An Exquisite Girl
I went to the memorial, toady, dreading it and knowing I would feel worse if I didn't go.
There were flowers there already and I cried before I left the car. Feeling empty and frustrated and sad. And full of rage and cursing a God I no longer believed in. Angry and crying and I saw the flowers were from Alena and family and cried harder.
I had pink roses this year and I hate buying them and I hate going there, finding no solace in being there. Because she's not. But then I took deep breaths and fell to my knees as I always do, humbled before such beauty and truth.
How did I deserve her ? How did she appear from nowhere in my womb and grew to this incredible child. There was no other like her. She was unbelievable, she glowed, she loved, she hurt and gave and gave and gave.
What did we all do to deserve such beauty in our lives and then within a second have it snatched away. We couldn't breathe, move, cry, so shocking was the fact and there was no escape. No way back to normal. No return.
We were just a family, just a family of mainly females and we had to go on. And we didn't want to and I am sure at times we have all felt that we couldn't go on.
But unless we made a conscious effort to not live, we then had to live without that beauty and joy and hope in our lives any more.
And it was beyond pain. It was torturous, every minute after she died I willed the hands of the clock to move, just that little bit further ahead so I could breathe. I couldn't eat, sleep, function. I know I did but don't remember most of it.
Only flashes, the funeral, the heat, the Sweet Child Of Mine riff as we went into the church. I wanted to look nice for her I remember that and dressed with care. My mind on autopilot.
People surrounded us and hugged us and I spoke and was grateful they came and went through all the polite motions of civility and inside I was screaming. this was not happening, it was not real, I would wake up and the day would dawn again and she would not die.
She was "somewhere" and people told me they knew what I was going through as their Grandma had died and I would look at them and think,
"What are you talking about ?
I wanted then to just go away in the end I had to come to terms with it myself. no one could help me and I retreated for about a year. Just went away in my mind for about that long.
I would not go out unless I had to. I wanted to be with her, her essence, her smell, her clothes which I wore, because I could still smell her on them. See her, feel her presence in the house and wherever I went I had to go home, just home. Home was safe.
I am still like that. I always have to go home. For years my girls noticed I would never stay long in their homes, just wanting to go home.
It took ,e such a long time to find a home, a permanent one. I just was running, from the pain. I moved more than 50 times in 22 years. i found a home in the end, one where I felt safe. Where I am now, surrounded by children.
She was a beautiful girl, Lauren, striking looking, with her myopic eyes that always looked dreamy. She hated having to wear glasses and would conveniently lose them as often as possible.
I nagged her to wear them when watching TV and she would just shuffle up close and would retreat when she saw me coming. I must have said a million times,
"Lauren back away from the TV" and she never ever wore a seat belt or kept a tidy room. She said to me a few weeks before she died, sitting in the back seat of the Jeep Cherokee.,
"Mum",
"Yes Lauren"
"you know how you don't like my messy room"
"Yes"
"Well it's my life, and I like it the way it is and I think you should just shut my door"
"OK"
It took Jackie and I days to clean her room after she died. Dried sandwich crusts and brown paper bags and mice in a hutch and dolls and clothes.
And she would come out of her room as neat as as a pin, hair immaculate, clothes perfect. I don't know how she did it. She did have a lot of clothes, leather jackets from Bali and pinched clothes off her sisters and her Guns N Roses tee shirt and leggings.
Her pretty apricot dress and white stockings she was cremated in, her graduation dress. And she was always worried about her puppy fat and didn't believe it would disappear.
And she wanted a perm, a spiral perm like Debbie had and contact lenses and I said she was too young, just a baby, and I wanted to keep her a baby just a little longer.
She was 12 and that oh so important half years old. Not grown, not mature, playing with Barbies sometimes and watching Guns N Roses on TV and Poison. She was growing but still so small.
And then she was gone and it was like she had never been. Just gone "somewhere".
And we were left and even today I hate saying goodbye to people. its sometimes so hard.
I was a lucky Mother to have her as i was to have all my babies, they were mine and no more tigress mother could I have been. My Family doctor saying I was an anxious Mother and i was. I had lost a brother when i was 5. the memories repressed for years.
Then we found out years later my brother and daughter died on the same day. the 30th of November. out of 365 days in a year, we as a family lost 2 children in senseless accidents. It was too weird, too cruel.
They were similar in ways, Lauren and Jamie. Both won prizes for their writing, both could not spell, both wore glasses, both just explosions of fun and happiness and care and kindness. What are the odds?
We were to be drawn together as a family. closer than most, sharing the knowledge that life can be taken away in a second. And how precious it is.
So we gather together at this time of year and love and support each other as we go through the lonely journey of grief. And people are so good and let me cry. A counsellor finally telling me,
"It's OK to be sad"
And I am, I am so sad for us not having them here anymore. I am allowed to cry and my friends just hold my hand and let me, snot running out of my nose and mingling with tears.
There can't be that many tears in a human body and life calls to me. it calls to me to once again take up the mantle of Mother, Grandmother, friend, sister, aunt, all the roles that I have to assume.
And show the world I am OK and won't take my life like my Mum did, as a lot of people thought I would after Lauren died. one friend saying she would jump in the grave too of a dead child and I said what about the other children,
"Do they not deserve a Mother too ?'
I live on for their sakes and their children and also because I am stubborn and I'm not giving in or giving up. What was she here for and Jamie too if it was not to be an inspiration in our lives.
Such sweet innocence and truth deserves to be honoured. And while I can take a breath that's what I will be doing, dancing, singing, hugging, caring and hoping and living a happy life because they light our way.
Thank you for being my wonderful girl and my champion brother, Lauren and Jamie, we remain in awe of you,
She said once,
"Look at the butterfly, isn't it exquisite?"
She was about 4 and I remember Deb commenting,
"Exquisite, how does she know a word like that at her age, she's just a baby"
That was Lauren and she might just as well have been talking about herself.
She loved this song, so I include it and Blessings to all for a great Christmas and a Happy new year 2011
Love Mum x
