by Alison | Oct 21, 2013 | .
There are times when I feel like I live in some sort of ‘us and them’ experience – difficult to explain how I feel but let me try.
I was standing in line waiting to order a coffee and noticed that the lady in front of me had a tattoo at the base of her neck.
It was of a small pair of feet, similar to an imprint the soles of your feet leave in wet sand, plus the date of birth and death of her young son with an inscription… a son, a brother, you will never be forgotten.
We all look relatively normal but for those of us who grieve we are not yet, those around us want us to be, and in many ways expect us to be ourselves.
How can you ever be when you lose your child, how can you ever be the same?
I feel that I am a marked person. Outwardly I look normal but inwardly I battle to survive some days and others I do.
How easily those around us assume that we are over the hump, out of mourning, that we are back in the saddle and getting on with it.
Unfortunately we are marked for life, our life will forever be a daily challenge and the angst we feel will always be ours alone.
To be marked or not to be marked – that is my question.
Should we wear an armband, a wristband or a tattoo so that when we pass each other in the street we can stop and give comfort as there is a mutual understanding of the grief. There are too many sad, bereft people in this world who have no one to share their stories with and receive comfort.
I try so hard to hide my grief so that the people around me feel more comfortable. I breathe every second of every day and have no idea why. Why are we left standing over the pile of dirt with its marker and memories in our heart?
Memories, cards, emails, texts and clothes are all the physical parts that tie us to our sadness that keeps our pain anchored.
I miss being hugged by my children, I miss A’s texts, his love and concern for me.
It’s not replaceable
That’s what hurts
It leaves a hole
Too deep
Too dark
Empty
Jump in or stay on the edge?
It takes strength and stubbornness to stay in the light.
So, maybe a tattoo like a name can anchor you to life. Never to be forgotten, always a reminder of what is, what has been and what lives with you forever.
Today marks your passing A, it is a time for reflection and for me to share love with those still around me. I drift towards the written word as the verbal one will trip me up and be my undoing.
I cherish every memory, it sustains me yet saddens me but I soldier on.
I send love to all those who hurt, who have lost, who have suffered or who still suffer. May you find peace in the setting sun, in the rising moon, walking in the autumn leaves or in the chill of the early morn or just sipping a cuppa tea and listening to the daily sounds of life.
Take care and be kind to you.
Alison
My darling son Aidan Cale Needham who was born on the 25/06/86 and left us on the 20/10/10
My beautiful daughter Laila Vaun Rip who was born on the 09/01/95 and left us on the 31/12/97
My wonderful daughter, wife of Aidan, Aleisha, and to my adopted children, my thoughts and love to you.
by Alison | Sep 18, 2013 | .
I wear my sadness like a comfortable old shawl
There are days when it sits loosely draped over my shoulders, barely making contact. Other times it slips off and hangs low down my back, swinging quite freely.
At other times I pull it close and wrap it tightly around me. Feeling the familiarity, the closeness of my sadness as I hold it tightly pressed to me.
Days and nights roll into each other and the memories ebb and flow. Every moment in every day has a memory. Many of them hold a story for me and when I am busy they gently bump into me, hesitate and then tumble away. Other days they ram into me with a jolt, demanding a reflection and then there are times that as the memories appear they are quickly followed by a succession of them telling a story. It is these that cripple me and cause tears and are my undoing.
I hear you in my head, I mutter to you, talk to you in your photos, drive my car and reminisce with you, laugh at odd things that you might cause and just miss you.
October is looming and it will be ‘another year”. The passing years are unstoppable, constant, like waves on a beach, pounding the sand, caressing it, flowing gently at times, calm then strong and powerful, always changing but always flowing.
It is the letting go of the physical that is hard and what we miss soo much because the head and the emotion keeps going, and going and going.
The hug, the smile, the cheek, the humour, the laughter, the shouting, all the stuff we take for granted until it’s gone.
But… what I have left I keep close to me, wrapped tightly around me in a bright, coloured shawl of fragrances, memories and emotions.
x the mother.
Aidan & Laila
‘wish I could hold you one more time to ease the pain’
by Alison | Jul 14, 2013 | .
Granny Rita apologised for asking as she could not remember how old Laila would be.
I realised that in Australia there is Aidan and in South Africa there was Aidan and Laila.
Not many know that Aidan had a sister and that she would be 18years, so, as I sit this crisp wintry morning I think it’s time the Pirate Chef reveals his sister and adds her to his page.
My first introduction to Australia was when Aidan and I visited in July 04 and I was three months pregnant. On our return to SA our lives were tossed around. There was no one to meet us at the airport, on our arrival at home we were greeted with an empty house and boxes packed with our belongings and waiting for us. So began another new beginning for Aidan and I, and now in retrospect one I’m glad that I was forced to take.
Aidan and I found a new home; we lost friends along the way to many judgements but gained new ones, readjusted to life as a single mother.
