Solace is an act of sharing

A fortnight has passed. The shock is starting to wear off and it is now sinking in that you are no longer around. Last night, I used the juicer/blender for the first time. It was the one purchased with the voucher from my employers a couple of Christmases ago and which was always one of your many contributions to our menu and my eating regime. The oranges and pineapple I mixed in together tasted bitter, even though I had bought them fresh from the nearby Farmhouse, earlier that day.

 

This is how it is and this is how it will be. When Brodie died, I said that it was as if the colours on the world became duller and the volume on our music, our laughter, our capacity to enjoy life was muted. His death impacted on my sight and sound - your's is playing havoc with my taste and smell. Food, which was such a prominent part of our life, despite your inability to actually sample it, is lacking. I eat because I need to but I have not really enjoyed a meal in the same way you and I did, whether we were eating out or dining in front of an episode of a DVD or TV show of our choice.

 

A friend sent me a newsletter recently and it contained an article that articulated something of what I am feeling, two weeks on from your death. It also addresses the question that I am regularly asking myself about why I persist with these reflections. What does pouring my heart out onto a page actually achieve, for me and for others? 

 

Here is an extract from the article, kindly shared with me by Sue Thomas:

Gary died at the beginning of Advent, so this season holds some particular sorrows. Yet I have learned that Advent is a season custom-made for experiencing how Christ meets us in the places that are most shadowed, most hopeless, most uncertain, most fearful. The trappings that have become associated with this season can make it difficult for us to see this. Yet beyond and beneath those trappings is the wondrous truth that lies at the heart of Advent and Christmas: that the Word became flesh and comes to us still as life, as light, as fierce love that does not abandon us in the darkest times.

The gifts of this season are beautifully and powerfully personal, but they are never just for us alone. The Word comes to us and takes flesh in us for the life of the world. After Gary's death, when those words came to tell me Solace is your job now, I knew this was not an invitation to seek solace only for my own self. Solace is not solitary: when it comes, it is for sharing."

 

I write to share. I write because it gives me comfort to know that someone, out there, may derive some peace, or contentment or be less angry or bitter about what has happened. You were never any of those things in your life and I would hate for the world to be burdened with those qualities in your death.

 

I write for me and for others, but I also write for you. You were my muse in life and now, you and Amber and Brodie will be my inspiration from the next life. I feel connected to you when I write and I pray others will feel connected to you when they read what I have written.

 

The author I quoted above mentions that "the Word became flesh and comes to us still as life." In my writing, I am giving flesh to words and there is a sense that I can continue on with the journey of life. This is a truth for me in this Advent season - my solace too must be shared.  

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Finding meaning in the gaps

The memory brought forth by the Facebook algorithm for today (Tuesday, December 5) was a picture of my son, Brodie interacting with a toy version of the Big Red Car. In the foreground, were all his Mr Men figures, spread across the bed. His hair was ruffled and he was dressed in pyjamas that featured children carrying flags with numbers on them. It is a photo of a child at play, a story unfolding as he directs his cast of many.

 

I went to post the picture, with something pithy as an editorial piece earlier this afternoon. There was a moment between when I was interacting with some people and then I was heading off to the shops – not a huge moment, or a large gap of time, but enough for there to be a space in what I was doing. It was a gap – a gap in time, a gap in my thought process, a gap in my behaviour.

I reached for the phone and immediately went to fill that gap, by writing and posting something to social media.

This is how grief is: you have this constant sense of a gap, a realisation that something that once was there now isn’t. Not the absence of the loved one - that is a profound missing in its own right. And I miss Celena. Terribly. Achingly.

The gap I am referring to is the one borne out of established habits no longer helping; of realising that what once worked can no longer be applied; your values, your principles, the entire fabric of what made you who you are has to be…remade.

When I realised what I was doing – looking to occupy my time and thinking, by posting a picture and some words – I was able to achieve a victory of sorts. I stopped myself. I put the phone away and I focused on that short walk to the shops.

