Reminiscing

It occurred to me that I still haven’t heard from Mum.  Apparently, she still has no use for me or she’d have been in touch by now. 

As most of you would be aware, I journal EVERYTHING, and I’m a demon for it.  If anything of note happens, I’ll have a journal entry about it and will be able to tell you not just what happened, but the exact date and time as well.  When I say I document my life, I mean, I DOCUMENT. 

I have been journalling since my early teens and I have always found it to be a very helpful tool to externalize the stuff that goes round and round in my head making it almost impossible to function.  Writing allows me to ‘out things down’ and clear the mental slate so I can focus on the important stuff I need to do.

Therefore, since there is almost nothing that I let slide without writing about it (particularly if it has upset me), thus I’m pretty rock solid on the following information which comes from 2023.

• October 14 – I had a message from Vital Call to say that Mum had fallen.

• October 30, I had an email from her to say ““All okay but can’t get stuff to work on email love mum”.  She went on to say that she would be in touch and blamed her inability to be in touch on her bad eyesight.  The email was sent after 5pm when there are no carers with her.  How did she write the email without a single spelling mistake at a time when no carer was present?  In other emails there have been errors when her sight has been particularly bad but not this time. 

• October 14 – 30 – Her carer’s had told me she was at home after being checked at the hospital but I had been unable to contact her despite repeated attempts to call.  She simply didn’t pick up the phone to me.

• December – I sent her a card for Xmas.  I got no card, email or call from her.

• April – I received no call, email or card for my birthday.

• According to my notes, the last time I spoke with her was June 26.  I had rung and a carer was with her who answered and put her on the phone.

To this date, over two years since I last spoke to her and almost 2 years since her last email, I have not been favored with any contact whatsoever. Not a card, call, phone message or email.  Just total radio silence.

I have always put that down to the fact that she had been in hospital after a fall in June 23 and really hadn’t liked it.  She didn’t like the noise, the endless waiting around, the blood tests, the poking and prodding.  She hated it all and wasn’t keen to go back.

When she fell in October, I called her carers to let them know so they could follow up if she needed to see her own doctor or even if she just needed monitoring so they could pick up on any thing untoward which they might have missed had they not known about the fall.

She was furious with me for telling them about the fall because the ambulance had taken her to hospital on this occasion also, and then after coming home, she had more fussing from the carers fussing which she clearly wasn’t in the mood for.  So, I got the silent treatment.

She figured that I would keep call her and at a time of her choosing, when she had punished me enough, she’d answer the phone.  She hadn’t figured on my deciding that I really don’t need to chase her for her attention which is clearly what this was now all about.  It had gone from enquiry about her health to a power play to get me to chase after her.  I find that to be absolutely pathetic and I refuse to do it.  I spent decades of my life indulging her ego.  These days, I’m done.  If she wants people fawning over her, start a religion and she can command her acolytes as she will.  I won’t be joining them.

However, I digress. 

In the intervening years, my back and legs have been killer sore.  I have nerves pinching badly in my lower limbs particularly the left leg.  I am now permanently on a cane and when I go out in public, I use a walking frame as I am no longer stable on my feet and can overbalance in a heartbeat.  Back in 2023, I had the pain and was on a cane but I had no diagnosis as yet.  They were still doing tests to see if I’d done an injury and if so, what.

During the first half of that year, up to June 26 at least, I had spoken with her on the phone many times and I had mentioned the pain on each occasion.  She always showed little interest and changed the subject each time to her choice of her three favourite topic changers: 

1. Talking about her own issues and problems so the conversation then becomes all about HER
2. Bitching and backstabbing Dad – again.
3. Telling me she has to hang up because she’s been on the phone a while and is now feeling unwell.  This is always said in an overly dramatic, injured voice even though she’d been bright and bubbly and would be so again instantly if I mentioned something she either wanted to milk me for information about or if it involved her directly and suddenly had another chance to talk about HER again (see choice #1).

The bottom line is that I refuse to chase her.  She said in her email that she would be in touch shortly and that she was fine.  I have taken her at her word.  She is fine and didn’t want me bothering her, so I haven’t.

When I get a call from Vital Alert, I let her carers know so they can follow up but I no longer try to ring her to find out how she is.  She made it very clear in October 2023 that she gets angry if I do this but I find it to be the only responsible course of action.

 There have been times when she’s had a fall and deliberately NOT mentioned it not the carers because she’s scared that they’ll try to force her into a nursing home and that’s the last thing she wants.  Actually, they’re not trying any such thing but I can see where she’s coming from on that point.

However, since I call and tell them, and she seems to feel that this is ‘snitching’ on her, every time I make that call, I’m in the bad books – again.  Thus, trying to call her would be pointless.  She does not pick up the phone to me. 

The only reason she sent the email was because after two weeks of no contact after her fall, I rang the carers to find out how she was.  That’s how I knew she’d been home during that period and not staying with one of my relatives up there, which I had felt must be the case since I rang at differing times during the days and she never answered.   

The email was a dead giveaway that she was giving me the silent treatment.  Figure:  it was written at a time when she had no assistance available to her.  It was compiled on a tablet which apparently, she couldn’t get to work (except that she did).  Not a single mistake in it anywhere when previous emails were full of them (which I would expect from someone with sight issues). 

If she’d bothered to pick up the phone to me any of the dozen times I rang, sight issues wouldn’t have been ANY kind of an issue.  You don’t need eyesight to operate a telephone.

What I do find interesting is that Dad will have been dead for 34 years.  He died in 1991.  They were married in 1957 and he was her spouse for 34 years.  So, this is some kind of a landmark year in that respect.

I’d really like to call and have a chat because I do miss him but given her attitude, it would not end well, so I have to scratch that idea.

She railed about him and denigrated him every chance she got.  Even though he’s been gone as long as they were wed, she hasn’t lost her taste for the sport.  She bitches about him mercilessly.  In fact, everything that ever went wrong during their marriage was HIS fault.  She had no contributing part in it – ever.  She always depicts herself as the hero in the story.  They got through everything because SHE saved the day, blah blah blah.

I actually had a really good think about this earlier; I cannot recollect one single occasion in my lifetime when she has said something nice about Dad.  She has always run him into the ground and beaten up on him mercilessly.  Even now, when he’s been dead for so long, she still stabs he knives into him with exceptional malice.

