Suddenly, something…

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Dear Dad,

One year ago today, you took a dramatic exit from our lives.

What business was it of a man unsteady on his feet and unstable in his mind, to be out there, alone, lighting fires?

“None of yours,” was your last word on it, as you scuffled off into the dark, newspaper in hand.

Two days those fires burned. You might have been vindicated, were it not for that one misplaced step.

I can’t imagine you wanted to go that way. But you certainly went on your terms, determined not to be rendered less of the man you once were. Determined, perhaps, to be punished because of it.

Either way, you’re free now, Dad. I get that. Free of the torment of a wasting body and mind. Free of the ghosts of your past.

It’s us they’re left to haunt, now. All that unresolved pain and trauma. The desperate notes scrawled in the margins of your Bible give you away. The lines and crosses pointing at God’s infinite mercy and wrath. The only place you felt free not to scoff and sneer at the very humanity you bore.

I miss you for the man you never were.

I cry for the words we could never speak.

I grieve for the life you never had the audacity to live.

There’s a part of you, I’m sure, would have been just a tickle chuffed with how you called us to attention on that day.

The trifecta of sirens echoing across the valley. The drone footage, six o’clock news and write up in the local rag. Shared and tagged and cry face emojied across time. You sure made up for a life of hiding on the sidelines.

You wouldn’t want us to linger here, though.

“Go on, get on with it,” you always used to say. Not wanting to draw attention to the pain you caused.

What are we left to get on with, exactly? What becomes of us, now that you’re gone?

It’s ironic, when you think about it. If you had lived the life you wanted, none of us would even be here. The life that was not your father’s choosing. The one that escaped the curse of the iron fist.

But here we are, making the best muddle of the one shot we got.

I choose to honour the man you were underneath your lifelong scars. An adventurous, nature loving, generous hearted, humble, honest-to-a-fault, kind, intelligent, observant, passionate, spiritual soul. I honour you, in the hope those best parts live on in me.

She is Infinity

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Twelve years ago, give or take some days, two women introduced themselves over the call centre partition that separated their desks.

We both worked ingloriously in the personal loans department of a finance company, and the office had decided to move floors. We’d never met, until that day.

I might have passed her off for your average wedding band toting Indian woman. Except she dressed wrongly. And spoke the Queen’s English too loudly. And exhibited the kind of dark humour that instantly recognised my own.

She might have passed me off for your standard snooty white girl. Except for the book lying on my desk, boldly announcing my current ethical dilemma, The Battle with Beef.

“What’s the book you’re reading?” She asked, and so began a lengthy conversation about my studies, and anthropology, and the general state of the universe.

Then she asked to read one of my essays.

From that day forward, she read every single word I put to paper. And in the course of time, reminded me what it was I once dreamed of becoming. She still does – and a whole lot more besides.

I wouldn’t say her twelve years of belief in me have been well spent. There’s only one thing scarier than having no one who believes. And that’s finding someone who does.

Somehow, despite my flair for self sabotage, she still has faith.

In all the years we’ve known each other, I’ve never been able to put into words what it is she means to me. I’d say it’s past time, wouldn’t you?

water-snakes-ii

Gustav Klimt – Water Snakes II

Seems like a lifetime ago, yesterday
Our names were introduced.
What’s in a name?

It’s a cataclysm
A beginning and an end
A whole new looking glass.

You gave me, me.
You gave me, you.
You gave me, infinity.

Who knew that worlds apart
Together
We would find a home?

Sometimes I think I ruined you
And even as I do
Your eternal hope meets my eternal gloom…

Never too late, you say.
Take my hand, and shed another skin
Of new tomorrows.

Secret lives and
Sacred lies and
Finally we come into the light.

Sometimes I wish time stood still
So we could be who we were yesterday
Today.

Everyday I wish that I could be
The woman you make me want to be
Tomorrow.

The one who turns to You
And says
It’s all going to be alright.

This is not the end.
This is the beginning
Of the Age of Us.

Twelve years to infinity
And not a moment left to lose
Except with you.

♦

Thank you, Aneeta. My Heroine. My Goddess. My Infinity. 😉

If you had to thank someone for the person you are today, who would it be?