A Difficult Month

I'm reading "Chinese Cinderella and the Secret Dragon Society" with my students. The main character, Ye Xian, looses her mother when she is a girl and her father soon finds himself a woman who becomes a dreaded stepmother - hence the Cinderella connection. Good readers we use strategies to understand the text better: we make connections with the world outside, with our own experiences and other books. In today's chapter, Ye Xian emotionally falls apart in front of her future society brothers and tells them about her misery and pain related to her mother's death. 

I was not a little girl when I lost my mother and I didn't have a stepmother but I understand the excruciating pain a child feels loosing a parent. I told my students that I understand Ye Xian's tears because five years ago I lost my own mother. 

Although a lot of time has passed, I remember everything about her.  I remember her smell. I remember her voice, I can hear it in my head. I remember how she walked. I remember the shape of her fingernails and the texture of her hair. I remember her body shape. I remember her laughs and her tears. 

Oh, how I miss her!

October is a difficult month: each year around this tie I feel her absence even more. When it's really hard I ask her if she is somewhere around and sees me and I hear the voice that tells me that she has never left anywhere. 

I miss her. 

I have flashbacks and see scenes from our life: I see her dancing: there was a time when my house was full of laughter and joy. My parents loved having people around and every weekend there was somebody around: families, friends. I see her laughing and dancing with my father. Then I see her sitting in a chair with her cigarette drinking coffee in the morning on a terrace. Many times I would join her. 

How things can go wrong!

Guilt! I have a lot of guilt inside as well. I will not write more about it here but it's there and often I need to face these difficult emotions so that they it doesn't eat me up. I have hole in my heart.

I'm trying to leave my life as well as I can. I have my up and down, and I'm surely far from being very pleased with myself. But I'm trying. I'd like to look back one day and feel that it is possible to have a 'normal life' even after such a horrible tragedy as a suicide in the family but I'm failing so often...

And then I miss her even more... She would always tell me: if not you, then who? She believed that I have a potential to become successful but...

October is a difficult month. 

I was not a little girl when I lost my mother and I didn't have an evil stepmother but I understand the excruciating pain a child feels loosing a parent.

Today

Today was Saturday. Today I spent most of my day with Helena. Helena. My Light. What a little girl she is! What a bubbly personality, what a gentle character! I can't get enough of her. And this laughter! It's amazing what things crack he up: it might be my gesture and she starts laughing, or something I've said and she wants me to repeat it. Today, she was lifting her t-shirt asking me to kiss her belly all over again. And then she wanted to swing upside-down, head down and I was supposed to kiss her neck. Ten time,s twenty, maybe more. And all this garnished with salves of laughter. When Helena laughs, the whole world laughs. We laugh, we play, we sing, we dance, we chase each other from one room to another and back. I love being a child again!!!

Being a child, however, evokes memories of my parents. I miss my parents. I miss my mom and my dad. One is not here any more. The other does everything he can to end his life - the thought I cannot stand. I think of them very often. We were close once. We were a family once. And then something went terribly wrong. Terribly wrong. It awes me how terribly wrong it all went. It awes me how people can get lost and never find a way out. I hope that I will never get that lost. I hope I will never lose hope and love for life. I hope I will remember that possibly there is someone out there who cares about me and this person is worth living for if not myself. I hope I will never lose love for myself. I hope I will never want to destroy myself this or another way. 

It was Father's Day. I didn't call. Not that I didn't want to. I did and I didn't. What would I talk about? Would I have to pretend again that nothing is happening? Would I try to be understanding again? Or would I loose it and yell in the receiver: it's been almost ten months and you haven't seen your granddaughter!!!! It hurts me so much! I'm the only woman left in this family and he doesn't give a flying fuck. It hurts me and makes me angry. It makes me want to scream and throw myself at him with my fists. I know things hurt him as well. I know. But now I don't give a shit because he is the father. He was supposed to be my rock, my guide, my safe place but chose to be one I wanted to run away from. And ran away I did. I took the pain. I'm so angry! Such a waste of life!!! Such a waste! Such a waste of time. 

The other father is absent as well. This one chose to be absent too! I'm living on the planet of absent me.

Absent men. 

We play and laugh, and we chase each other around. We love each other. I love this girl more than anybody in the world. I love her more than I could possibly expect I can love. For her I need not get lost, for her I need to be present, for her I need to put the past in the past, work through difficult emotions and move on.

A Good Girl

I read this article today about how some women will do everything and anything to please people around them, how in order to be liked they will sacrifice their voice and suppress their needs, how to avoid conflict they will swear that what matters to them is not really such a big deal. 

Sounds familiar?

Oh yes, indeed. 

Starting from my mother... She gave up her life, literally, to be loved by this one man. She put her life on the altar of self-sacrifice and before she was able to turn the tide it was too late and the unhappiness took swiped her away. She wanted to be liked and loved like anybody else in the world and she would compromise. She would compromise to win his approval, she would start believing that what she really wanted deep in her heart didn't matter: perhaps, that she wanted to much or that her expectations were unrealistic, silly... But they were not. They were hers!!! But she wanted to be a good girl. She wanted to be a great mother, a fantastic wife, a reliable friend. She looked after everybody but herself. And it proved to be deadly. Nobody then has to convince me that resigning from oneself is a terrible idea leading to a depressed, unhappy life. 

I think one life sacrificed this way is enough in my family. 

What about me? 