As the day has unfolded, I have been able to articulate to a friend some of what I am now writing about here. I know there will be many more moments, in the days, weeks, months and years ahead when I look to try and fill all these gaps I sense opening up around me. It will be tempting to fall back on that which I know in order to ensure those fissures in time, energy and thinking do not become large enough for me to fall into them completely.

Celena was always very intentional about her writing. She didn’t put pen to paper unless she was particularly moved. Her poetry, her novel writing, her cross stitching and all her craft, was always undertaken with an air of deliberation and never on a whim. This piece was penned with that same sense of deliberation because I avoided acting on a whim.

Writers fill pages with prose and craft stories that nestle snugly between two book covers. They bring into being something that was not there before. They fill a gap we never even knew existed.

I began by referring to the picture of Brodie and the story that was unfolding before him on the bed. Perhaps he was reminding me of my gift as a story teller and Celena is urging me to think before acting, to pause before penning. Maybe, in this season of loss and yearning, I am meant to find meaning for myself in my writing?

It is one answer that fills one gap. For now, it will do.

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The power of one little word

During our trip to Timor, I attempted to learn different Tetum expressions. These mainly focused on greetings, a note of thanks, and, to the bemusement and perhaps horror of our group, asking people "are you married?" (It was an ideal 

ice-breaker, I found.)

There was one word that, when I heard it early in our trip, I found myself unable to grasp its full meaning, I needed to sit with it, sound it out in my head, repeat it to myself, to fully absorb the power of this solitary, Tetum word. 

Before I share the word with you, I want to digress slightly and share some notes I took down while visiting a museum dedicated to commemorating the Timorese journey towards independence. These notes are offered without comment and editorialising; they say enough without my foreigner's perspective being added to the mix. 

One display shared this: "In 1974, Timor Leste had 653,211 inhabitants. In 1978, that figure had dropped to 498,433. This means that Timor Leste had lost more than 23% of its population in the first four years of Indonesian occupation."

On another display, I read this: "In July 1979, an Indonesian census reveals that more than one-quarter of the population has died as a result of the war and starvation. The Catholic Church estimates that more than one-third of the East Timorese population has been wiped out."

In a part of the exhibition entitled simply "Shackles of Tears", the wall carried these words: "It is estimated that by the end of 1979, more than 300,000 people were detained in concentration camps. Many [people] were abandoned along the roads without food or medicine and were repeatedly controlled or interrogated by the invading forces. Whole villages were evacuated."

These are the quotes I noted down. I share them with you now so you can understand why I needed to wrap my head around the significance of one, simple, but profound, Tetum word: Chega.

To the Timorese, Chega is how a country is able to go on after losing what the quotes above estimate to be between one quarter and one-third of its population. Chega is what you say when you see your family, friends or fellow villagers detained in concentration camps. It is the word you scream when the thought of revenge or the desire for retribution becomes so pervading that you cannot function. It is what a Timorese mother tells her children when they see their Fretilin father taken to prison or what a priest tells his congregation when they come to him for inspiration and comfort. 

Chega.

Chega.

Chega.

The word, it seems, is variously translated as "no more", "finish", "to draw a line." Another interpretation is it means "never again." 

It was the word settled upon when, after the conflict was over, the invading forces had departed and a reconciliation process was begun, that the word was uttered. Chega. Never again. We will not let this come to define us. No more. We are drawing a line in the sand and we will move forward together, from this moment.

I have come to love the word Chega. It has an air of resolve and determination about it. It speaks of truth borne out of struggle, of hope emerging from despair. It is a language all of its own. 

Consider introducing Chega into your own vocabulary: It can be the word you use when you ruefully stare down at the scales and wonder why the weight keeps piling on. Never again. No more.

It can be the word to draw upon when you realise that a personal  relationship is taking more than it is offering or when you are no longer passionate about the job you hold. Never again. No more.

Chega: it is a word the Timorese have used, not to forget the past, but to shape their future. They know that holding on to transgressions only weighs a nation down and that bitterness and hatred cripples one's ability to grow and transform. 

Of all the words I will take away from my time in Timor, this is the one I pray I will always remember. 

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