So, of course, she’s not someone I can pick up the phone and call when I am missing him.  I have no tolerance for listening to any more of her mean-spirited Dad-bashing.  It’s really soul destroying to listen to that kind of vitriol.  If she’d occasionally say something nice about him, it might not be so bad, but as I said, she never does.

I also note that in the past 2 years, even though she knew I had something going on causing me massive pain, she has not once picked up a phone to ask me how I’m doing.  She always changed the subject at light-speed if I mentioned it in the first half of 2023, and it would appear that she’s still just as disinterested. 

Considering that I’ve been in and out of hospital over this and are taking some top shelf pain meds that I have to go through the Pain Team to get, it’d be nice if she’d demonstrate any concern for me whatsoever.

Her whole concern regarding me is that I’ve not called HER and really, why the hell NOT?  How dare I?  The concern is not for me but for her own selfish needs. 

Right now, she’s trying to wait me out and see how long it is before I break and call.  It’s the ultimate game of ‘chicken’.  Since I don’t want to listen to her beating up on my father and snarling at me that I’m just like him as though that were some kind of sick and ugly disease, and I’m really not in the mood to have her dismiss my physical pain entirely so she can talk about herself, any phone call to her will be a long time coming.

Alas, that leaves and unpleasant hole.  I can’t talk to her simply because she doesn’t want to talk – she wants an audience to whom she can rant and rave.  I would like to share happy memories of Dad and spend some time visiting with him in that regard and it’s best done with people who knew him.  Alas, she is poison in this regard.

I can’t talk to my brother who still hasn’t called me to find out how I am or what the outcome of the emergency gastroscopy was after I told him that I might have stomach cancer in 2013.  He’s clearly not interested in find out out if I’m even alive.  He wants nothing to do with anyone in his immediately family under any circumstances and that includes me even though I’ve done nothing wrong.  His problem is entirely with Mum and since my voice resembles hers, I’m on the scrap heap with everyone else.

My sister died in 2000 so she’s out.  Even if she were alive, we had a really bad relationship and saw nothing of each other so I wouldn’t have been speaking to her even if she were alive.

So, who does that leave me with?  The cats is the only answer that springs to mind.  While I love them to bits, they’re not very good in this particular situation.

I want to reminisce.  I want to dig up some of the few happy old memories I have and chew them over once more.  Since it’s the only method I have of being with him now, it’d be nice to sit with people who knew him and swap stories. 

Well, that won’t be happening any time soon and I couldn’t be more disappointed if I tried.

One Second

It was a day that will live in the memory of everyone who saw it.  If you weren’t there, I doubt you could ever imagine the impact or the scope of how badly it hurt nor how vastly it changed so many in a heartbeat. 

A lift off that took with it the hopes and dreams of every nothing and nobody on the planet who grew up on a diet of science fiction and dreams of one day going to the stars.

72 seconds of all our dreams flying against a clear blue sky, the perfect backdrop to visions we had spent our lives cherishing and longing to grasp.

One more second that arrived and shocked the world into stunned silence, prevented us from breathing and launched us all into sheer disbelief until the shattered voice uttered the words that the shuttle had exploded. 

Then the screams.  And it began.

The pictures of the ship flying apart and falling to earth piecemeal.

The images of Christa’s parents and sister, gazing up at the wreckage, screaming and wracked with horror. 

Faces of the mission control crew who were clearly destroyed with grief but still had a job to do, each trying to hold it together as best they could, some not succeeding so well.  Each wondering what they should have seen that could have prevented this and riddled with perhaps undeserved guilt.

And those of us who grew up dreaming of the stars that would always be denied us, feeling our dreams dying just as surely as the lives of the crew falling in ashes within the wreckage still plummeting to the sea before our eyes.

People died.  Dreams died.  Hopes died.  And the shuttle program shut down for years.

We grew up with hopes and lauded each success.  We digested a diet of books and TV shows that fed us the stars. 

With every mission, a part of us went with each astronaut and we felt we, too, had touched a place beyond our little insignificant, worthless worlds. 

In some place, in a way we could never define, we were out there.  We were somebody.  We stood before a universe we didn’t know and told them all we were here.  We mattered.  We were seen if only in our imaginations.  And then we were cut to ribbons and our feeling of success crushed.

If you never grew up in a world where such hopes flew so high, I wonder how it can ever be understood how much was lost and how painfully it was torn from our eager fingers that fought to hold on and cling to the final seconds before reality set in. 

We were not yet linked to the rest of the planet by internet.  We had no mobile phones or tablets.  We were simple, disconnected people who read newspapers and watched the TV to find out what was happening in the world.  We watched the broadcast of this launch that day, and for many of us, our eyes enviously devoured the 7 astronauts as they boarded the waiting shuttle, hungrily wishing that we could be one of them.  They HAD been us.  One of them more than the rest.

We all grieved.  We couldn’t be human and not.  We sat in stunned silence before the tears began to roll down faces now pale with shock.  We had no words.  Nobody had any words.  There was nothing to say.  Everyone across the planet sat and tried to process, some less successfully than others.

Then the news media arrived.  The photos.  The interviews.  The incessant rehashing of the footage until they had wrung every piece of sensationalism from it.  And still they kept looking for new angles, to keep the story alive.  With skillful cunning they flensed every greedy morsel from the events for the delectation of the viewing public.  It was like watching vultures descend, with insatiable hunger desperate to feast upon the whole scene before them, and almost drooling with glee as they set upon the corpse of the disaster.

What they didn’t know was that they also feasted up on us.  The nothings.  The nobody’s.  The sci-fi nerds who’d grown up dreaming, hoping, knowing they would always be denied but daring to look up and imagine anyway. 

They never knew how close we came in our sleep or our daydreams. 

They never knew how desperately we yearned for those dreams to come true for us, not just the privileged few 

A part of us was eaten alive just as surely as if the vultures had fed on us incarnate.  And it hurt in ways none of us could express.  Watching it unfold, I recall wondering how anyone could be so heartless and continue calling themselves human. 

Of course, like so many, I had never been so deeply touched by any event before.  I didn’t follow the news.  I lived in a world of my dream and fantasies.  This kind of coldness was simply unknown to me.  But oh, how fast I learned and how desperately I wished I didn’t have to. 

Even though the images of that day were burned in our hearts and souls, we dared to dream anew.  We dared to hope.  We dared to continue imaging.  And for many of us, we dared to write.

We no longer just gathered in groups and fan clubs of various sci-fi shows.  We no longer read books of stories set in someone else’s space scape.  We dared to dream our own.