Vaun and Renee suggested I have a holiday back in Cape Town and decided to birth Laila there. It was such a relief to be ‘home’ surrounded by my best friends.
Laila Vaun was born on the 9th January 1995 and as she lay on my stomach, newly born, I was overcome with an immense joy and wonderment. Aidan fell in love with his sister before she was born. He had always wanted a sister and had put her on his wish lists to Santa.
He was delighted with her and his gentle, humorous ways entertained her over the years. They were joined together through a kindred spirit and my best memories are of the two of them laughing together.
Laila blessed our lives and she and Aidan filled my heart and soul with love, warmth and joy.
Being a single mother is a struggle but it is also fabulous and it gave me quality time with my children when well or sick.
A few months after Laila turned two we noticed bruises over her body and after asking questions and investigating we ended at her paediatrician who sat with sad eyes and told me that she was ill and that we needed to take her to the Red Cross Children’s hospital for further tests.
The waiting is that time when your heart sits in your throat and your chest constricts and burns not knowing what the diagnosis will be, never really believing that it will be ‘bad’. When the results came back that it was not cancer I felt instant relief but there was a but – more tests were needed to find out exactly what was the problem.
Listening to Laila cry during her lumbar puncture seared through me and left me feeling helpless. Her diagnosis left me feeling more helpless – 50-50 chance – a one in a million disease – not prevalent in small children … I felt disbelief and sadness and then looked around at the children waiting, as day patients to be seen to in the cancer ward, and realised that this would start to become part of our existence. Aplastic anaemia is a disease in which the bone marrow, and the blood stem cells that reside there, are damaged. This causes a deficiency of all three blood cell types, red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Aplastic refers to inability of the stem cells to generate the mature blood cells.
It occurs most commonly in the teens and twenties, and also among the elderly. It can be caused by exposure to chemicals, drugs, radiation, infection, immune disease, in about half the cases the cause is unknown. Normal bone marrow has 30-70% blood stem cells, but in aplastic anaemia, these cells are mostly gone and replaced by fat.
Aplastic anaemia is treated with immunosuppressive drugs, typically either anti-lymphocyte globulin or anti-thymocyte globulin, combined with corticosteroids and cyclosporine and regular blood transfusions and platelet transfusions.
The next 7 months were spent having regular visits to the hospital, finger pricks, blood transfusions, overnight stays, spending time at home until Laila’s blood counts got too low, waking Aidan in the middle of the night and packing the car and heading for the ward, watching Aidan do his homework in the ward and play with sick children and so and so until we were living at the hospital.
Aidan was always happy to be with Laila and spent hours sitting with her in her hospital room, playing games, dressing Barbie dolls, watching movies, arranging flowers and reading to her.
One of the hardest days of my life was going to see Aidan at his dad’s house on Christmas morning and instead of being the bearer of gifts I had to tell him that his sister was dying and that I did not know how long we had with her. Aidan howled and so did I internally. He was 11.
Aidan and I were given another week with Laila and she died in my arms on the 31 December 1997.
Aidan and I survived and our bond grew even closer.
I missed my baby with every fibre in my body but I had a gorgeous son to care for, who needed me, who was also sad and suffering and life does go on – and so did I.
Aidan wanted to move and live in Australia, it was calling him and he felt he wanted to finish school and settle here. He came to me with a proposal when he was 15 and after much deliberation I decided to take a chance and give it a go. We sold up, packed up and put everything into storage and headed for Oz, another new beginning and Aleisha.
Aidan met Aleisha at school not long after we arrived and for various reasons their relationship grew slowly into a firm friendship. They finally cemented their relationship at schoolies at the end of year 12.
Their relationship grew and matured and they had fun together, getting their careers going, traveling, celebrating 21sts and then there was the day that Aidan had his eyes tested. As Aidan and I sat waiting for the results of his MRI we held hands. Tumour was the last word I expected to hear.
Aidan and I stood in the street afterwards and looked at each other with tears in our eyes, he saying sorry to me for being sick and I was saying sorry because I felt such guilt. We hugged each other and started the next part of our journey.
I have endured much pain losing both my children to illness but I have been enriched knowing them both, birthing them, cherishing them and just loving them as their mother.
Aidan wrote an essay at school in Australia, it is not totally factual but displays his feelings and details part of his journey, which I will publish here for you to read in his own hand. Laila’s story I have been writing and will publish here when ready.
Aidan’s Story (PDF)
To my dearest Aidan and Laila
Fly together
Laugh together
Be together – forever
Aidan Cale Needham (25/06/1986 – 20/10/2010) & Laila Vaun Rip (09/01/1995 – 31/12/1997)
by Alison | Jul 7, 2013 | .
I read this beautiful article written by a friend of mine from Cape Town and thought I’d like to share it with you.
