Memories bleed

Memories bleed through the fissures of a sunny day In the middle of May I stay for a while Resting in the light Enjoying my late morning coffee Sheer delight Surrounded Jasper and me A man passes by wheeled by The ambulance driver A stark reminder Of the many afternoons I bid you goodbye After a movie As they wheeled your heavy chair Into the back of a disabled taxi It was always so poignant painful and bitter sweet Returning you to care Knowing that I could walk away freely Just this morning I felt your spirit close to me Speaking of the day Mum and you and I went To see the movie Ladies in Lavender It would not be long before I would go away To the land of our ancestors And come unstuck In a card I sent to you later I spoke of how lost I felt After the crash Crying most days by the spring At Chalice Wells in Glastonbury There was so much trauma dogging me And it was going to take years and years before I would begin to feel free of it And always while you lived there were these invisible threads that pulled me back to you My older sis More of a mother in some ways Than I knew of ours And I remember your death The bedside vigil towards the end Your hand I held like so many times before, it was time to say goodbye So you soul could finally fly free of the body it lay trapped within for so many years.

On the chair in my bedroom sits a cushion, one of the few pieces of yours Mum took from the care home following your death in April 2014 Live, Laugh, Love was all it said. I thought of your indomitable spirit that could never be totally undone by all the traumas that befell you Of how you continued to love the one who abandoned you And how much you were loved at Mac B by all of the carers and by all of us And I think of the little bird that flew past Mum and me and Sue on the day we finally laid your ashes to rest.

These memories bleed through now and I finally find my peace Together Jasper and I had our 30 minutes of sunshine sitting quietly very close to the place Mum used to skip as a child, playing hooky And on the way back to the car I felt so filled with love and tratitude for all I have survived and that I am still alive and have the freedom to move and thrive And I thought too of the words Mum always uses to say “Every morning after I wake up I look down on the lake from my living room and think how grateful I am to be alive, I have had a good life.” Mum knew so much hardship and trauma in her life, she survived the death of her life partner at 60, the death of her oldest child at 90 and the death of her best friend a short while later. She continued to try to support her two remaining daughters to the very best of her ability. God knows she had tons of flaws and at times just caused us both pain, at times I fell out of her mind, she struggled to understand my choices and often misread things but all the while she loved and tried. I miss her so much but I also have peace for I know her spirit is with me every day.

I do believe that she and my sister and father are all together now. I feel them at times. I pray to them. I realise what an enormously formative and limiting influence they had upon my life, and grieving is a coming to terms with so much. A death evokes the trauma of the past as well, all the things we longed for from parents and did not get, all the failures or struggles we had to understand each other and individuate while struggling too to stay connected. Perhaps this is the work of mid life, too. I know at the moment I am grieving but I am also becoming freer with every tear I shed and with every memory I experience. I no longer need to hide away from these memories and the feelings they invoke, I have been processing my sister’s life and death for a long time now and my processing of my Mum’s death and implications for my evolution and growth as a soul will be ongoing, probably lasting until the day I too die and meet my Mum again on the other side.