We began by writing our own stories based on some else’s show and preconceived ideas.  Then a few began to write their own and share their own dreams with the world.

It took time.  It took courage.  It took working through the pain of such a shattering collision with reality to soften and for us to realize that the dreams we held before could still live again if we nourished them and allowed our hearts to fly again.

So, we did.  And in our little nothing and nobody lives, we set off in shuttles of our own making to explore the world of space just as the crew did on that day.  We did it differently of course, but we did it.

We flew for ourselves, each other for every crew that ever boarded a craft bound for the heavens who never came back.  We mourned them, many from the 60s which some of us were far too young to remember.  This was the disaster of our modern age.  The one that wasn’t just a lesson in a history class.  This was the one of our reality. 

But we kept our dreams alive, because when we give up our dreams, we give up our reason to be.  And all that is required to fly, is to dare to imagine.

And we knew, we all knew, that all that is required to inspire others to dare to dream, is to find our voices.  And that might be the most wonderful gift that 7 hopeful people gave us on that day. 

A chance for the nothings and nobody’s to give something to the world that others would find to be of value.  A chance for those of us who always felt unworthy to be someone that mattered in however small a fashion.

And we thank them for it.  And we continue their dream, and our own, because when we capitulate to the grief and relinquish what dreams may have been, we surrender the hope and spirit that sustains us.

For those who find life too terrible or too fast or too heartless and feel their hope slipping away as we hurtle towards a world that seems cold and devoid of humanity, encountering those who still look up and dream can be all it takes for those struggling to rekindle their hope in the world around them.

Perhaps that was the lesson that came from that day which simply took a while to unfold and become any form of apparent.   The dreamers who always felt themselves to be without worth are perhaps the most valuable among us.

And it became that way for me in just 73 seconds on what was, for me, a summer day against a beautiful blue sky when all the possibilities of the world danced and floated on soft currents. 

And when, years later I found my voice and my words began to water the world around me, I realized the value of dreams and the weight of the truth that one who saves one man, saves the world entire.

Dreams aren’t nothing.  They’re everything.  Dare to reach.  Dare to dream.  And dare to share those thoughts with the world.  Without those hopes, new dreams cannot be nourished.

It is a gift all of us have and all of us can give if we just take a moment from our busy, hi tech lives and dare to look up, reach a hand, and wonder. .

Hollow

That moment when something triggers a memory that you had an argument about with your Dad decades ago, and you find yourself mentally marshalling your thoughts to continue the heated discussion only to recall that he died decades ago and isn’t there to argue with anymore.

I expected to miss all the good times and I was somewhat prepared for that when as I watched Dad fade away.  Later, I wished I’d missed ONLY the good times.  Even the bad stuff was precious in its own way and can be missed just as much.

It’s constant too.  Like instinctively reaching for the phone every time I have great news to share only to recall that Dad is long since gone and the number was disconnected over 20 years ago.  It halts the heart in ways few things can.

I have accepted his death.  I no longer shed tears over his passing.  It’s just every now and again I forget and then the memory comes crashing back home and is just as painful as it was the moment I first heard the news.

Grief is a weird thing.  It’s never quite over with and sometimes, not quite bearable.  It’s in the long distant past and 20 seconds ago.

Sometimes I wish I could go back and finish those arguments a little differently or if I can’t alter the event, perhaps just enjoy it for the connection it was, at least just one last time.

And that’s the really painful part.  There are no more chances.  No more do overs.  No more opportunities to do things differently.  The book is closed.  No sequels.  No future.  All the words there will ever be, written.

No matter how much I might wish for a second chance, there are no fairy godmothers to wave a wand and make it possible.  All the things we would do if we could and the most important of them come from places of regret and lost opportunities.

The grief is 34 years old and by now, hollow.  But the echoes of what could have been still haunt, as I’m sure they always will.

Surfacing Grief

Tonight, I am tearful.  I’m not sure why.  It’s not the pain that’s doing it.  I’ve got that in a place where it’s bearable and it takes a lot more than this to break me down.  But, I’m weepy. 

There are no anniversaries of anything at this time.  Nothing extraordinary happening.  But perhaps whatever it is, is the reason I couldn’t get out of bed this morning and work.  I needed a personal day – literally, so I could fall apart. And all I did was try to sleep to escape whatever is going on.

 I just wish I knew why.  What is it that’s making me feel so sad?  Tears that don’t fall but are on the edge are not helpful.  They do not cleanse.  They do not divest.  They sit and make a soggy quagmire into which I sink and struggle, and that is the last thing I need.

For all her age, medical issues and god knows, her personality issues, my mother is in a far better space than I am.  How did that happen?

Is it that I’m trying to put together a go bag so that I’m prepared if I’m admitted to hospital unexpectedly?  Is that an acknowledgement that I’m not headed to any kind of recovery, but skating on the thin edge of a vile, painful wedge which will see me going from one pain med to another, only moving on when my body becomes accustomed to each and it stops working.  What kind of a life is that to look forward to?

I have no partner.  A vile, low paying job.  No financial security.  No security of any kind, period.  How did I get here?  How do I get out of here?  How do I make this any version of better?  I just have no clue.

The worst of it is that even if I knew what I could do, I’m not sure I’d have the strength to do anything about it.  My biggest achievement today has been feeding the cats and making a cup of coffee so I could take my pain killers.

I need to put the bin out and get my bag ready for tomorrow, because if I don’t turn up to work, I’ll need to have a medical certificate to support it and I’m not sure I have the strength to do that.  It seems like far too much effort and is just too hard.

The bin will have to wait until next week.  It’s too hard to go out there and walk it 45 seconds to the kerb.  Same with the recycling bin.  It gets emptied every 2 weeks, but it’s not brimming so it can wait.  No urgency.  Sometimes I only put it out once every 4-6 weeks when it’s actually full.  That is not today.

My handbag will need to have food, meds and a few other bits and pieces.  I will deal with that when I can.  Right now, the weepy is dragging me down and making it impossible to move.

And that might be how I finish out August 8 for 2024.  Quietly.  Slowly.  Dragging from one thing to another because that’s as much as I’ve got strength for.  Just HOW did I get this far down the rabbit hole without a game plan to get back out?

And do you know what really kills me?  The person I thought was a brother from another mother, the person I spoke to every day and shared every aspect of my life with no matter how personal or shameful it was, isn’t here anymore.  He decided to blow me off entirely so he could get laid and she didn’t want him talking to other women so like any good, controlling narcissist, she isolated him.  And so ended a solid, highly valued friendship of about 17 years.  He wanted to get laid and I wasn’t worth standing up for. 

