A note for a lost friend

I think of you often, in particular when amused at the most of trivial things, things that others muster a half raised eyebrow at, that we would still be laughing at weeks, months and sometimes even years later. I think to send messages to you on most days but something stops me, it's hard to describe what and even harder to describe why. My guess is that I am pestering you, forcing you into a place that feels uncomfortable and not comforting. This idea pains me, the notion that I am causing you more harm than good and so I keep my distance. Of course then a little time passes and I'm back again suggesting meet-ups that never take place and my head spinning like a love forlorn teenager waiting for a call back from their chosen one. 

My heart aches for the grief that you endure, for the losses, all that you have had taken from you, for lost years and your broken dreams. Your strength and ability to remain in full control are both your greatest strength and your greatest weakness. I can't find you. I CAN'T FIND YOU! I cannot even get close. Every door is shut and firmly locked. And of course my heart burned with rage and sadness when you chose (it seemed to me) to let everyone and anyone but me to be along your side, even the folks who you spurned and told me you couldn't stand when I gently tried to help you see reason - to accept all the support that was being offered. Those gentle words I offered took much strength from me over the years, really. I never wanted to assign a cost for my emotional service to you but the months and years since, the time to reflect, the experiences that I have endured myself of loss and sadness, all of this has left me able to say - it's not all about you. There, I said it. I so desperately needed you when I too felt broken. I needed you and you were nowhere.

My love for you remains endless. Forever. I will take your heart and mine to my grave. But you broke my heart. Do you know that? Do you have a note folded in a drawer or in a corner of your mind that has similar words to these? Did I break your heart too? It was always different rules for me, I never got where that came from. Maybe because of my faith, perhaps your expectations were and are higher of me? It is definitely part of the complexity of it all.

So, how do we move forward? I wait. I wait. I wait. Is it too late? Is it ever too late? One thing I have learned since we have grown apart is this - I do not have the energy to be continually sad, now I stray from those who cause me pain. If attempts at resolve leave my mental health in jeopardy then it's simply time to move on, even if my heart muscle is torn irreparably. I leave you with these words from Walt Whitman, 'Happiness, not in another place but this place…not for another hour, but this hour.' My hope is that you find this happiness in every corner that you seek it, in every minute that you seek it. This is my hope for you, dear friend.

Further and further out to sea

Today marks the day that my father died. For a day of such huge significance however, it is not a day that I normally dwell on. I'm always aware in the week that precedes it that it is coming but there is no tradition or event or ritual that is followed to acknowledge the date or passing of time. Perhaps another part of the loss, is the fact that my father is buried far, far away in the country of his birth, so there has never been a place that my family members and I have ever gathered to commiserate or to show our respect. There is no place to lay flowers, no gravestone to clean or polish and this is not something I have ever grieved since it has not been a part of the journey of loss for me. My faith, even since my bereavement at such a tender age, has always given me the assurance that my connection to the father goes beyond any place that his body lays. That said, one of the greatest tortures of my younger years was the tiny seed of doubt that questioned if my father had indeed passed away. Since I never attended his funeral and never saw his lifeless body, perhaps there had been a mistake? For years, if I saw a man who resembled my father, for a moment, that fleeting hopeful, betraying moment, as my heart rate soared I would believe he was alive. Alive! Only for the inevitable - the slightly embarrassed realisation of my error quickly followed by the almost indescribable burn of the loss once more. 

It's interesting to me that when I mentioned in passing to my children that today is the day that their grandfather died, they were empathic yet unperturbed. The story of their grandfather's life very much surpasses any focus on his death. By this I mean, my father and his story is inherently built within the fabric of their own lives. He is living and present in this way. He is part of our conversations and a part of our storytelling. He is part of them in name and his blood runs through their veins, something they proudly wear on their sleeves.

Up until I was I think five or six years old, I obsessively carried my baby blanket around with me. It was named 'shawlie'. One day my brother, my elder by seven years, challenged me to throw my shawlie into the sea. I watched my companion of five/six years slowly and then very, very quickly disappear up and over the crashing white waves suddenly processing that this was goodbye. I had thought I was ready to say goodbye, I of course was not. This is still how I feel about my father's death. I think I am ready to accept the abscence and say goodbye once and for all but of course I am not. He is further and further out to sea, drifting always, out of my reach. If I squint, I might just catch sight of him. Some days my hand almost reaches his, on others my hands do not even leave my sides to reach out into the distance and yet, there are those days where I see him standing alongside me on the shore. He is quiet and so am I. He seldom appears in this way but when he does I am left with the whispers of him for days and days.

