Monthly Archives: April 2010

To thank or not thank

April 28, 2010

Eight months after Mottsu died, as Christmas approached I had some cards made. On the front was a photo taken in the 60s, Mottsu on the knee of Father Christmas. As a labour of love or an act of contrition I mailed out 150 little cards with a personal note written in each.

Inside was a quote by Virginia Woolf:

“Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title”

That quote was especially poignant to me in the light of suicide, it helped reassure me about my not understanding of what happened.

Bud Tingwell in the opening chapter of his biography, written by Peter Wilmoth, hoped that he would be forgiven for not acknowledging all the kind cards that were sent after the death of his wife. He just wasn’t up to it, at the time. I wonder now if it was the opening chapter, that’s how I remember what he said, a loud and lingering regret.

I was driven by what had haunted Bud and I was determined not to harbour similar regrets. I had enough regrets to live with, not sending thank yous didn’t have to be one of them.

There are two schools of thought, Miss Manners thinks sending notes is the decent thing to do. and one that says Miss Manners is WRONG about thank you notes for condolence cards. It’s up to you.

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Recovering from Grief

April 26, 2010

I listened to a war correspondent talking today about war and the effects on soldiers. He said that war, like grief, was something we don’t ever recover from. He meant that when you go through war (or grief) you never get back to where (or particularly who) you were. Grief, he did say grief I caught it as a quick mention and it started me thinking.

It’s interesting because I do think there is something a little wrong (or at best not quite right) with the idea of fixed or better. There is not enough room for being different. As a society we are fixated on being fixed, I mean as in getting back to where you were, as much as possible returning to who you were before the traumatic war/grief event. I think there is too much emphasis on being fixed and not enough on allowing ourselves to adopt an identity that integrates and accepts our experiences.

Recovery, from grief at least, is over rated. Maybe it is the same with bouts of depression..

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Stress and distress in the rose gardens

April 24, 2010

A different day, a different cafe, and another coffee.

Just as I wrote of ashes, and New Zealand I read a relevant little snippet in the paper today.

Wellington is New Zealand’s capital city. The rose beds in that city’s Botanical Gardens are affected by being selected as the place to scatter ashes.

The roses are distressed, the gardeners are distressed and let’s not forget the mourning scatterers and their distress. Human ashes aren’t good rose fodder, it seems. Sadness hangs over the Wellington Botanical Gardens.

This all makes my not scattering of ashes appear as a prudent course of inaction.

Well that’s what I am telling myself. I think the newspaper story found me just to tell me that.

I need to allow myself to not scatter for a while longer.

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These boots are made for…

April 22, 2010

Coffee in a local cafe this morning.

I was wearing my red Dorothy shoes, only to be outdone by the guy at the next table.

Red boots.

The waiter commented.
She loved the red boots.

The boot-legged guy agreed.
He loved his red boots.
“I want to be buried in these boots”, he said.

I sighed, remembering my uncertainty about how to bury Mottsu. He left no instructions.

He died with his shoes off, left them on the river bank. The police gave them back to me. I don’t know where they are now, and anyway they weren’t the sort of shoes waiters would comment on.

Faced with needing to organise funeral and burial, with no instructions, I was confounded not know what he would have wanted. Maybe Mottsu didn’t care at all, which isn’t to say he didn’t care.

He cared enough to leave a will, and that uncomplicated potentially complicated things.

Mottsu wasn’t religious in life, so no church ceremonies. He had no expressed preference about burial or cremation. I checked with his parents and confirmed cremation as the plan. Today, I still haven’t addressed the issue of what to do with the ashes. I need to do that, one day.

Mr Ed went with me to collect them from the crematorium. That was a relief, someone else organised it, I just had to follow along. The box (Mottsu would have filled a couple of urns) is still in the cupboard where Mr Ed stowed them, at my suggestion. I wonder if it is bad feng-shui to keep ashes in a cupboard?

I recently listened to someone from New Zealand but living here, same as Mottsu, saying he would have to be buried in New Zealand. It was important, really important to him. I hope that if a place of burial was important to Mottsu he would have said so.

I’ll sort out the ashes one day, I believe he rests in peace regardless.

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Beyondblue neglectful of gay youth?

April 18, 2010

A story that saddened me was published today in The Age on-line:”The national depression initiative beyondblue has been called negligent for ignoring gay and lesbian young people in new guidelines to help doctors diagnose and treat depressed teenagers.

The agency’s 127-page document includes just two sentences about gay adolescents, although their rates of self-harm and suicide are up to eight times higher than those of heterosexual teens…”

That’s after assuring lesbian and gay groups, earlier this year, that beyondblue had not abandoned them.