Maybe that’s why I’m teary.  It was yet one more time I wasn’t good enough to fight for and just a rag to be easily thrown away when something better came along. Story of my life.  My own family treated me that way since I was born.  I don’t know why I should have expected any better from this guy, except that I did.

I thought he was my friend.  I thought he actually cared about me and what happened to me.  There was never anything romantic about it you understand, but we had claimed each other as family.  We spent hours and hours talking each other through the tough times.  I thought he was someone, one of the few on this hunk of rock, who had my back.

And to prove he had my back, he stabbed me in it in the coldest way possible – and I didn’t do anything to deserve that except be concerned for him.  Yeah, what a sin. 

But he was my brother and I would have gone to the mat for him to protect him no matter what the personal cost.  That’s what I do.  When my friends are in trouble, I don’t just click an emoji on social media, I show up.  I DO and I never give it a second thought.  It wouldn’t occur to me NOT to jump in and help where needed.  In this case, I thought my opinion and my friendship mattered, and It’s taken me over 2 years to come to terms with the fact that they didn’t and never will.

Maybe I do have reason to be teary.  Even though this DID go down over 2 years ago, it feels like the pain of that loss is finally surfacing and becoming real.  Or is it shock I’m feeling and not pain, because I never thought he’d be capable of this.  He was the last person I expected anything like this from.  I honestly never saw this coming.  Just never.  I thought I could always be honest with him no matter the subject, and even if we disagreed, the WE would still be okay.

What really kills me though, is that even if he turned up right now, begged forgiveness and wanted back in my life, I could never allow it.  I will never be able to trust him again and I will not leave myself open for this (or anything like it) to happen again. 

But I miss my friend and for over a decade, he was my BEST friend.  Even if I am able to forgive it all, I’ll never be able to forget how brutally he kicked me from his life as soon as the hint of something better came along.  Was I really so worthless?  So easily dismissed and replaced?  I know that’s how others see me.  I thought he was the exception. 

Nope, I never saw it coming.  I really thought that he was always going to be there for me just as I was for him so many times.  I only ever saw a decent, kind hearted guy.  I never saw the cold cruelty hiding away just out of sight.  And then it appeared and suddenly, I was superfluous to need.  Just as I am with my blood family. 

I could persuade myself that perhaps all that time, I only saw what I wanted to see, and maybe that’s true.  I don’t think so though.  I honestly believe I saw a kind, decent person who liked me and for whom I had a valued place in their ife.  It’s just gutting to find out that I was so incredibly wrong.

Yeah.  Maybe today, the tears are valid. 

Indentured

In November 2000, I watched my sister die.  In the weeks that followed, I went to Wodonga with m y mother to spend time with my Grandma who was also in hospital at the time.  

During that visit, I hd a scant few moments alone with my Grandma and expressed my grief over the loss of my sister.  She told me flatly, “you’ve only lost a sister, that’s nothing”.  Apparently, the only person entitled to any sympathy over it all was my mother – and he played it for every cent it was worth.

Given that I only eve had one grandparent, I was kind of closes of my her and I really felt she’d understand my feelings.  I was utterly shocked when she spoke those words and completely shut me down, letting me know in no uncertain terms that I was being selfish, bloody minded and a complete and utter bitch for DARING to raise my feelings when ALL sympathy should be going to my mother. 

Let’s not forget that my sister was two months short of her 37^th birthday when she died.  It’s not like she was 5 or something.  In fact, if had been a child myself at the time, I really WOULD have been given support and sympathy.  That I was an adult made all the difference there.

But there was my mother, gleefully wandering around being a widow AND a mother who’s lost a CHILD (and let’s say that with in a soft, agonized tone) and therefore, she’s the only one hurting.

I didn’t hear anyone mention my sister’s two children.  Isn’t that funny?  No one relative in Wodonga (and by my count there were 10 adults (excluding their children) who lived up there) ever asked about the kids.  Not one.  No one wanted an update on how they were coping with the loss of their mother and MY mother certainly didn’t want them asking.  She wanted it all to be about HER and nobody else..

Come to think of it, nobody asked ME how I was coping either. Or enquired about my brother and how he might be doing. 

Every time I was in a room with my mother (Poor Widow) and any relative, it was ALL about the Poo Widow and HER feelings – and everyone else catered to it.  It’s not like they made it all abbot her while they were in her company and asked me quietly later how I was doing.  They just didn’t ask – period.  Thanks for that resounding show of support folks.  Remind me to kick you in the guts every chance I get from now on to return the favour.

In the scheme of things, I wasn’t overly surprised by the conduct of my aunt, uncle and cousin.  I WAS shocked by my grandma though.  And I’ve never forgotten it.  I never will.

Her words were cruel, unjustified and absolutely unforgiveable.  You do not TELL anyone who’s just buried a sibling that their pain and loss are ‘nothing’.  But that was literally what she did. 

When we got back to Melbourne, I cut ties with her.  I didn’t ring.  I didn’t pick  up the phone to her – instead, I screened all calls.  I didn’t write.  I certainly didn’t drive up there to visit.  I had always thought she, at least, had my back.  I knew nobody else did but I thought she was the exception.  To find out I was completely wrong would have been a harsh blow at any time.  At THAT time and in THAT way, just gutted me in ways I haven’t got words for.

In Spring the following year, I was contacted by my mother to say that my Grandma was in hospital and not expected to live much longer. 

I rang the hospital in the days that followed and was put through to her room.  I asked repeatedly to speak to my grandmother but of course, my sanctimonious, holier than thou, relatives all decided it was THEIR place to ‘make me pay’.  They refused to put the receiver near her ear so I could talk to her, even if she couldn’t talk to me.

You see, when I cut ties with my grandma, she ran around telling everyone that I’d done that and making excuses for her statement to me and of course, telling them that I had misunderstood and was now being cruel and selfish AGAIN.  She made it all about HER.  Gee, where have I heard THAT one before?  Oh, wait… that’s right…

The rellies all took her side and set out to make me pay.  And they didn’t SUCH a grand job of it, both before and after the woman died.  I’m actually very glad I’ve cut ties with the rest of them as well because if the Poor Widow’s conduct at my sister’s funeral was inexcusable and unforgivable (and it was – in spades), the conduct of THESE people went a million miles further and was so unforgiveable there are no words for it. 

