Sea of Sadness

I've been waiting for this message for many years.

It came today and hit me like a speeding truck. I can't move. I barely can move.

I'm on the island. I'm surrounded by a beautiful warm sea.

I'm on the island. I'm surrounded by a darkness and the sea of sadness.

You are dead.
I will never see you again.
I will never hear your voice again.
I will never hear your lies again.
I will never call you again and be disappionted that you didn't answer.

I tried to call you last night. Were you dead then? Or were you looking the darkness in the eye when I was calling you?

I will never have a dad again.

I will have a broken heart for the rest of my life.

You have no idea how much I loved you. I loved you so much, Dad. I loved you so so so much.

I lovee your voice, your strong hairy hadns. I loved your scrambled eggs with bacon that I hoped you will make one day for me and Helena again.

I loved you so much...

I lost you.
We lost you because I also have brothers, sisters-in-law and nephews and nieces. We all loved you.

We all wanted you. We wanted you. You.

I will miss you so much.
I will pack my bags and come home to say good bye to you...

Goodbye, Dad.

I hope your torment has finished and you are in peace.

I love you and always will.

December

December is here.

This Christmas time Allegro commercial made me cry real tears. The tears of a huge loss and sadness. Cast: an elderly gentelman whose son lives abroad and who one day embarks on a difficult journey of learning a foreign language to be able to communicate with his grand-daughter who speaks English. For three minutes the audience watches the gentelman posting notes around the house or reciting 'to be' while riding the tram. In a bath he threatens a rubber duck with a profane line from a movie and in a public transport he accidentally confesses love to another passenger.

And then the day comes: he packs his bags and flies to meet his family.

There he is, on the doorsteps. There she is too, a little girls. He gets on his knees and introduces himself to her in English: 'Hi, I'm your grandpa'.

I'm sobbing by then.

I see Helena and my dad that will never happen.

I see an elderly man who made an effort - that will never happen for us.

I see everything we've lost as a family in recent years and much beyond that.

I put my head on my desk and I keep sobbing, my tears can't stop falling.

How I miss him!

How I've lost him!

How he's lot us!!!

I don't know how he is. Whenever I call - there is no answer and even when he answers he pretends that all is good. I've stopped investigating. I know he drinks... at this point it doesn't really matter any more how long for: a week, a month, three moths... He is digging his own grave to which he will take a part of each of us. I send him a Christmas card and wished him a Maerry Xmas but I know it's not going to be a happy time for him - so sick and so gone... far away in the ocean of alcohol. I wish he knew how much I love him and ho scared I am that I will never see him again. I wish he knew how scared I am to see him at the same time. I wish he was able to understand how it all hurts all of us and how the only thing we ever wanted from him was to be sober.

December is here.

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.

Goodbye and See You

I was gutted yesterday when we were saying final goobyes to Ms Vivien - our beloved nanny, the primary caretaker of Helena. 

Ms Vivien has stayed with us for seven months and from the first moment we met she's been loyal and caring employee. It's even difficult to think about her as of an employee - she has become a part of our little family. 

Whenever she could - she would help. I needed to go to the immigration - she would come earlier. I needed a day off - she would take Helena for a night. I needed her to stay longer - no problem. I was sick - she would stay with me and look after Helena when I couldn't take care of her.

She looked after Helena but also Ms Vivien looked after me and made sure that I was fine. 

Ms Vivien is a great character. She is funny and robust, her personality is bigger than the world and she just fills the room with positive energy and happiness. She knows every song in the English language, she would sing them to Helena to sleep. She loves dancing and just monkeying around - and monkeying we did a lot! 

I will miss these laughs and countless peek-a-boos! I will miss her voice and laughter that I would hear already at the foot of the corridor. I heard Miss Vivien laughing and with her Helena would burst in seams. He was in the best hands in the world.

It will be different now. 

Thank you Miss Vivien for your time and commitment to Helena. You love her like you love your own children and I'm sure you planted a seed of unconditional love in Helena's heart. Thank you for being with here when I couldn't. Thank you for being with me when I had worse days and for talking to me.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I wish you all the best and I hope to see you very soon.

Briefly

Oh, it's been a long time since I was here last time.

If there is anybody here reading this non regular basis, I'm sorry for my absence. Well, partly because I don't know really my readership, I tend to think that this website is really for me and really few people have a look.

Anyway....

The whole narration stopped with me and Helena going away to France to meet the French part of the family. We were not planning to meet with Olivier at that time and so you can only imagine my surprise when he showed up at the airport. I welcomed his appearance with a mixture of joy and annoyance since I didn't know what to expect. We hadn't been really talking before that. I could have been miserable and angry but instead I decided to embrace the situation and have fun. I wanted to have a good holiday for myself and Helena. My motherly heart was happy Helena was with her father, my womanly heart healed enough not to care too much about the presence of O.

