seven years

that's how long has passed since we shut the machines off .... since ... your body died. when i think of you, i find it hard to believe that so much time has passed. and ... find it hard to understand why you just had to give in ... give up. My dear, i have known the sweet, searing sorrow of anguish, loneliness, of loss and shame. But ... it never made me want to destroy myself. Despite the shards of grief that pierce me as i walk along the path of life, this earthly life has so much to offer - if i only reach out and touch it, taste it, savour it.

And, my dear, i feel very sad that you gave up too soon, missed out. And i feel such sadness when i think of your mother -- without her only daughter in the dusk of her life. Alone ... she's alone ... and she must grieve for you terribly. I know ... i know this feeling, my dear. And ... know that you witnessed this grief ... my grief ... our grief - i will call it our grief, because you loved my boys like a mother.

And, dear ... that brings me the prize ... the prize of my life. My boy ... our boy ... you should see him, dear. He has grown into a man! I can hardly believe my eyes, when i look up at him (yes, look up at him -- he is taller that us, my dear) and into his gentle, brown eyes. So much life and experience in these eyes ... like ... they belong to an old, old soul. And he is a hit with the girls, my dear. Just like his dad was at that age. You should see our boy. It makes my heart shine, glimmer, sing. Perhaps yours too? Out there, somewhere?

And i feel a pinch of sadness that you could not stay, and see this. See how it all unfolded. But perhaps things may have turned out differently if you had not given up on yourself like you did. I dunno. I just know that we have moved on, my dear. Your name never gets spoken on our lips. When it does, i think we flinch - for the sound of your name resonates despair ... your despair. But ... your name sits in my heart, silent ... ever remembered. For the love you shared ... for the difference you made during your short earthly existence.

a note from malva: as i wrote this, a tribute to someone i knew (her name is not important) who drank herself to death at the age of 40, "free as a bird" (by lynyrd skinner) played on the radio -- i hope that where ever you are, my dear, you fly freely - like the song says

passing thoughts ...

1. happiness is never where you think you'll find it


2. i see most clearly with my eyes closed


3. and hear most clearly with my eyes opened


4. is there stillness in the chaos?


5. can we ever really know certainty?

a note from malva: feeling a little spent right now ... another post is fermenting in me ... i will dig deep again this evening and make a longer entry. for now, tho' this will have to do.

room 408 ...

that's where you died. i'll call you cindy, even tho' we did not call you this in life. i know you can hear me, out there, somewhere, soaring on a trail of stardust. you're there - with your eyes wide open ... singing, shouting at the top of your voice, the voice that got so cruelly stifled toward end of your earthly existence.

cindy, i have thought about you these years since your death. wanting, so many times, to put your story in words. wanting to share your courage, your pain, the rip-off of your life ... and death. wanting to share this with others. but, until now cindy, i could not. could not give a voice to that very painful story -- your story. you seem so far away, cindy ... and as i revisit bittersweet memories of you that linger in my heart, i think each day since your death must seem an eternity to your children. i hope that you can watch them grow, and silently, wrap your loving arms around them, cindy. 15 and 17 years old ... that's far too young to lose your mother.

know what i remember, cindy? i remember that angry, stubborn and fiercly secretive woman who brooded in the corner of a 4-bed hospital room. angry, cindy ... so very angry. and - i don't blame you. but it sure made nursing you a challenge at times. even tho the rapidly growing cancer on your thyroid gland, and the tracheostomy it neccesitated, had silenced your voice, your outbursts could be sooo vitriolic just the same, cindy. in those early days of your admission, how you lashed out at us all. possibly, you hoped to keep us beyond your towering wall?

cindy ... i cannot imagine the journey you took, battling your cancer alone. your kids ... so lost and alone, too. such desperate sorrow silently gushed from their pores each time they came to visit. and ... how did they manage, so alone? forbidden, by you, to tell their father that their mother had terminal cancer. and ... that acrimonious relationship between you and your ex ... it left you with a bitter taste of antagonism in your mouth even as you contemplated your death.

i remember, cindy, your denial. how, at one point, you decided that the oncologist made a mistake. maybe that's why you had not really prepared yourself, or anyone else around you for the inevitable? the reason your head was swelling so severely that it made your eyes close, you announced, was because of an undiagnosed heart condition. oh, cindy, how this made me feel so sad about the job i had to do. how could i guide your passage thru this dark and difficult tunnel if you did not want to even walk inside it? and we watched you, cindy, lose each tiny battle with the cancer. day by day. week by week. and, eventually, silent, sad resignation cross your face like a shadow. and it rested there.