While they wander around congratulating themselves on how wonderful they are and how much better they are than everyone else, the truth is that a gazillion of any one of them couldn’t match even just one of the lowest, scummiest person on the planet.  At least the scum suckers are honest about who and what they are.  They certainly don’t try to hide it behind visits to a church and treating everyone else like dirt not fit to be under their feet.

So, they wouldn’t let me talk to my grandma at a time when I most needed to, and, as it turns out, SHE needed me to.

Until my mother was at the hospital and stepped outside for a smoke.  She rang me on my mobile.  I was engaged as a temp at the time and was out on assignment.  I took the call because I could see who it was and knew the situation, but it wasn’t like I could drop everything and go running up there, was it?  I mean, I live in Melbourne and Wodonga is over 3 hours drive away.  I couldn’t hardly be there in 20 minutes or anything.

But the Poor Widow finally did ONE decent thing – she called and told me that my Grandma was really deteriorating badly and if I wanted to speak to her, it had to be NOW because there wan’t going to be a later.

I told her to take the phone back inside to my Grandma and hold it next to her ear.

Of course, having told me all that, it was now time to pay for it and pamper the Poor Widow with unctuous sympathy and fuss.  We didn’t have time for that.  I shut her down and yelled at her to RUN (back inside, etc).  For once, she did.

When my phone rang again a moment later, it was against my Grandma’s ear and I told her very loudly (in case she didn’t have her hearing aids in) “I love you Nin, I love you very much”.  I thought I heard a noise from her but she wasn’t able to form speech by then, she was too weak, so that may have been the best attempt she could offer at the time.

I was told later that she said I rang.  So, she knew it was me and had heard what I said.  That was the only comfort I had or would ever be given.   She died hours later.

It was one of the few times in my LIFE that I’ve ever seen my mother do anything remotely heroic.  She knew perfectly well the rest of the family (and I use the term loosely) were hell bent on making me suffer and she went against them to make sure I had chance to speak to my Grandma one last time – even if it was for much less than 60 seconds. It was something, and there wasn’t anything that they could do about it.

Of course, just HOW heroic it was remains to be seen.  I’m betting that none of the rellies were present when she called me and let me speak.  If they’d been in the room, that would never have happened.  Yes, my Grandma told them I’d rung after the fact, and I’m sure they were furious about it, but there wasn’t anything they could DO about it.

Isn’t it comforting and SO nice to know that the people in the world who are supposed to be excellent charitable and loving little Catholics, and have my back because I’m one of the family, are so hell bent on causing me as much pain as they possibly could so I would suffer throughout the rest of my life over it because THEY sat in judgment and decided they had the right to carry out punishment on me. 

Yeah.  Conduct like that is really going to win anyone a place in heaven, isn’t it?  They’ll come and personally usher you to the front row seats as soon as you show up at the Pearly Gates.  No waiting in line for you!

That won’t be any black stain on the heart there for that united act of wantonly and deliberate cruelty.  And to this day, if you ask any of them, they still tell you that they think they’re genuinely ‘good’ people and excellent Catholics. 

It’s precisely that hypocrisy that saw me ditch Catholicism by the time I was 8.  I still had to go to church of course, because I was under my mother’s roof and it was “MY house, MY rules, if you don’t like it, GET OUT”, regardless of the fact that I hadn’t even reached a birthday with two numbers in it yet.  So, I still had to go through the motions and pretend.  And as soon as I moved out of home, I never entered another church unless it was for a wedding or a funeral. 

I simply cannot tolerate the two-faced backstabbing that is people running around preaching their faith and then doing everything to be cruel and heartless every time an opportunity presents itself.  You might condemn me for not attending church and you might despise me for my thoughts and actions, but at least I’m HONEST about them.  I take accountability for precisely what I believe and do.  I don’t try to gaslight everyone into thinking I’m some kind of saint and then treat people I don’t like as utterly beneath me and make sure they know it. Unlike a lot of others I’m unfortunately blood related to.  This does not include everyone I’m related to and the people concerned know if they’re in this group or not – and if they are, they won’t even have the decency to hand their heads in shame even once over it.  They’ll be too busy re-writing the whole affair and making sure they out looking spotless.  Did I mention that they are masters at gaslighting

You know who you are but if you wish me to name names, I will.  Right now, I’m just being a nice person and protecting your privacy on a global platform.  In honesty, I don’t think you deserve it at all, but today, I feel like cutting you some slack. Don’t get too excited, I probably won’t feel so charitable on another day.  And to the one who especially came at me threats and bullying over Bob – you can TOTALLY shove it up your vile, nasty, skanky bitch of an ass. 

However, it occurs to me that my Grandma may have felt forgiven and absolved for her filthy words.  I’m sure that’s how she would like to have interpreted my 8 words.  It’s not how meant them though.

I do love her.  That’s a fundamental and nothing ever changed in that regard.  I have NOT (and never will) forgive her for being so callous at a time I needed her most.  On the day we meet again when I’ve kicked the bucket, it’ll be my pleasure to ensure she knows that.

There are just some lines you don’t eve cross – for any reason.  This was one of them.  Again, I shouldn’t be surprised.  Look at how Poor Widow treated my brother over my Grandma’s funeral.  She had to have learned it from somewhere and this is pretty indisputable proof of the source.

At a time when I wasn’t getting any kind of support, even a few simple words to let me know they were thinking of me, would have been nice.  Or at the very least, socially polite.  If they can easily say please and thank you to a stranger pouring them a cup of coffee, why is it so impossible to extend the bare basics of courtesy to me?

And that reason isn’t hard to figure out.  It’s all based in their selfishness and arrogance.  Poor Widow is a complete and utter narcissistic bitch – of truly biblical proportions.  She doesn’t give a toss about anyone but herself.  She never has.

They all know what an absolute pain in the ass she is and NOBOY wants her dumped on THEM to be the main pasty having to listen to and wearing her crap.  When my sister died in 2000, they thought they had a pretty fair chance at shafting me with her.  Up to then, my sister was the one who wore it all because that’s how far she’d go to be Mummy’s Darling.  But, the miserable bitch went and died.  How dare she?  The hubris!

