think how easy it is to be defined by the past, particularly by traumatic events which shatter our beliefs about our worlds. Regaining a foothold after a trauma takes time, for a while there is only the past, a future is barely apparent as you work to integrate what happened into your biography. That’s how it was for me.

A lecture on working with trauma given by Dr. Shar Edmunds and Alan Richardson in 2008, illuminated my experience. They said:

Trauma begins with an event or series of events that is too much to bear. The experience is beyond the “edge” of what is possible to perceive and respond to. It shatters our most fundamental beliefs about the world. It’s beyond what we can include in our identity – as an individual or as a community.

The presenters explained the biology and the psychology of reactions to trauma, and the scar tissue created. They talked about the trauma ‘receiver’, how and why that person has a monopoly on feelings and sensitivity.

Listening, I glimpsed something of poor misunderstood, woebegone, powerless, me. Poor me, who wants to thank her dear forbearing friends, the ones who stayed around while I was so bruised and wounded. The ones that allowed me to grasp onto all of the feelings and hurt as if no-one else had ever suffered a loss like mine.

Gratitude.

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