Fifteen

My beautiful daughter would be 15 years old today but she has been dead for 432 weeks. As usual, I’ve taken flowers and a cupcake to the cemetery where she lies beneath the ground.

This time of the year is always difficult. We have managed to get through Christmas and New Year. And now it’s Clea’s birthday.

I haven’t been writing on this blog much over the past 12 months ago mainly because I can’t think of anything to say. I’m tired of myself and I assume that other people are tired of me as well. I had a pretty shit year last year and I’m hoping for some improvement this year. But without Clea, it feels like shit most of the time.

I have begun to realise that being sad most of the time and being very sad sometimes is not good for your piece of mind. It makes you lose confidence in yourself and lose confidence in other people.

Maybe I’ll start writing more about life itself not only about my grief for Clea as this would have been her life and the things I want to write about would have influenced the way she lived as they influence all of us.

Happy birthday Chickie. I love you. I miss you.

Mothers’ Day (or almost 400 weeks)

Mothers’ Day doesn’t mean a lot to me. We never made a big deal of it before Clea died either.  When the children were younger they would make things for me such as bookmarks or photo frames from childcare or school. The boys are almost 13 years old now so there’s not a lot of craft happening.

And Clea would be 14 ½ so I don’t think she’d be doing a lot of craft work either. In my mind, she grows and walks with us. She would be tall and slim now and her face and body would have more womanly characteristics. I like to think that she would be arguing with us and standing up for herself. I don’t imagine her as meek and mild doing whatever we told her to do.

I see her friends from time to time. They are all in Year 9, growing into adults. Some I almost don’t recognise. They are all so much taller than I am (which is not hard – I am not tall) and their faces are not the faces of children. They are young adults thinking of their futures out of school which isn’t that far away.

In about two weeks’ time, it will be 400 weeks since Clea died. I know that I was going to stop counting but I can’t help myself. I need to count the passing of time in some manner. There are months and years but I stick to weeks. Days would be too many. I like to know how long it has been since I saw my daughter.

I have been thinking a lot about happiness lately. We are not a happy family and I wonder what the effect of that will be on my sons. Although, they do not seem unhappy. Happiness is always fleeting and probably always has been. I read a book called ‘The Happiness Myth’ by Jennifer Michael Hecht. It says what we all know that shopping won’t make you happy and working yourself to death won’t make you happy. I must admit that I focused on the chapters about drugs (legal and illegal) and the way they can induce moments of euphoria; just moments. And I thought that is all I would like, short moments of euphoria. I do remember those days but now I am past even knowing where to purchase such drugs.

You don’t need the drugs but you do need some way of achieving short bursts of euphoria. No one wants to live sadly all their lives. I am sad that Clea is not here but I do not always lead a sad life. I wish with all my heart that Clea was here and, as I’ve said before, if there was a devil I would gladly do a deal with him or her.

But the deal is that I must live in this life and to do that I should find moments of happiness, enough to make life less bitter and less difficult. I do not believe that you can be happy all the time and nor should you be but little moments here and there make for an easier existence.

I hope that my sons do not look back on their childhood as one of sadness and anger. I hope they have moments of happiness held in their memories. As I have moments of happiness held in my memory of a beautiful daughter who I love and have loved.

Happy Mothers’ Day.

A challenge

Here’s a challenge for you all.

We have some money left over from building and stocking the Clea Salavert Library at Lalomanu Primary School in Samoa. The holders of that money (the Australian Academy of Humanities – AAH) no longer wish to hold the funds on our behalf and have asked that we work out how to spend the remaining funds.

There are criteria for spending the money – it has to be spent for the same or similar purpose to that for which it was donated, ie, for the children of Lalomanu, for education, literacy, library type projects. The academy can only give the money to a non-government organisation which is registered through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Therefore, if the money was to be given to a particular NGO that NGO would need to be an Australian or international NGO operating in Samoa on the above types of projects.