what a rip-off, cindy! how cheated we all felt for you. so intelligent, so determined, so much mothering left to do, and one course away from your PH.D. and cancer washed it all away. and you hung on, for as long as you could. maybe for too long? we all just wanted it to end, cindy. but you hung on. and, it hurt. and i remember trying really hard not to let the other patients see me cry whenever the harpist would come and play for you, cindy. a small, simple pleasure, cindy. but so beautiful and it made you smile. and what a beautiful smile, cindy. and we marvelled that you could still smile. and we cried that you could not even talk to your own mother on the phone, because you had no voice ... you could not even tell your mother you loved her, missed her. cindy ... no words can express it.

cindy, i remember marvelling at how you could write out what you wanted to say on the paper so neatly, so legibly ... even with your eyes swollen shut, your handwriting looked like 'school teaching writing' - perfectly formed and readable. and, cindy, i remember how you replied 'don't make me brave, make it easy,' when i told you that i thought your were so strong and brave. i'll never forget the feeling i felt, then - best described as a shard of glass thru a soft, ripe fruit - as these words sunk into my soul.

i watching you wither, fight, then fail over a period of 8 months. each and everyday i worked with you, cindy, you took my breath away. and when i think of you now ... you still do. you challenged us every day, cindy. and you made us feel it. and you taught us courage, hope, compassion, patience ... and above all - humilty. thank you cindy ... for your eternal lesson. i feel so privileged to have shared so intimately the raw moments of your life and to have made a difference in your death. i remember you, cindy, for so many reasons.

i'll never forget how you said goodbye to your kids. on mother's day, they came to visit ... spent the afternoon with you, pinned their artwork to your hospital room walls. when they said their goodbyes - the last time they saw you alive. and, two long and lonely weeks later, you died ... alone, in the hours before dawn, in your private and dark room. 408. i remember, cindy. 408. i will never forget.

i want you to know ...

i forgive you, for what you did. it never was a question of forgiveness, on my part. just anguish, dark and lonely anguish that your betrayal sent me plunging into -- head first. i understood, you know. i understood why you did those things to me. you were 19 or 20. how old was i? i think, 10 or 12. my recollection of these times in my life - fragmented. i remember being in grade 6, then grade 7, then grade 8. and i remember that i understood.

sitting in the back seat of the car, listening to the adults talk about themselves and their relationships. that's when it became clear to me ... she ... your wife ... spoke of not satisfying you ... sexually. you know, that stupid mind-fucking game wives play with their husbands, involving deprival of sex at a whim? and, so, i rationalized, you had to get fulfilment somewhere. and that somewhere happened to be me. and ... i understood.

and, so, on those late nite drives - you driving me home after an evening of babysitting your daughter - thru the dark, deserted residential streets, you took what wasn't yours to take. did you think it was okay to take what wasn't yours if no one saw you taking it? did you think maybe i would forget ... that i wouldn't notice anything went missing?

well. i want you to know that it wasn't okay, that i did notice, even though no one else seemed to notice. and that your denials did not change the unchangeable reality. how many others, like me, were there? i wonder, do they remember the sour scent of your breath? the pastey, greasy feeling of your hair and skin? and do they have the same fear of men with grimy hands and dirt under their fingernails? and ... i also wonder ... how do you live with yourself?

i want you to know that ... what you took - my innocence, trust, self - you also took from every man i have ever loved. or tried to love. years after your betrayal, the ugly, repulsive and horrific betrayal ... you continue to take these things. and those, who never even knew you, have suffered the cold and icey fallout ... my cold and icey fallout.

and you ...? what have you suffered? oh ... why should i care? i don't really. i don't. i just want you to know that i remember ... forgive even ... but i can never, never forget. that's what i want you to know.

dear sis,

author's note: i posted this on livejournal a few days ago. some, but not all, of you have seen this piece so i am reposting it here.

i thought of you today when i read these words: "living is the horror, not death. the living mourn the dead. the dead mourn no one." and so it is, kay. i, the living, mourn you, the dead. kay, i cannot put into words how i miss you. and how bitterness, tempered with regret, fills my soul when i think of all the tender moments, secrets, and sorrows that remained unshared between us sisters.

