Connection

My Journey

I am from matriarchy
My grandmother and her two sisters
My mother and her two sisters
The five women who raised my brother and I
And the sixth who became a good friend in her later years.

The collective arms that held our family together
Progressively disintegrated as each one died
Some quickly, others slowly
Loosening their grip entirely with the death of
My favourite aunt, the last one, last year.

We are all scattered to the winds now and
This is a significant loss but
I am from their influences, their values, their rules
The security of their homes and their love
The certainty of family connections.

There were expectations of independence from a young age
Taking myself on the long journey to school
Running free with other kids in the streets, climbing trees
Making our own judgements about risk and right and wrong
Bearing the consequences with no
Mollycoddling over childhood hurts and feelings.

There were mixed messages about life and death
In your face on my uncle’s farm, a childhood introduction
To the cycle of life and death with
Fresh food and new chickens from eggs
New lambs in spring and dead sheep in droughts

Hundreds, crows pecking their eyes, then other carrion
Until they melted into the earth, leaving just bare bones.
Mutton for the farm table had their throats slit
Hung on a tree to bleed then skinned and dismembered
My brother and cousins and me, fascinated, unafraid.

Contrast this with the stiff upper lips
Of the matriarchy and the family secrets never shared
Hiding emotions behind closed doors
Don’t tell the children, even when we are 40 years old
Women don’t go to the graveside you know, except me
Keeping my man/boy cousin company as he buried his dad.

It’s ok to cry before or at a funeral but never after and
We don’t do eulogies you know, only me when my mum died.
My mother’s sisters never talked about my mum after she died
They would look at me, not answering, when I recalled her life
Even though they knew her as well, if not better, than me.
I never understood that rule.

I know now, it’s not just my family but many families
Many countries, absorbing the cultural norms that have
Existed for decades and beyond. Passed down in varying
Forms with each generation, suppressing and hiding with
Veils of silence so that we are not prepared for death and grief
But left to work it out for ourselves, or not, every painful step.

And now, here am I. Facing the most painful experience of
My life, my partner’s slow dying, his death and my grief.
Distraught about the loss of so many things
Stability, security, certainty. His love, his company,
His knowledge, his memories, his voice, his arms, our life.
Rattled by the non-grieving world
Perplexed about the new emotional me.

It’s taken a long time to reconcile the old me
Stoic, independent, calm. With the new me
Emotional, needy, falling apart at the slightest upset.
Old me hardly ever cries and hates crying in front of others
New me has a fountain in her head that can’t be switched off
My struggle. My inheritance. My double life.

At first, old me was dominant, playing Pollyanna
Thinking I had to be strong for my partner
Never faltering at work, no matter how hard dying
Death and grief became. My face to the world, my workplace
Friends and others who don’t get grief. Always striving for
Independence, until I was alone, permanently.

For a while I thought old and new me were merging
But now they feel like separate people, each with their
Own role. It’s as if I have a switch in my brain
Flicking from one to the other, like actors in a play.
I’m on the outside looking in, as well as playing both parts
They are such different people, unlikely to be friends in
Normal circumstances. It often feels surreal.

But I’ve come to accept this weirdness and to see the
Benefit of old me staying upright through the hard times
Providing much needed respite from grief.
She is expert at playing happy in my stoic, old me way
I’m not going to give her up
It’s taken a lifetime to create that person.

I’ve come to value the new me too
Though I spent a long time pushing her away.
New me is more compassionate
More conscious of other people’s sorrow and needs
More relaxed about exposing vulnerability to the right people
But still on a steep learning curve here.

She is my saviour. Not afraid of facing pain.
Without her I would have continued pushing it away
Burying it deep inside. Dragging me down
Like an invisible rock. Forever.
It was a relief when I stopped running.
Distracting myself only postpones the experience
It doesn’t make it go away. I need to face the naked truth.

I have been searching, searching, reading, reading
Thinking and writing. Endlessly. Reflecting on our life
Trying to wring every fragment of pain out of my brain.
Looking for new knowledge about death and life and me
And over time, feeling that this has somehow set me free
Not of pain and grief. But fighting it, the endless fighting.

Grief just is. A prism, not a prison
As I continue this journey with its unknown destination.
Now, I want to keep the painful memories not push them away.
They are part of the whole, our love, my loss, my awakening.