So far, I’ve contacted ACFID (the umbrella organisation for Australian NGOs working internationally) who have provided me with a list of NGOs but none quite match the criteria (and are all religious which from our perspective rules them out). I have been in contact with the Australian High Commission in Samoa who have assisted and I have been in contact with a work colleague’s sister who works for the UNDP in the Pacific.

We had originally thought of a scholarship program for the National University of Samoa but all the scholarship programs are run through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or Ministry of Education and the AAH cannot give the money to a foreign government.

I am planning to go to Samoa in the middle of the year sometime and speak to Lalomanu Primary School about what they may want but usually it’s just a photocopier or printer or something along those lines. The library is stocked and I do not believe that they use it anyway so there is no point in spending money there. The building is fine and doesn’t need any major work.My most recent contact has been with Rotary in Samoa but I haven’t heard back from them.

To those who donated, how would you like the remainder of the money spent?

And to all of you, do you have any other ideas?

I leave you with the challenge – send me your ideas!

Seven Years

Seven years ago I promised my daughter that when we returned from our holiday in Samoa that we would replace the curtains in her room and repaint her room. Seven years later, I have finally managed to replace her curtains, repaint her room and replace the carpet. But she is not here to see it.

Seven years ago, Clea was swept from my hand in a tsunami that drowned her.

It is hard to believe that seven years have passed. I still have trouble comprehending the time line. It does not seem possible that I have not seen, heard, touched or smelled my daughter for seven years.

Her brothers are now 12 years old and she would be 14 years old this January.

I wish for the same thing every day. I wish she was not dead. I wish she was my 13 year old daughter instead of my dead six year old daughter.

 

How long do we live?

Today, I start 16 weeks of long service leave. Last week, Clea’s brothers turned 12 years old. In 10 days’ time, we will leave for Chile, Bolivia and Peru. And in about five weeks time, I will be 50 years old (somewhere in Chile).

Today, a milestone has been reached which I was hoping never to reach. I have been dreading this time for a very long time.

I now know how long a life is or can be. I have been counting the weeks since Clea’s death. About now, possibly from today, Clea will start being dead longer than she was alive. She lived for six and three-quarter years, less a few days, and she has been dead for that same amount of time.

Six and three-quarter years is 351 weeks which is about 2,460 days (give or take a leap year).

It seems very unfair that once I get to 50 I will have lived for 2,600 weeks (more weeks than Clea’s days); it makes 351 weeks look short indeed.

Many things have happened in the past 351 weeks but I have missed my daughter every single day. Missing her is an indescribable ache, hole, pain, whatever deep in my psyche. It grabs my throat and wakes me in the night with a fear that I have done something so terrible that I can’t even bring my mind to contemplate what that may be.

I used to be so scared of losing my memories of Clea. I would wake each morning going over the details of her skin, her face, her body. I would try to remember the details of her short life. I have accepted that my memories have changed and that I will lose some of the detail but the pain remains vivid.

Many people we mix with and know now did not know Clea. They ask what she was like. She was a beautiful, happy, loving and intelligent child. She had a lot of potential. She is my daughter and she deserved a life longer than the one she had. And I have to live the remainder of my life without her.

I am not  brave. I am not amazing. I know exactly what I am. I am very pissed off and very sad. I have no choice.

As my husband wrote in one of his poems, ‘never is a fucking too long time’. It’s a long time to be sad but there is no other way of feeling. There are fleeting moments of happiness but there is always a profound sadness within. It is the way it is

The two photos illustrate how short one life can be. Maybe, just maybe, I will stop counting the weeks …

A secret life of fear

About six months ago, our neighbour’s house burned down. It happened late on a Thursday night when we were already in bed, around 11 or 11:30pm.

We were woken by load banging on the front door. Our neighbour had been woken by his smoke alarms and rushed around to our house, followed by the other neighbours’ houses. His house was well alight by this stage with flames shooting out through the garage roof, trees alight and even his car was alight. It took a while for the fire engines to arrive but once they had, it didn’t take long to douse the flames. His house could not be saved and has since been knocked down.