By The River

It is always in the hard times that I think of him.

When I need him on my side.

My team.

Because there are always sides and there are always teams.

Sometimes I picture him in this place.

I see him, in the distance, hovering over the water.

He has changed.

He is both young and old simultaneously.

His smile however remains the same.

I reach out and I can touch him.

He is there.

I feel him on my fingertips.

Yet when I open my eyes, there is dust.

Just dust and paper memories at my fingertips.

I was so close.

Perhaps ...

Perhaps next time.

Longing, Belonging To A Place Buried Inside

I am afraid of forgetting the past. I cannot remember a time when I wasn't afraid of this. I am certain that at its root, is a concern about loss of identity. In fact, loss itself. It seems common, for those that have lost a person central to their lives, especially at a young age. The loss of my father when I was ten years old has remained one of the greatest sources of both heartache and formidable inspiration. Even twenty years ago when I was a Fine Art undergraduate, I remember seeing some of my peers rolling their eyes into the backs of their heads as I would present my work in crits. I wasn't afraid of the content of my work. I wasn't afraid to be exploring my past. I wasn't afraid to be mixed-race and fascinated with my own ethnic and cultural background. Still, I was simply afraid that if I did not seek more of this story and its beginnings and meanderings, I was afraid I would forget this story. His story, my story, both mine and his story and the story of our people and how we came to be.

My Aunty called from Mamprobi, Accra a few weeks ago. Several messages had been left from mobile numbers with the Accra - Ghana prefix, which I immediately recognised whilst I was out walking with my husband and children. My heart immediately beat faster and felt like it was being pulled down with great force towards my feet, a weight that felt unbearable. I reached the car and sat quietly and the whole journey I wondered, is it my Uncle or my Aunty that have passed away? Just the night before, I had dreamed very clearly of my dear Aunty. I was sat alongside her and she held my hand in hers and as she talked I couldn't hear or make out the words that she was saying but she smiled with her eyes, that way that she does and everything felt ok, everything felt safe and peaceful. I took my hand from hers and held hers tight and I leaned in and whispered in her ear and again she smiled with her eyes. When I reached home and dialled my cousins number, after a short exchange she said 'Ma wants to speak with you'. Immediately my heart swelled with relief, my Aunty was alive. It quickly deflated though, my Uncle, her husband had passed away. He was 91 years old. 

I have tried and tried to write about my Uncle and the yet the words have not come, perhaps it is too soon. There is so much about what I feel for both him and my Aunty that can't be described with words. These two precious people drew my husband and I into their arms years ago when I returned to Ghana for the first time since leaving at age ten. These precious people made my husband and I a part of their lives and gave me that sense of home that I had been craving since I had left my fathers land. As long as it has been once more that I have been absent from my fathers land, I carry the land in my heart, just as I do my Aunty and Uncle. I carry them in an inside pocket full to bursting point with funny things that my little ones have said, with memories of my father happy and sad, memories of the stories that Aunty told me of the reception my white skinned mother received from the Ghanaian family, with thoughts that I want to share like how my hands are becoming more and more like my fathers and my Aunty's with each passing day, with songs, ones that I remember my Aunty singing and ones that I have learned since that make me think of her. I have written about my Aunty Adelaide and my Uncle Andrew many times, here and here and here. They are a source of salt and light and forever will be. 

Perhaps for now the best way I can describe how I feel is  a way I have often felt. A feeling that I have described again and again in many different guises through my art practice of many years. Something that I wrote about extensively on an album that my husband and I wrote and recorded in the past. The lyrics have sat alongside me for days now and as my husband will be quick to tell you, I am not a master at remembering lyrics, even my own. But these I have been repeating over and over, as I often do at restless times.

Outside, warm air licking my neck
Ada braiding my hair.

And I'm sat here watching them play.
Girls jumping up and down.

In slow motion
I think of what it is to be away
Longing, belonging to a place buried inside.

I won't dismay
At chipping away at hope.

In slow motion
I have to play down the significance
of this place my father called home.
As I remember both the tears and joy.