From the very first moment I turned up at my sister’ house to sit with her (she died at home),  I was very coldly being told “your mother needs YOU, YOU have to be there for her”.  In other words, I had to take over and be the whipping boy for all her shit from now on.  In fact, I got told that very firmly by my aunt when I was barely 2 steps from the car when I arrived.  I didn’t even get to the front door before being told Poor Widow was now 100% my problem and I had to wear all her crap so that they were all off the hook and she wasn’t their problem.

And she told me all that without uttering one syllable about how much I must have been hurting or how sorry she was for my loss.  I mean, I only ever had ONE sister, what’s the big deal, huh?  No, my aunt was too busy making sure HER ass was covered and that HER sister wasn’t going to be HER problem.  What GOOD Christian values at work there, huh?

I wouldn’t let them get away with it.  I did NOT let Poor Widow became my problem.  In fact, she ended up moving to Wodonga herself (where they all live) and she was a 10-minute drive from any of their doorsteps.  Very nicely played. Karma. 

My point is that I DO love my Grandma.  And my mother.  Always will.  That is entirely separate from loving them as PEOPLE.

When I worked at the Dept of Human Services in the Child Protection office, I saw many children being removed from their parent’s custody.  In every case, the reason was absolutely justified and to save the child from further harm.  That does not mean that children don’t scream like a banshee calling for their parents as they are removed. 

Not one of these children suffered any kind of mental defect.  They know what pain and suffering they endured. They certainly didn’t want more of it.  And they were angry as all hell for what their parents had done to them up to that point.  But they still LOVED their parents.  That never changes.  People can do the most hideous, vile things to us and we can still love them.  That doesn’t mean we have to LIKE them and it certainly doesn’t mean that we have an obligation to forgive them and let them back in our lives to continue the abuse.  NOBODY is entitled to that. 

You CAN be forgiven – meaning that the wounded party is willing to let it go and not carry that hurt and rage with them every second of every day henceforth.  It is not approval of vile action, nor I it any form of absolution no matter how much the abuser wants to gaslight themselves (and everyone else) into believing that it is.

You can even love the person that abused you without it meaning that you approve of their actions or have absolved them for it.

The most important thing is that nobody is ever obligated to let that person back into their lives to carry on abusing because they ‘got away with it’ before so it’s perfectly okay now.

Haven’t we all heard stories of men who beat their women half to death, then turn up with flowers and teary, sobbing, sweet little boy promises that it’ll never happen again?  Until next time, of course, which seems to roll around remarkably quickly. 

Leopards don’t change spots.  If they’ll hit you this time, they’ll do it next time and the more you forgive and let htem back in the door, the more they know that this is just part of the game you go through each time and it means absolutely nothing.  They know for certain they don’t have to treat the woman any better because in accepting the flowers and promises, she’s just been paid for and has accepted her role to be their punching bag again.  He knows it.  She knows it.  Anyone who might have bent over backwards to help and support her knows it – which is why they soon wash their hands of her.  Play your games, just don’t drag ME into them when this is so clearly a choice you are actively making.

In the case of my family, I will always love them.  Having said that, I don’t like them.  I don’t like their arrogance, their superiority, their bullying, their belief that others are there no other reason than to be walked over. 

I don’t want toxic creatures like that hanging around me and stinking up my life with their crap. I have enough do deal with on my own without having to be involved in ther dramas and/or being manipulated into being stuck with whatever they don’t want to do themselves.  I think we all know people like that and honestly, say the same.  There are some people on this planet for whom fundamental love is just NOT enough of a reason to wear their crap even once, let alone a daily basis.

The price I pay for that refusal is that I cannot turn to them when I need help of any kind.  When shit his the fan, I have to be strong enough to handle it by myself no matter what condition I’m in, and most times that’s a really hard ask.  Other times, it’s impossible.

But then I remind myself of the alternative and the exorbitant price I’d have to pay to receive their help, and I remember, they simply aren’t worth it.  Whatever they could (or would lower themselves to) do for me would be virtually worthless and certainly not enough to make a significant difference.  Thus, I am better off alone and not signing up to endless abuse from them because “hey, did you forget we HELPED you?”

You know the type of people I mean.  Everyone has encountered one.  Many are still having to deal with them and will only act to remove those people from their lives when the price to keep them far outweighs any gain.  There actually IS a breaking point you can reach where that happens.  Sadly, for a lot of people, it takes far too long to reach it and they suffer greatly in the process.

The bottom line is that when help or support is offered with no strings attached and is not thrown in your face afterwards as though you are now indebted to them, that is a sign of heartfelt love.  Helping you because they care about you and you need it.

When there are conditions, or it is constantly mentioned after with either an implied our outrightly mentioned debt that you HAVE to do what they want now because you OWE them since they helped you, is abuse and manipulation.  Those are the people you want to remove from your life permanently with good riddance and no look back.

You can forgive actions but it doesn’t mean you have to forget the.  It certainly doesn’t mean that anyone’s action are okay or that they have the right to do it to you (or anyone else) ever again.

My excellent barometer is now: if they’re treating me badly and are not sorry in the slightest and are perfectly willing (or actually do) repeat the conduct, then it’s time to kick them from my life.  I don’t care if they’re abusing me to actually achieve and advantage or if it’s their ego is feeling a little flat and the want to feel superior to someone.  The reason is irrelevant and are just their own way of justifying thei foul conduct in their heads (and to everyone else).

If it’s happening, then these aren’t the people I need or want in my life – ever.  And they’ve just given me all the reason I need to jettison them.  How convenient for me. 

Relationship by blood does not excuse all either.  In fact, it makes it all the more heinous.  Relatives are supposed to be the ones you can turn to and who will have your back when nobody else will.  But if their conduct is vile and inexcusable, then it’s time for them to go.  Trust me, you WILL survive without them.  The price of their presence in your life does NOT have to be your soul. 

And if they can’t handle that, it’s THEIR problem, not yours.

Hijacked

33 years ago, I was adjusting to a world without my father.  He had died two days earlier. We had planned the funeral and now we went to the funeral home to view him one last time.

He was in the coffin wearing some religious robe that my mother had insisted upon and which was totally out of character for him.  I would have preferred he be in his own clothes but they, what the widow wants, the widow gets.

Personally, I just needed to see him to reassure myself that he’d made it from the hospital bed where I’d last seen him, to the coffin without mishap.  I needed to know he was okay. He was.

When the others left and it was just the widow and me, I wanted to kiss him one last time.  I was stupid enough to ask permission rather than just do.  Of course, she reacted with horror and snapped “NO” at me as though I’d be desecrating the body if my lips touched him. And what the widow wants, the widow gets.  I will never forgive her for denying me that one last moment of goodbye.

