Mottsu worked as a journalist and an editor for The Age, he worked on the old fashioned printed newspaper. He would not have liked the clumsy sentence above, it probably would have brought out the pedant in him too. Like the old-fashioned journalist that he was, he knew words grammar and punctuation better than anyone else I know. He was a walking dictionary with no need for a spell-checker. He was unbeatable at Scrabble, so good that I was reluctant to play…

Thanks to that clumsy sentence I am remembering things I loved about him.

I sometimes use a help line at the bottom of a post, because I want to do the right thing and, as I said, it is standard protocol. I also believe that sometimes it is helpful to talk to someone and there are telephone services to do just that. I imagine the service is impersonal, or anonymous, but with people on the other end of the phone who are trained and caring enough to offer the service. I don’t know if Mottsu ever called Lifeline, maybe he would have been distressed by calling Lifeline, I don’t know.
If he called, I don’t know what they might, or might not, have said to him.

If you, or someone you know, needs emotional support call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia. Crisis counselling is available around the world.

O Captain! My Captain

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

I also post this for my Dad who loved sailing but is unable to sail his yacht any longer. The winds are a little strong for him now and he’s probably misplaced the captain’s hat I gave him one birthday. The cap was one of those not quite serious gifts, but I was pleased when he wore it, and was steady at the helm – Captain.

When I first heard Ubuntu described it was in relation an African greeting. When two people met one would say “Sawubona” and the other would reply “Ngikhona”. One person saying “I see you” and the other replying “I am here to be seen”.

Ubuntu, is a philosophy, a way of being in community. I now understand Ubuntu can be loosley translated as something like “I am because you are”

That is me tonight, feeling a deep appreciation for who I am, knowing that whoever I am is shaped by you. Tonight I am sending gratitude and thanks to the people who read Wonderer’s Heart, Ubuntu to those who send me thanks, links and comments. I am changed by those who share their own experiences and stories with me.

Sawubona to my friends who might not read me here but know why I write and the importance of casting a little light onto these dark topics. Thanks to Shortbread for her unquestioning devotion, her constancy as she sleeps at my feet snoring while I write. I write to be read, I am here to be seen, and I am. I’m also heard – that’s a big deal to me – and appreciated. Thank you, I have a forum that give me the space to breathe, to rant and to question and to wonder…

I am changed by each encounter, every conversation, each posting, I am changed by what is shared and by what is held back. I am because you are.

Thank you.

When we whispered our hopes fears and expectations we may not have told the whole truth about ourselves. For our own reasons some things remained private unshared. Parts of us, or whole episodes from our lives sat buried in our histories, undiscussed.

It’s easy to love somebody for whom we perceive them to be, or for something we see in them. It’s hard to know how much of that persona is created by the beholder, sculpted into someone we want to love. In my case I think both parties were co-conspirators to this deception neither wanting to disillusion the other. It was all too easy to read the title of someone else’s book, the chapter headings and then skim the content ignoring the gaps. However I read Mottsu I felt I knew him. How many, like me, settle for a synopsis while believing they have read the complete unabridged version of their partners life? Like Virginia Woolf said “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”.

At the time we met, Mottsu was building a new life in an unfamiliar country with no apparent need to unpack his history. I know now I didn’t piece together the whole jigsaw of who he was. I loved and accepted him for who he appeared to be. I didn’t doubt his completeness, didn’t guess the omissions and he had no compelling need to disclose the whole truth. He didn’t see a need to alarm me with his darker parts.

Episodes from the past can be moved into the shadows and remain there, undisclosed and undiscussed. Maybe some of us get away with it, if we’re lucky, or like Mottsu, sometimes darkness you thought was hidden in the past will rear up and overtake you. When that happened to him I found myself disbelieving and dismayed about his partially disclosed depression. He didn’t share the full story. I barely dreamt into what he was really going through and I realised too late that I didn’t know him.

I didn’t even guess at what I didn’t know.

– hold their hand knowing that unslumpling yourself is not easily done
– hold their hand knowing that less than half of us feel comfortable in the company of a depressed person
- by trying to understand you help

Sometimes the hardest thing in the world to do is live. You can extend help to a colleague. You can extend help to a friend:

– Ask, check-in
– Listen closely
– Believe and accept what you hear
– Look after yourself
– Seek help together
– Be a friend

Doing something is more difficult than the steps suggest and it is important to try something. Just being there for a friend in crisis is a gift, a fabulous gift for the world.

“To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.”

Their vision, they say, is that they actually believe those things, and that they hope we love ourselves enough to get the help we need. Non-judgemental, I say (while trying not to judge but to appreciate).

Your story is important.

Your life matters.

Your best days are ahead.

Recovery is possible.

Simple messages, informative and loving. TWLoHA reassure me that help is possible. Help is something that’s available for you rather than being done to you, or help being imposed on you. It’s important that help can be reached rather than help needing to ride in, scoop you up, and rescue you. I may be oversimplifying very difficult situations that we can find ourselves in, and the premise of TWLoHA makes sense to me. TWLoHA seems not to victimise, or diminish anyone trying to find hope, but supports that search.

A loving supportive approach to say you are not alone (not if you deep down don’t want to be).

“Every 15 minutes someone in Australia attempts suicide. Every 4 hours someone… succeeds. One desperate life lost because that person felt they had no one to turn to.

Ninety percent of people with physical illness gain access to ready good quality care in Australia; only 35 percent of those with mental illness do.”

Vasek, L 2010, ‘The Secret History of Me’,The Weekend Australian Magazine, June 26 -27, p.18.

The first was K D Lang’s rendition of The Air That I Breathe. Simple, languid, a threnody filled with longing. It became the first song played at Mottsu’s funeral.

“If I could make a wish, I think I’d pass, can’t think of anything I need…”

We heard the song at the Three Monkey’s Cafe on Monkey Forest Road in Ubud, Bali. Three Monkeys made great coffee and played K D Lang’s Drag CD day after day. The words from the Hollies song matched how we felt on that holiday.

“There’s nothing left to be desired….
Sometimes all I need is the air that I breathe,
and to love you all I need is the air that I breathe”

The simplicity of the air that I breathe, ironically, takes my breath away.

I have learned it is all I need. Well along with good coffee, the smell of a dog, and a smile that is – and I am still travelling light.

Needing only the air that I breathe is a secret for happiness that I started to learn over coffee with Mottsu in a place where we could breathe, and it took some years for the truth of the lyrics to really sink in.

Val is going home tomorrow, she will be under the care of a palliative nurse who will help moderate her morphine levels. Val is not quite ready to knock on heaven’s door, but she is walking up the steps.

She has no illusions about what is happening to her, and she is afraid of dying, she said. I agreed it must be scary, I would be scared.

The thing that hurts her most are the tears in the eyes of her children when she talks to them, she said.

Val’s children love her they can’t witness her death without tears in their eyes. We can only do what we can do, and they can’t help the tears.

Who of us knows how to die? Who of us can witness the slow death of someone we love without tears in our eyes?

I reached for Val’s hand and we clung together with warmth, caring and fear.

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.