I know there will be more to the story than has been reported, I only know what has been reported.

beyondblue say that “Depression and anxiety can affect anyone, anywhere, at any time” so it is doubly distressing that beyondblue has been accused of being “”incredibly neglectful” for failing address the particular needs of a (more) vulnerable group.

Situation not good enough, and I know I just finished saying that we each do what we can, I know that and I am trying to believe that good intentions are enough, but not always and not today.

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We do what we can. Wally, for example, singed his whiskers, Shortbread went to sleep while I looked on aghast

April 17, 2010

Mentioning when I burned my house makes me remember the different reactions of different beings (the dogs) to the same event.

It was just past mid-night when I was awoken by a neighbour beating on the door. The back section of my house was ablaze. It was more than I could take in; the flames, the alarm of needing to do something, the horror that my house had been burning while I slept.

The neighbour rang the fire-brigade, who rushed to the scene to quench the flames. There was mayhem, people were trying to help, it was the who firemen took control and stomped through the house, while I stood, clutching my dressing gown around me, open mouthed with disbelief.

I watched, horrified, as Wally bravely ran out towards the flames, and burned his paws, singed his eyebrow and whiskers. He was so courageous and protective, considering the scaredy-dog he was at heart. I scooped him up to console myself and he shivered in my arms, exuding the acrid smell of burning hair. I clung to Wally and watched the firemen douse the flames and investigate the damage and cause.

In the melee I didn’t notice Shortbread was missing. She had run, in the opposite direction to Wally, out of the front door and into my neighbour’s home. There she jumped up onto the couch and went to sleep. The neighbours told me that story later on, after the firemen left and everything quietened down.

Two dogs and two different instinctive reactions to the drama. Both good, each was simply being themselves. Each of us reacts to an emergency as best we can.

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Bring it on world 3

April 14, 2010

For all the coping, recovering, and staying strong I did, there were some oddly disconcerting episodes too. I managed to set fire to my house, and not realise until woken by neighbours. A bit later on, I fell off my bike, knocked myself out and broke my collar bone.

Both events helped me realise I was not completely invincible, I needed to make space for vulnerability as well.

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Bring it on world 2

April 13, 2010

I mentioned feeling invincible, it happened.

I went on living, kept breathing. I didn’t crack up and quit. With that came a sense of wonder, a sense of boundlessness.

It wasn’t like having super-powers but I did have an unusual sense of safe.

I was working in Tampa, Florida as hurricane Charley approached. There were warnings and mounting concern, the almost 400,00 people in the area were advised to evacuate. I decided to stay. I envisioned standing by the quay, leaning towards the sky, lashed by wind and rain. Defiant.

First the office closed and everyone was required to go home. I thought I could ride out the storm in my hotel. The hotel closed, I had to check out. By the time I arrived at the airport there were actions afoot to close that too. So much for pitting my self against the elements.

I made arrangements and brought my flight across the country to Portland forward a few days. The airport was crowded and filled with nervous energy. I was bemused, feeling cosseted from the building threat. It was odd to feel so removed.

I think that facing down the wind would have been and expression of the anger I hadn’t felt thus far. Good old stage 2 of grieving full of anger and resentment could have manifested, except that I had to leave town.

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Clunkers

April 11, 2010

Suz replaced the broken teapot with a sweet little earthenware teapot. It was kind of her to do, and she felt it was the right thing to do.

The new pot is small, Suz fretted that she had bought me a one person pot. A pot for one that one would serve to remind me of my aloneness.

Although it is a little pot it holds almost 3 cups worth, or 2 mugs, that makes it a pot to use with friends. I can’t help but look at it and be reminded of being alone, mostly due to Suz’s expressed concern that it should not do that.

Dear are the friends who tried to console and help did just that but not without the odd ‘clunker‘. I love Suz and the little pot, happy to be clunked with caring.

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Bring it on world…

April 10, 2010

There is a phenomena when you go through something big, traumatic, or devastating that as things start to normalise, in the aftermath, you feel invincible.

Well, to be honest, it is not quite a phenomena, I have a sample population of one; me.

In the early days of grieving Suz, a friend and colleague, came to visit. Suz was a welcome visitor, she didn’t look to me for direction or conversation. She told me stories of the office and the things I hadn’t missed. She made us a cup of tea. She broke my teapot.

She was horrified, she had come to make things a little better not break something.

I assured her it was just a teapot, things were easy for me to put into perspective. A teapot would hardly be missed. She eventually laughed at the situation and told me that with what I had been through, nothing else would ever be as bad.

Suz suggested I could shake my fists at the sky and defy the world to bring it on…

I loved the idea, I identified with the brazenness of daring the world to hit me again. I did feel invincible, or at least audacious. That’s when I first knew I was going to get through. My own realisation, my own phenomena.

Bring it on world…

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