Today, I still wish I’d just ignored her and done as I wished regardless.  These days, I would have.  Back then, I was a weak doormat and couldn’t stand up to her and by god, she lorded her power every chance she got, and when one didn’t present itself, he manufactured an opportunity.

One of the biggest issues she had with me was that I had always been Dad’s Pet.  Thus, at the funeral and wake after, a lot of attention was on me and people were trying to keep an eye on me in case I needed support.  She resented that all eyes weren’t on HER – as she felt they should have been. 

It was the same thing at my sister’s funeral.  All eyes were on her young children and not on the ‘grieving mother’ as she felt was her due.  That didn’t mean she didn’t wander around playing the grieving mother though.  She talked incessantly about having lost “a CHILD” as though my sister had been a 5yo rather than an adult, wife and mother two months short of her 37^th birthday.

But, that’s not good drama, is it?  The scene plays better if we talk about a young girl rather than a grown woman, so that’s how she played it, and still does to this day.

Right now, I’m having no contact with her.  That’s how she wants it and I’m simply respecting her wishes.

Last October, she had a fall and activated her alert button.  They contacted me to tell me that she’d activated it and that an ambulance had been dispatched.  I rang her the next day and she wasn’t home.  I rang the hospital and found out that she’d been taken in there and kept for 12 hours of observation.  She’s in he 80s after all.  They also said they’d sent her home via patient transport.

For the next 2 weeks solid, I tried to call her.  She never picked up.  I figured she must have gone to stay with her sister or one of my cousins until she healed up.  I finally rang the carers for her and they said she’d been home the whole time.  So she just wasn’t picking up the phone to ME.

I knew what times her nurses would be in because they told me, and yet I got a pathetic email from her saying that she had problems seeing and would be in contact with me soon.  That was 6 months ago and to this day, ‘soon’ has yet to materialize.

Clearly, she doesn’t want to be in contact with me or she’d have picked up the phone any of the dozens of time I rang her.  If you pick up a phone, you don’t have to worry about problems seeing or trying to write emails when there is nobody there to assist you; which she managed to do just fine even with all the fabled ‘problems seeing’. 

So, I haven’t tried to contact her.  I sent her a card at Xmas but got no reply.  No call.  No card.  No letter.  Certainly no gift.  Just radio silence.  What the widow wants, the widow gets and this is yet another of her manipulative games.  She wins, no matter what.

If I ring her, then I’ve caved in this perverted game of chicken, and made first contact.  All she had to do was wait me out and I folded to the power game and she can congratulate herself yet again on having MADE me do something.

If I don’t contact her, then she can sit up there, 400kms away, and do a whole drama to anyone who’ll listen about what a poor old woman she is, with a vile selfish daughter who never thinks to call her.  So she now has a drama she can spin that makes her the victim and everyone will pay attention to her and pamper the ‘poor old dear’ with sympathy.  Once again, she wins.

Meanwhile, I’m down here damned if I do and damned if I don’t.  It’s a no win situation for me. 

I tend to regard it as a vile version of tic tac toe.  The only way to win is simply not to play, thus I have abdicated from the game.  She can keep this rubbish up for years and I’ve no intention of wasting my time and energy on something so pointless and stupid. 

However, I find myself being angry with her over other things instead.  They call that transference.  I’m angry about A but because I can’t do anything about it, I get unnecessarily angry about B, C and D instead.  Like today, for example.

I’m grieving the anniversary of losing Dad and what is foremost in my memory is how she robbed me of a precious last moment with him that I’ll never get back. While that anger is valid, it’s just telling that it reappears now.

I’d really like to be on the phone talking about him and sharing fond memories.  That is not only denied to me, it wouldn’t happen anyway.  Every time we talk about him, she brings up sour, miserable stories of every time he ever did her wrong or wasn’t MAN enough for her.  It destroys the whole point of calling in the first place.

She refuses to let me have my good memories of him and she started that shit immediately after he died.  She stood in the hall screaming at me about all the horrible things he’d done .  It was just the two of us that day and I’d been at her house.  For once, I stood up to her and told her that I couldn’t listen to that stuff because he was my father and I need my good memories of him.  I called a taxi (I didn’t drive in those days), waited out front for it to arrive and then went home.

She came by my workplace a few weeks later, uninvited and unannounced, which she knew I despised.  She’d just appear and I was forced to have lunch with her because it was the socially acceptable thing to do and expected of me.  In other words, she manipulated me into it.

We went to a nearby café and then she sat there the whole lunchtime dissing him and running him into the ground.  Once again, I shut her down and told her I needed my good memories of him.

What was supposed to happen was that I was to revise my opinion of him and think he had been a low life creep, and turn all my sympathies to the ‘poor widow’ and fuss over her.  It had been long enough after the funeral that everyone had gone back to their own lives and the attention centred around her had worn off.  So, she was trying to drum up more from me.  What the widow wants…

Except this time, she didn’t get it.  And that pissed her off in ways I can’t even begin to describe.

These days (or at least before October last year when we were talking occasionally) if she starts to get into another rousing game of Let’s Backstab Dad, I suddenly remember that I have something I have to do, or a place I have to be and oh gee, is that the time?  She gets the point and stops but I still cut the call shorter than it would have been to make the point.

Besides, once she starts, she finds it REALLY hard to stop.  She can hit pause for maybe 5 minutes but as soon as she thinks things are back on keep, she starts up again. She’s like a kid who behaves when the parent is watching but as soon as the back is turned, they’re a vile, misbehaving little troll again.  Cutting a call short, stops her doing that.

I find it incredibly offensive that on a day when I’d like to be grieving my father, despite the 30+ year gap, the selfish, attention seeking widow is still there taking centre stage.  And I don’t know how to stop that.  She has permeated so much of any time I ever had with him throughout my whole life and each time, it’s been a sour, unhappy experience for her contribution to it.

I guess she wins again and the only time I’ll get to win, is when she’s dead, which is really sad and pathetic.  Even then she’ll win because she wants to be buried with him so his grave won’t even be safe space.  

God, it just never ends.

23 Years

Today would have been my grandma’s birthday. She died back in 2001.

I can’t believe she’s been gone 23 years. It doesn’t seem that long.

Or maybe it does.

Sometimes it feels like forever and sometimes it feels like moments ago.

Other times, it feels like she never existed.