Riding a wave
Purging my desire
Finding all the cracks are real.

And now I roll in truth.
True to the bone.

One Day At A Time Sweet Jesus

It happens in a moment. And from then onwards it defines you and continues to do so although in lesser and lesser ways over time. Loss. A friend recently said to me, 'the world is divided into those that have lost someone and those that have not and those that have not, have no idea how the others feel'. I thought a lot about those words and my initial reaction was relief. I have lost. I belong to the former group. I'm in the club, I get it. But loss doesn't always feel like that, you don't always feel understood and like you have common ground with a defined group. You just feel your own raw, unbearably unique .... loss. I experienced loss as a ten year old and till this day I feel differently about it each time I consider it. Depending  on what has triggered my thinking, a photograph, a feeling, a birthday mine or his, a glance between a father and daughter, it hits me from different angles all of the time. Again my friend said 'one day you wake up and you realise you haven't cried so far today. Then you feel guilty for not crying and life starts to continue, one day at a time.' I heard a couple of days ago that a childhood friend of mine experienced the unimaginable, the loss of her child who hadn't yet reached one year. Needless to say, she has rarely left my thoughts nor prayers in the last forty eight hours. I wondered about how appropriate it was to share this here but I thought once again of those words I mentioned earlier: 'the world is divided into those that have lost and those that have not'. I have lost but I have no idea of the loss that my childhood friend is experiencing, no idea. But even so, I want to stand alongside her, I want her to know that I and each of her people, friends, family, community, each of us want to carry her, to lift her, her and her family. We desire simply to take that immense burden if just for a little while, to share its weight even if we do not understand the contents of the burden. It made me think of one of my eldest boy's favourite books - Pilgrims Progress. He has read the book over and over and over again and each time he is awe struck and excited and unable to stop talking about it. I'm reading it at the moment and keep thinking of my dear childhood friend. How bold and brave she is, how openly she has shared her grief and despair, her sadness and heartache. How I want to carry that burden just for a while so that she can feel that immediate relief, the relief that Christian so longs for in Pilgrims Progress. I think of loss and how it shapes you, how it shapes us all, whether we are the ones who have lost or we are the ones observing the loss. We are in it together. Let us carry it together and ease the burden. I hear the words over and again 'One day at a time sweet Jesus' and the my load lightens and it is my hope, my prayer that my dear childhood friend can speak these words too in the hazy days that are to follow her great loss. 'One day at a time sweet Jesus, that's all I'm asking of you. Just give me the strength to do every day what I have to do'. 

Faith

photo by Jim Davies 2006

At times it feels like time speeds up and all that you would typically experience, say, in a year, you somehow experience and process in a matter of days. This week has seen two huge events in my life, both highly emotive. The first was saying farewell to a friend who recently passed away, a very lovely 'shiny, happy person' forever burned in the memory of all of us who had the pleasure of knowing her. Watching her husband and family bearing their loss with such absolute grace and courage has been truly humbling and inspiring.

Loss is a complex thing. So personal, so open to interpretation and ever changing. When dealing with loss, or even observing someone else's loss, it is so hard not to make it 'all about you'. I think it is one's instinct to think about how the loss either affects them personally or to ponder how they might deal with the loss of their own loved ones. I must admit, I have thought about my Dad often this week. Losing him when I was ten years old I believe has hugely defined my identity and life choices. Yet this week I have been reflecting on not just my ten year old self experiencing loss but also the experience of loss that my mother endured, whilst continuing to be mother to four children aged between ten and seventeen. As a mother myself now, I empathize with mum on an entirely new level .... needless to say, I have so much respect for this incredible woman and once again I am humbled.

This week I have also seen incredible blessing. I have spent much of my time giving thanks for my hubby's life. Hubby was knocked off his bike by a car on his journey to work a few days back and miraculously survived. He is hobbling on a sore and very swollen foot but will make a full recovery and we are both so thankful for God's protection. A nurse who happened to be passing by stopped at the scene and when she saw hubby's distorted foot was convinced that he had a bad break as were the paramedics - we are amazed that his injuries do not reflect the trauma that his body experienced. For some, this is 'luck', 'chance' but for us this is God present in a situation, it is God protecting us and very much God's functional presence in our lives.

photo by Jim Davies 2006