What sticks with me from that night is not so much that his house burned down but the unsafe feeling that had rekindled within me. The banging on the door and the sounds of the flames are what stay with me. It’s the feeling you have when you hide within your house behind the blinds hoping that no one can see you. It’s the feeling of not having any confidence in your own safety. It’s the feeling you get when your child has died or when you’ve been through a disaster.

I did not know what to do that night and, in hindsight, I didn’t do anything right. I didn’t know what to pack or take. I took my sons to an area in the back yard which would not have been safe. My husband started to panic and did not know what to do either. We felt exposed and uncertain.

I recently read some blogs by Rebecca Carney and she mentioned the fear that stays with you after your child has died. It is an overwhelming feeling of being unsafe within an environment which you had previously considered to be safe. She mentions worrying. I would never have considered myself as someone who worried but now I worry. I especially worry about making decisions.

Her blog also reminded me of how different we become from the people we were before our child died. As she says, you change in ways that people do not see or understand. A different you emerges and one that you don’t always recognise. I’ve said this before but one of the things that I was not prepared for after Clea’s death (not that I was in any way prepared for her death) was how much of me died with her. Sometimes I look for myself – as Rebecca said where art thou? I don’t think that I know where I am either.

Even after 348 weeks without her, I find myself unsure in certain social situations or unable to reach decisions about easy matters in my life. Earlier this year, I found my work and social situations very difficult. I couldn’t decide what to do. I couldn’t even decide whether I wanted to be on the school board or not. I am often unable to trust my own judgement and am reticent to make a decision without checking with my husband (not that he wants to make all the decisions).

One of my sons did question our lack of social interaction last week. I told him that I’m not prepared to put myself in situations where I may feel exposed and vulnerable. It takes sometime to feel ‘safe’ with people.

The unsafe, lacking confidence person remains with you. I’m not sure you ever feel completely safe again. It is not that I am overprotective of my sons or that I fear that something will happen to me. It is more a tightness in the chest at night or a stab of fear on the way home. It is a vulnerability that I never expected from myself. It is a different self.

Good People

Every so often someone comes along to restore your faith in humanity.

About three weeks ago, my sons’ football coach approached my husband to say that he was very sorry that we had lost Clea and that he hadn’t known. He followed up this conversation with a very heartfelt email saying that he felt stupid not knowing and that he was sorry for being six years too late. He said a number of other kind and brave things about us and Clea.

I’m not sure how he had found out but he had done his homework. We had recently become friends on FaceBook so maybe he had wondered why there were three children in my profile photograph. Or maybe he had clicked on the bad video link of my husband and I reading my husband’s poetry at the National Multicultural Festival and wondered why we would read a poem about our dead daughter. However this man found out, he followed up his discovery by searching for more and more information. He had read my blog and he had read my husband’s poetry (and he’ll probably read this).

But he didn’t leave it there as most people would. He actually reached out to us to show that he cared. He didn’t have to do that and many people, I’m sure, do find out about Clea and leave it at that. Their excuse is that they do no want to upset us or bring back bad memories. Believe me, and I’ve said this before, no one could upset us more than we are and those memories live with us on a daily basis.

I don’t expect everyone to know about Clea and I don’t think anyone is stupid for not knowing. I did mention Clea to a man at work recently, assuming that he did know, and he was very shocked. One should never assume.

I am very grateful that this man was brave, that he did face up to the nightmare of our lives and that he didn’t shy away from his own fears – the fear of our pain and how he would cope with that pain. That is everyone’s fear when they confront us with our pain. No one likes to face that fear. I wouldn’t want to.

I have lived with this pain for 339 weeks. Sometimes I cope OK. Sometimes I really, really do not cope at all. At present, I wouldn’t say that I was coping at all. My ability to cope changes almost daily.

But I am grateful for people like this man. People like him help me to cope just a little bit better.

Thank you.