i'm sorry that you never got to experience motherhood. its amazing, kay. amazing. these tiny lives - so dependent. vulnerable, and so ...us. and we mold them. shape them. they become our life project.they become life ... and its meaning. its scary, kay. and so much responsibility. and difficult. but ... ahh. the joy of hearing yourself in a tiny voice, or seeing your gestures in a tiny body. and the intensity of it ... knowing you would die for them, or .... worse - kill for them. i think you would have made a wonderful mum, kay. better than me, i think. better - because you were always the strong, disciplined one. but --these are just thoughts now, dear sis. i miss you. and ... i'm forever sorry. and, it changes nothing.

i'm sorry that mother never understood, kay. that she discarded you like a torn sock. when you refused to deny yourself in order to declare your 'loyalty' ... some fucking stupid and nebulus concept they made up for their own self-importance. and that i, weak and cowardly, fell for her ultimatum and turned on you. this, i think, shall remain my undying regret --lifelong. the only thing i shall take to my grave, kay. and ... kay, i do so wish you had a grave. somplace i could visit you. but ... all i have are those secret shadowy places inside my heart ... filled with childhood memories ... you and me, kay. and ... i have my sad, searing regret.

i try not to think of the fact that someone from florida had to call us to tell us that you died in a car accident at home, in northern alberta. when i do think of this fact, i reflect on how complacent, cowardly and distant i had grown in relation to you. and of the last time i saw you alive. on the no. 60 bus. i can never really know for sure - but in my heart i believe that you saw me snubbing you. me - that fucking snotty little sister of yours.

i felt so sheepish, at your funeral. and judged. judged by all those who thought they loved you more, and therefore deserved to mourn you more intensely. i felt so much i felt nothing, kay. numb ... flaming numbness. my boss - a bitch from hell - gave me the gears about taking five days off to travel to your funeral, kay. fucking cunt! but i travelled all the same. i don't remember the bus ride to edmonton ...

i'm guessing that has something to do with the 3x500 cc bottles of rye and coke (a 50-50 mix) i drank en route. i have a very, very vague recollection of getting off the bus ... and, i'm actually amazed that i could walk at all. but, kay ... nothing could drown me. i tried, drinking as much alcohol as i could find. nothing. just a little of the edge taken off. i wonder what your in-laws thought - seeing me at breakfast time in the restaurant, already drinking alcohol.

i'm not really sure how ... but thru some form of osmosis the reality of your absence from this earth seeped into my soul. leaving its mark ... indelible. this wound of mine - it closed over, kay. but it never really healed inside. i miss you. i'm sorry. but i know that no depth of feeling can change the unchangeable. and so it is. the living mourn the dead. i mourn you.

is this mid life crisis?

well, whatever IT is ... fuck! it is making me soooo restless, indecisive, fickle. i cannot stand to live in my own skin some times. these times a restless, bone-chilling ache seizes my soul and does not let go. a residual feeling of unsatisfaction looms, hovers in the distant horizon. like a giant, dark cloud - the culmination of every loss, every disappointment, every heart break i have felt. and then there is self doubt - a nagging, high-pitched squeal that resides inside my consciousness.

where does self-doubt end and self-evaluation begin? when does 'taking stock' become wondering if i made the right choices? and why bother wondering at all? the choices have been made many years ago. is marriage a life-long commitment necessitating mutual-exclusivity and fidelity, where 2 become 1? isn't this a prison sentence,then?

is marriage a symbiotic relationship - eventually so habitual that it weaves itself into the fabric of each partner's personality? this implies that each person remains an individual and does not get assimilated by the 'marriage entity collective,' but nonetheless remain somehow intertwinned in existence. why do we think true love is ownership, possession and jealousy? is marriage really ownership and assimilation? that certainly is NOT what i signed up for ...

does true love mean sacrificing oneself to fidelity? isn't it naive to think that one can truly be sexually satisfied for a lifetime with one sexual partner? shouldn't we continually strive to push the envelope, stir the passions, seek physical satisfaction if the status quo does not meet our needs?

don't we continually strive to push the envelope and challenge ourselves in every other arena of life? then, why does the physical suffer? why do we have to settle for the status quo? and ... what if i don't want to? what if i want a meal supplment? like ... an hors d'oeuvre? if i have an hors d'oeuvre, does it mean i am rejecting the main course?

author's note: okay. so i couldn't stay away. i like this place far too much. and i missed you guys. i have tried to leave this place a few times. but you always bring me back here, my dear blogging friends.

so ... look for me here from now on.