Well, I've also tried to be a good girl for a long time. I'm trying to deserve. It's slowly changing but it's difficult to alter those imprints I have in my brain and emotional memory. I know going to the States with Helena and Olivier is not a good idea for me. Not as a fake wife, not as a flatmate... I would like to be somebody's parenter, a wife possibly. Initially, I had said that the idea might not be bad... We spoke quite a lot about it... The idea of getting married on paper was strange to me from the very beginning but then I thought... oh well, maybe really, there is nothing to make fuss about - marriage is overrated anyway. And I tagged along in the discussion. Maybe living together and not being together wouldn't be bad - after all I would do it for Helena. Maybe thinking that doing all theses things because of love and with someone dear is just a fairytale and I'm big enough of a girl to know that life is not a fairy tale and I should compromise a bit. But deep, deep inside something was telling me that no matter what I would say and how much I would try to convince myself these things like family, partnership and love have a meaning to me. But I knew I would disappoint him. Oh, I already did when i decided to keep Helena and even before that... over a visa application... And how much I didn't want to disappoint him now again. How much I have wanted for all this time to please him and make him think good things about me.  So maybe I should just pack up without too much thinking, leave my job, leave whatever little I have here and go and make him happy. I would make him and Helena happy. Who cares about me! Who cares that I would be heartbroken and depressed. Nagh! Not a big deal - last year I was told I wouldn't have been the first and last person having an abortion, certainly I wouldn't be the first and last person going to the States and struggling there. And so I though and I though... Him on holiday with another woman in Vietnam... but I'm still thinking if I should trust him and  follow him to the Land of Plenty. It's not a big deal that my heart id already broken knowing that he is there (in Vietam) with somebody else. It's not a big deal that I know that he doesn't love me and he doesn't want to be with me. No! That is of no consequence. I'm still thinking and trying to please, I'm thinking how to make him happy. Maybe this way he will love me again (sic!)  I'm thinking, I'm thinking and I'm thinking more: should I stay or should I go? It's such a great opportunity and the family (sic! sic! sic! WTF!!!!) would stay together. Who cares about my life and my needs! Who cares! We will have two separate lives under the same roof: I will go on my dates, he will shag his women and then we will exchange some funny anecdotes overt the dinner. Sounds fun!

I know all these things but I'm still thinking.

Till one day, I can't think any more. I have a picture of my mom that I look at every day. It reminds me of her daily and reminds me how much I miss her. Actually, at different moments of life it reminds me of different things. She looked at me from this picture when I was agonizing over this decision of going to the States. She looked at me and, as usually, said nothing trusting that I have enough maturity and common sense to make a good decision. 

My mom was a wonderful person who wanted everybody to be happy. She forgot about herself. 

I also would like to make everybody happy, especially those people I love. I scared of conflict and preferably would like to avoid it. But mom has left the legacy. And her legacy is this: do not sacrifice anything for anyone, even if you love them - remember about what matters to you and stand up for it. Making everybody around happy can kill.

That I want to have a family is a big deal.

That I want to have partner who loves me is a big deal.

That I want to raise Helena in a house where people love each other and respect each others needs is a big deal.

That I am is a big deal.

That something or somebody hurts me is a big deal.

Things that I want and dream about are big deals. 

I am a big deal.

My mom was as well - she just never allowed herself to recognize this. She wanted to be a good girl.

 

After Suicide

This is a message to anybody who has lost somebody to suicide, who is mourining after the death of a close relative and would like to know how to go about the process. This message is also for those who  know somebody who is struggling at the moment after the suicide in the family and would like to help to relief the pain but don't know how.

I experienced this after suicide darkness first hand in my closest family not that long time ago. I know what it's like to be faced with something that is bigger than anything else you have encountered in life. I know what it means to feel guilty and go through what ifs and whys. I know the pain and the struggle with them. I know and I understand. I know the fear. The fear about your own sanity, I know the fear of being judged and rejected by the society. The topic of suicide isn't often discussed in open and more often than not, people are left alone with their pains and broken hearts.

I don't claim that I have answers to all questions but I certainly have some suggestions about how to get helped and how to go through the time in your life that seems like the world's worst hell.

What is even more important, I have a message for everybody. A good and a positive message: YOU CAN GO BACK TO LIFE AFTER SUCH A LOSS.  Losing a family member or a close friend to suicide doesn't mean the world has come to the end and your life has stopped. It means that you have stayed and have a choice of either fall into despair or fight for yourself. From day one, I have chosen to fight and I'm still chosing it. I knew that I have to face this monster and tame it. Because you CAN!!!

I know how important it is to have understanding people around when going through the process of mourning, especially after a suicidal, unexpected, vilolent death. The death which is different from other deaths. Your family can be of help, but they are mourning themselves and healing their woudns so it's better to look for a conversation among people who have already done some mourning work and who can relate.  It is crucial to meet/connect with such people so that  you don't feel alone and isolated. Certainly it's difficult to talk about it but you will have to. After a while you will realize that you are not isolated and there are  MANY people out there who have been through a similar patch in life and who have survived and are doing well.Even for a second don't allow yourself to think you are alone in your pain. We, the Survivors, are with you. I am with you.

The pain stays forever but you can learn how to live with it and how to live to the fullest. It is entirely up to you and how you will approach the problem. I have decided to fight for myself!

If you need to talk about your loss and would like to know what to do to get better or if you know somebody who is struggilng at the moment, tell them to write to me. I will share my story and I will try to help.

My email address is: camboadventure@gmail.com