And so we spent what turned up to be a lovely holiday with each other and the French family.

Everybody was super nice and open and we were woven into the family fabric in no time. Not even once had I a feeling that it something was awkward. We had a royal reception.

We spent few days by the ocean, few days in the French coutry side, few days in the capital. I ate cheese and drank wine and ate more cheese and French bread. I came back heavier but ohhhh, French food just can't be resisted. Well, it can - but what's the point then in going to France?!

We came back after two weeks of this social and culinary indulgence and right away I plunged into work. The school year started immediately.

Dad

It's your birthday tomorrow and I've been trying to reach you almost for a week now. When you called me, I was with Helena. I didn't hear... And now you're not answering. 

And I'm scared. 

I know you are alone. No, you are not alone. You are with your best friend: a bottle.

Hello?! Are you there? The voice mail again. My heart skips the beat when I hear your voice. I'm fully aware that it might be the last time I hear it. Or the only time that I hear it. 

I would like to talk to you. But... but what will I tell you? Will I tell you that I'm worried? Will I tell you that it makes me sick to think how you are wasting you life? What are we going to talk about? 

Hello?! Can you hear me? No, you cannot. You never had. I've asked you so many times! I begged you. We all did, You can't hear me from here. You wouldn't hear me even if I were in the same room screaming on top of my lungs that I love you. Even if I gave up my own life, it wouldn't change anything. One person already have. 

You want to die. I know that. You are slowly killing yourself. You don't want to live any more. You gave up. And what is the legacy you are leaving behind? What is that I will remember?! What are the lessons?! Have you ever thought about it?! 

On Friday I'm flying to Europe.  I will not come to see you. I wish I could but I won't. I promised myself that I will not bring Helena to this energy. I told you about it many times. I don't want to be in this energy, though I do feel guilty about it. I'm protecting myself and I feel guilty. You are my father, after all. I should! But I won't. I might never see you again. But it's your choice. You chose to drink, you chose to be like this. I know you are lonely. I am as well. Trust me. I feel your pain. You'd tell me that I'm still young and have things to look forward to and that's why I can't understand what you are going through. Believe me, I do. Each day I struggle as well with demons. Each day, I'm fighting for myself and now also for Helena. Each day I have to make a choice. And sometimes I slip. And I do feel abandoned by my own father. By the man who was supposed to be my anchor, my safe place, my rock. There is nothing. A huge void, darkness and emptiness... there is only a memory of a man who is no more. I can't live all my life off this memory. 

I feel sorry for you, for myself and for all of us that we have to live through in this madness. I feel sorry for wasted lives that cannot be returned. I feel sorry and sad. 

I will try to call you again tomorrow and the day after, and then the day after that. 

Please, answer.

Getting ready!

Like a prisoner I'm counting the days.  Six more! Six more, two flights and hopefully we will arrive in Paris safely and not too perplexed. 

Few last weeks were hard. The work, Helena and my own life balance have been hard to maintain and the only thing that I really felt most of the time was that I need to sleep. Most of the time I felt that I needed to sleep and if I finally were able to sleep, I think I would not wake up for a month. Very low energy. Many times I felt that there was nothing there to give: not to myself, not to Helena, not to my students... I would do things but without a spark. I would do things but without really having any fun from doing them. I'm feeling a bit better and the trip on the horizon makes me feel even more hopeful.

I was debating myself if I should go home this holiday. My dad isn't well. He is so deep in his addiction that he doesn't see anything any more. He only wants his bottle that lets him forget about everybody and everything, that lets him slowly kill himself. My heart breaks on this thought. I remember the man he used to be and now I'm so scared to see him destroyed and defeated. I haven't seen him in ages. He never skypes me. He rarely receives any phone calls. He cuts himself off. He is lonely and alcohol fills the void. I feel sorry for him and I wish I could do something for him. I wish I could go there and talk to him and he would listen and get better but too many times I've been disappointed. Too many times he lied to me for me to believe that this time it would be otherwise. I would love to see my brothers and my whole family but I need to recharge my own batteries as well. I've been feeling week myself these days and I need a safe place where I can rest. In Poland I won't get it. I would come back to Bangkok more tired and sad if I went home. Home is not my safe place. It hasn't been for a long time already. 

So we are going to France only. Perhaps we can spend Christmas in Poland but that will depend on many things.

We will spend a wonderful time together and we will meet Helena's family who seems lovely. They are so looking forward to meeting her! I couldn't be happier for her. At least this much I can do for her and take her to them. 

My communication with Olivier is very limited. Actually we don't talk to each other at all and if we do, we exchange information about Helena and even this is very short. I guess we don't have anything to say to each other any more and none of us wants to pretend that we are friends.

I'm so looking forward next week!