A life well lived

Life is complex, period! An often tumultuous, yet sometimes joyful, seemingly kaleidoscopic ride through time and space itself, beginning the day we are born and ending the moment we take our final breaths. For many of us, it offers up heart-rendering moments of challenges that provide ample opportunity for reframing the way we think, feel, perceive and experience life itself; well, this has been my personal experience and one that, although painful at times, I would not change.

Why so dramatic? I can hear you ask. It’s really quite simple; I sit here deeply enveloped in the cloak of retrospect, salted in its warmth and familiarity, and as someone long ago said, “hindsight is golden”. So it is with deep retrospection that I write with nothing other than my thoughts and memories to guide me.

Yesterday, I spent invaluable time with my mum. It was her birthday, a day marked with both joy and sorrow. We sat at her small dining table, surrounded by billowing piles of old photos, documents and other genealogical paraphernalia. Many with fraying edges, as if they were a reflection or a metaphor for life itself. Like two pigs in mud, we sat reminiscing over long-lost and forgotten moments, sharing stories, and just completely losing ourselves in the present. Funny how viewing the past can profoundly affect the present and, by default, the future too. There was laughter, spilled tea and a few tears. Yet, as with life, we felt the passing shadows of grief and loss. The most challenging and surreal of these moments was when I sat in my dad’s old chair, holding his birth, marriage and death certificates, surrounded by images of his 5-year-old, 18 yer-old and adult self beaming up at us. Hard to reconcile that with the last images of a frail and weathered man, broken by an unending series of hardships and loss. Seriously, how can a person’s life be punctuated by mere documents, certificates and photos? Surely they are just remnants, and his true life, memory and love survive in our memories, brought alive by our conversations and our reminiscing. Gone but not forgotten, still deeply embedded in our hearts and minds.

It is coming up to the 5th anniversary of my father’s passing. On July 12th, as I held him in my capable arms and looked heartbreakingly upon his ashen face, he took his last breaths, beginning his journey elsewhere; where that is, I am not quite sure, but still, his earthly journey came to its end. We were left holding the broken and jagged shards of loss and grief, trying to deal with its aftermath. The initial feelings of grief and loss that felt insurmountable at the time proved otherwise. In fact, we survived my father’s passing five years on, and yes, I miss my beautiful dad, miss his laughter, his stories and his incessant need to sing everything. Yes, I cried an ocean of tears, ruminating on things I should of, could and would have done differently; yet still, we made it through; we supported each other through the darkest times. I’m now in a space of gratitude and acceptance. Grateful for the amazing father I had, the many lessons I learnt, the laughter, tears and pain. I’ve accepted that he has passed, accepted that he wasn’t infallible and that he could be harsh at times. Yet, by sitting with my mum in the brightly lit dining room, rummaging through the past, I got a better picture, an understanding of my dad’s story, their story, their struggles, losses, successes and joy. I wish we had been able to sit shrouded in love and silence, but sadly my older brother, with complex mental health issues, stood intimidating too close, both physically and emotionally. He stood ranting about something, about the uselessness of looking at the past, his voice edged with anger and hatred. I tried to ignore his words, his acerbic barbs of anger. I didn’t allow them to land; I’ve worked too hard to heal. Sitting with compassion in my eyes, looking at my mother’s beautiful face, I listened to her voice, her words, as if with every sip of coffee I was drinking in the memories we were making then and there. I didn’t give power to my brother and his inane rantings. Instead, I chose to respond and not react. I understand life is simply complex, period! Grief and loss are hard, much like life itself.