Enjoy X Alison
My Cape Times column 3/7/13 – Caspar Greeff
The old man and the machine
The old man was tired. He had worked hard. Toiled ceaselessly and selflessly. He had taken the raw substance of life and fashioned it into a thing of greatness. His life was his work and his work was his life and he had completed the task. He had mastered the task. He had done everything required of him. He had risen above everything that was required of him. His life was an act of nobility.
The old man was tired. He ached for rest with every atom of his being. He yearned for peace. He longed for sleep.
The old man had been a fighter. Always. He had fought for what he believed in. He had fought for freedom. For dignity. For forgiveness. He had fought against ignorance. Against hatred. Against oppression.
The old man had won most of his fights. All the ones that counted.
The old man was tired. But he couldn’t close his eyes. His eyelids were heavy. His eyelids were made of lead. His eyelids refused to shut.
He looked about him.
He was still in the same place. A place that was at the same time achingly familiar and terribly strange. The old man had been here for aeons. He had been here for an interminable time. Perhaps he had been here forever. He didn’t know. There were no days here. No nights either. It was always twilight. Or maybe dusk. There was no sun here. No moon. No stars.
There were hills. There was a word for these hills. Ummango. The word rolled like the hills themselves, the hills that were neither green nor brown, the hills that rolled and roiled like giant ripples in an endless dark sea.
Cattle wandered about. Nguni cows and bulls of many shades, dappled and splotched, haphazardly patterned. Behind them was a skinny boy with a stick. The boy raised the stick and yelled at the cattle. He ran at them and the cattle in front ran in the direction the boy wanted them to and the rest followed.
The old man recognised the skinny boy. “The child is the father of the man,” he thought. The old man tried to shout the boy’s name, but nothing came out his mouth. His tongue was paralysed. The old man waved at the skinny boy, but the boy just kept on running after the cattle. Waved his stick at the sky and yelled. There was a look of exhilaration on the boy’s face. Time was his ally, and an endless procession of days and nights lay ahead of him.
Again the old man tried to close his eyes and again he was unable.
In the distance a pinprick of light wavered, flickered, strengthened into a great fire. Men and women clad in blankets and hats appeared around the blaze. Children too. And babies.
The old man tried to focus his tired eyes. The people around the fire took shape. His father. His mother. Grandfathers, grandmothers. Uncles, aunts. Family. Some had been born many centuries ago. Some would be born hundreds of years in the future.
The old man’s family sang a song about the river that leaps down from the mountains and races through the valleys, seeks the sea, finds the ocean, and rises to the sky, becoming clouds, and then rain falling on the mountains again. Always seeking the sea.
The song soothed the old man’s tired mind, took the pain from his aching bones, put hope into his heart.
The old man closed his eyes.
When he opened them again he was in a brightly-lit room filled with green and red dots from machines that hummed gently. His wife was holding his hand.
“I love you,” she said.
The old man smiled at her.
“It’s time,” she said.
One by one the red and green lights went out. The machines stopped humming. Silence filled the room.
And then the singing. Songs of the forest, songs of the grasslands, of the rivers, of the animals, the birds, the insects. Songs of the sun and the moon and the stars and the heavens. Songs of joy.
The old man’s mother walked towards him. She embraced him.
“Welcome home,” she said.
Caspar Greeff
http://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/the-caspar-greeff-column-1.1535588#.UdYRGJM9F8E
by Alison | Jun 24, 2013 | .
Tonight’s moon is full, bright and beautiful heralding in your birthday. Tomorrow is your 27th birthday and I do miss you in my physical space.
I reach out to you in the atmosphere as your energy resonates and your laughter echoes. Time, oh I wish we had more time on this earth with each other and for each other. You sleep in my heart and your joyful vibrancy touches my soul constantly.
Wherever I look I see signs: crosses on the road side, tributes in print, flowers in remembrance, blogs marking personal journeys and in the midst of sadness I see, read and hear of courage and hope.
There appears to be fierceness in us mere mortals. We fight a good fight, meet every challenge head on and even when weary we do not drop until the fight is over. Only then giving into the emotional despair we have felt and carried along with us.
It’s amazing the strength of our will, our tenacity, being able to put someone else first and to hold them there with little thought to ourselves, our own needs or wants.
We just relish every small moment, just love being in the space, willing each other on, buying time.
Tomorrow I will raise my glass to my wonderful daughter in law and wife of Aidan and salute her for her courageous spirit, for her relentless fight of life and her love for Aidan above all else.
Last but not least we will share stories of you A, remind each other of your rumbling laugh, feel the warmth in our memories and together we will celebrate your 27th birthday my beautiful boy.
Love you Aidan always
your mom.
25 June 2013
Laughter is a pleasant sound, it spreads joy all around
Whether you’re young or old, laughter can be like
Magic to our souls, whenever we’re feeling sad
Laughter can sustain us so that things don’t seem
Quite so bad, if we give into laughter, it can be like
A cure for something that seems impossible to endure
So any time your spirits need a lift fill yourself
With laughter and you will find, a much happier
Person with a peaceful frame of mind
Bonnie Ruth Shaulis
