...and so the bird flew from the cage.......

Grief is astonishing to me. At least in this instance it is. After spending so much time ‘praying’ and yearning for a ‘happy’ release, I am enveloped by an oppressive and claustrophobic sadness.

Her spirit, the person she was had long flown away. My sister longed for this spirit to be migratory and hungered for the first days of summer. Upon my previous visit, she sat perched in the chair. That hospitalic, metallic and medicinal stench. Every time I smell Laphroaig, I fill up inside. Trying to get her to eat was a military operation, talking and chatting had become torturous. She cooed with giggles at something entertaining. She was in her own little world. Population: ONE. We didn’t see the funny side.

Coconut cakes, fairy buns, Christmas puddings, Oxford Lunches, over-sweetened tea, a smile and tale from a previous generation. A personal sugary banquet for ‘her boy’.

Now, certain songs haunt me and render me catatonic:

Space Captain; Herbie Hancock’s version sung by the stunning Susan Tedeschi with such passion, soul and depth. The image of the ‘alien’ discovering Earth and deciding to stay here while Derek Truck’s incendiary guitar tone takes us out of this world.

Adele- One and Only- Because she was mine and I was hers- enough said.

Ryan Star- Losing Your Memory- Asides from the significance of the title, it was the song I screamed at the top of my lungs when I drove out to pick up my ninety year old uncle. It was the same day my hero told me I was his.

She had passed at this stage. The Queen’s horse was running. I couldn’t tell him. I was under orders not to ‘startle the horses’. We sat and watched the race. I fanned myself down with the form guide. Tears welling up inside me like a pressure cooker. The drive was an eternity.

Lavender – actually cheap lavender room spray. Écœurant fixatives against the heady, trippy aroma. My face scalded by the tears in this claustrophobic cell of a room filled with family and condolence bidders.

The sound of a last breath etched in my mind like the sound of a stylus scratching the surface of the record. The final gasp, one last fight, the number 215 haunts my final memories. Grief. Astonishing.  

Absence making the heart grow fonder......

It’s taken me a while, but, I have come to the logical conclusion that (in many contexts) people leave. Whether it is by choice, for work or sadly, even in passing away; people leave. I left. I spread my wings flew the cage, just before having them clipped again.

Amongst the ‘gifts’ I was given, were the gifts of roots and wings; roots to come home to and wings to fly away. I had spent so much time trying to spread my clipped wings that I discovered I missed my roots.

The melancholy hue of lavender, frankincense and myrrh haunt like a ghost. A shadow would be a better way of describing it; ghosts can leave too but shadows cannot, only if you turn the light off. Songs in minor keys tug at my insides like a kite in a gale.

Grief, hurt sadness and loss: emotions that to some extent everyone feels. My father always said:

“Anger is an emotion that no man should ever feel”.

I disagree. Every man should feel passionately about something; good or bad. Uncertainty; there is an emotion that no man should ever feel. Wishful thinking.

As the afternoon segues into evening, the vanilla caresses the air as the solitary flame provides a multitude of offerings: light, warmth, hope, trust.

It’s taken me a while, but I am now enamoured with silence. It is a diegesis that no Foley could reproduce. The fridge: whinnying into silence. The clock: a metronomic heartbeat from the kitchen. A flock of gulls squawk outside. It is weird, I heard the couple upstairs the other morning, the gulls soon after. Their sounds superimposed onto each other. Seagulls and eroticism should never be discussed in the same sentence; how Murakami of me.

The phone rings suddenly, like an interrupted cadence; its only resolution is to answer. I could let it ring out but that awkward silence afterward stings my ears; like a pin dropping or worse, tinnitus. Mum asking how my day was. It is the one voice I treasure hearing. Every time I hear it, it reminds me of Saint-Saen’s The Swan; elegant, breath-taking, patient, delicate. The cello ‘breathing’ with a sense of life and timelessness. Underneath, a tale of personal strength, courage, loss and gain. The conversation, like the cello, I don’t want it to end.

The conversation is full of our little nuances, secrets and colloquialisms that only the two of us understand: I can tell other people are in the room with her, but we still manage to ask and answer all the questions and gossip in spite of their presence. She gets me…

My Dad; Schubert Impromptus; they were the first thing that came to mind. Soulful, personal and should be heard one to one. There is a lot to be gotten; solace, truth, unconditional love, heroism… now go and listen to the Impromptus!!

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