Ane sometimes it feels like I’m 6 years old again and eating cornflakes with her at the table while she listens to breakfast radio.

Happy birthday, Nin

Restless

Last night, I had a head full of words.  They were far too many and far too loud to possibly ignore.  So, at midnight I caved to the situation and dragged myself out of bed and headed for the lounge, and my laptop. 

I wasn’t going to be able to sleep while all that noise was going on in my head and I simply HAD to do something with it or I’d be up all night.  I had work in the morning and a full day ahead.  I think any working person knows, when you have to sleep so you can function at work the next day, you do whatever you need to make that happen.

In this case, the solution was to write, and write, and write.  Just take whatever words were flying around in my head and get them OUT and on ‘paper’ even if that means electronically.  I need to externalize them.  Once they are out, I can put them down and walk away – or so the theory goes.  Last night,  was up until 1am shaking it all off even after I finished writing my poem, “I Hate”.

While I do feel better for having written it and poured out all that emotion, there’s still oceans of it left inside which still hasn’t found an outlet and is churning away like a tempest from hell.  I’m not sure what the solution is for that. It might be more writing.  It might not.  It might be a trip to the cemetery.  It might not.  When I figure it out, if I ever figure it out, I’m sure it’ll be healing.  In the meantime, it’s back to the ongoing hurricane that comprises my inner world.

Most times, I’m okay with Julia dying.  She did what she needed to and went home.  It’s that simple.  It wasn’t her idea to get cancer.  There wasn’t anything she could do about it.  It was rare and aggressive and it took her in just over a year from start to finish.  What else are you going to do except concede and move on as best you can?  I adjusted to all that two decades ago.

Then there are days where I’m suddenly not so okay.  Anniversaries mostly.  Her birthday or the anniversary of her death (Nov 15) are the worst.  But there are occasionally other things that suddenly remind me of her and they come out of nowhere and it’s a bit like being mugged.

There’s no warning.  No ability to mentally or emotionally prepare.  Those moments just appear out of thin air and deliver the sucker punch of all time.  I think anyone who’s lost someone in their family knows that feeling.

I keep waiting for it to get better, but it never does.  Each year, it’s a little different to the one before and seems to hurt in a whole other way.  And it totally sucks. 

I find myself wondering just when I’ll reach the point where I’m ‘over it’ enough to deal without having some kind of crisis at least twice a year, if not more.  Then I wonder if such a point even exists or if it’s as mythical as finding Shangri La inhabited by unicorns.

And nobody has any answers.  It doesn’t matter where you look or who you talk to.  Friend, relative, spiritual adviser, or even the Great Kahuna.  Nobody can offer anything that will heal these kinds of ragged wounds.  It all comes down to what you tell yourself and how much slack you’re willing to cut yourself.

In my experience, being the strong, stoic type doesn’t cut much mustard.  All it does it allow you to engage in a tidy bit of self-flagellation.  Now, if that’s your thing, have at it.  Just be honest about it,

If you want to fall apart into a massive flood of weepy tears each year, be honest about that.  Just also be aware that people might be willing to help you through one crisis, but they aren’t going to hang around for an ongoing saga.  This isn’t theatre, you’re not the hottest drama in town, and NOBODY has bought season tickets to see every performance.  People are more than willing to support as long as it’s a ‘for now’ deal and not a ‘forever’ one.  People who are constantly in crisis wear others out and then, they walk. 

I sort of tread the middle road.  I’m weepy sometimes and not others.  Most times I pick up and get on with life, and when I can’t, I don’t.  At those times, I’ll more than likely squirrel away and do the worst of my crying in private.

When I’m ready, I’ll talk about it, perhaps in on Facebook or in a blog post but initially, only to a select handful of people whom I trust and have embraced as family.  Once I have worked through the worst of it with them, then I’m ready to go to a wider audience, although no matter how much that audience thinks I’m open and share so much, they are still at distance I feel comfortable with and there are parts they will just never see.  Only the inner circle sees that stuff.

Today, I am processing.  I am working through all the layers of grief trying to find a way to get through tomorrow and pick up my daily life until January rolls around and I have to deal with the anniversary of her birthday (Jan 15). 

Then of course, there’s my Dad’s birthday (Jan 16) and my Grandma’s (Jan 8) and the anniversary of Dad’s death (Mar 22), etc.  It just never stops, does it?

It’s like bouncing from one wall to another and never finding a place where you can just stop and rest.  I wonder if such a place even exists, in this world or any other.  But wouldn’t it be nice if it did?

I Hate

Right now, I really hate that it’s midnight
And I can’t sleep even though I want to
Because I have too many words
And they’re all about you
Keeping me awake
When I know I need to sleep
Because I have to work in the morning
But there you are, in my head
And keeping me awake

I hate that you died before we could fix things
I hate that I didn’t know how to sit you down
And make you listen
I didn’t know how to find the words
To say what needed to be said
To heal the rift I had no part in starting
And bring about a reunion between us

I hate that even if I had found the words
I know I would have been too cowardly
To give them voice in the face of your anger
You were always so strong and powerful
And you always called the shots
And I never knew how to stand up to that
And make you see me as a sister
And a friend
And then you died
And I absolutely hate that

I hate that every year is a whole new experience
In remembrance and pain
Every time the anniversary of your death arrives
Every time Christmas day arrives
Every time the anniversary of your birthday arrives
Every time I encounter anything
That reminds me of you
And I cannot escape any of it

I hate that we wasted 35 years
Fighting over things that didn’t matter
And never will
Letting the anger grow into vast walls
We could never tear down
And letting our relationship deteriorate
Into something that caused pain
And never joy

I hate you for dying
And I hate myself for hating you for dying
I can never forgive myself
For all the angry words and ruthless barbs
That we traded with such petty spite
If I’d known then what I know now
I’d have moved heaven and earth
To make it all unfold differently

But I can’t do a damn thing to change any of it
And I hate that most of all

The Door

Thirty-one years ago, I came home after a long day.

It was over and finished.

It all happened in a blur.

To this day, I have only snippets of images from that day.

I barely remember who I spoke to.

And I don’t know what I did that night.

I don’t remember what I felt on waking up the next day.

Nothing felt real.

It was like an horrific nightmare happening to someone else.

Dad was dead and we had buried him.

I was never going to see him again.

Never going to hear his voice.

All we were ever going to have was over and finished.

The impenetrable door permanently closed.

Mostly I prefer not to think about it but now and again, it’s there.

And when it is, it’s awful.