si dawson

It's not every day you get a text mes­sage telling you your grand­fa­ther is dead, and yet there it is, as cold as tonight is long:

Stan Dur­din passed away on Thurs­day. We have just been told by the vicar of Vic­tor Harbor.

I'd been spend­ing my typ­i­cal Sat­ur­day morn­ing, drink­ing cof­fee (well, him a short black, me an orange juice) with my Sen­sei. Enjoy­ing his inim­itable charm & wis­dom, utterly obliv­i­ous to any sense of impend­ing doom.

We'd just been set­tling up — dis­cussing the rel­a­tive mer­its of bot­tled vs freshly squeezed juice (the juicer at our cafe had bro­ken the pre­vi­ous week) when a beep came through on my rat­tly old phone. Who­ever it was could wait, I only had a few min­utes more before we parted ways.

I'm painfully aware of the lim­ited time we have together — him too soon off to Ger­many, or per­haps Japan, in search of dres­sage glory for his wife. Me off to who knows where who knows when. Per­haps another year or maybe two. Per­haps only another week. Nei­ther of us really knows, or really can. Life is fickle like that.

Regard­less, each Sat­ur­day morn­ing I'm reminded of our rel­a­tive frail­ties in time & space, and once more, I sit down to trea­sure our time together.

Even­tu­ally, bill set­tled, good­byes said — him off to the Hill of Con­tent (a local book­store) to check for the lat­est spy thriller, me off to hag­gle with local retail­ers, I'm cross­ing Exhi­bi­tion Street in down­town Mel­bourne when I finally check my phone.

I stop in the mid­dle of the street, stunned. I look right — road­works. No cars. Ok.

Sum­mon­ing up 17 years of edu­ca­tion, a love of lan­guage & all the com­pas­sion I can muster I reply to my Dad:

Oh shit.

Con­fi­dent this has com­forted him enor­mously, I'm left to won­der: Now what?

I spin on my heels. Back to the book­shop, find Ralph. He looks up, surprised.

"I just got a text mes­sage that my Grandad has died. Can I have a hug?"

Ralph's thirty years older than me. He's seen a lot of the world. Silently he reaches out with both arms, embraces me deeply. I sink into him, mind spinning.

All too soon, it's over, and I'm left to stum­ble blankly out into the street. Mum­bling my thanks I con­tinue mind­lessly on my errands. Pick up a cam­era from the repair shop. Now what?

Surely check­ing my mail can't be the most use­ful thing I could be doing now?

But I barely knew him!

Maybe you should call home.

What could I pos­si­bly say?

Am I going to burst into tears right now?

How do I feel.

Numb.

That'll be shock.

What am I shocked about? I knew he was sick for ages.

But he was your Grandad.

Oh shit.

I go home.

On a whim I pick up a cof­fee. I very rarely drink it these days, so it's an odd choice. Maybe it seems right to kick myself in the brain for a bit. Hope­fully take some of the shock away.

It doesn't work, just gives me the jit­ters. Tastes ok, but now I'm mildly stressed and in shock. Men­tal note: don't trust brain in times of shock.

I get home. Ring Dad. Talk a lit­tle. There's ugly back­story. Mum's really upset, she adored her father.

None of this is a sur­prise. All of this is infor­ma­tion I had before I got on the phone.

I'm still strug­gling to remem­ber any­thing about Grandad. He took me fish­ing when I was 10. Or was that Grandma? It was both of them.

Oddly, Dad & I start talk­ing about spirit pos­ses­sion. We're using dif­fer­ent ter­mi­nol­ogy — he men­tions a 'jez­abel spirit', I think­ing 'entity', but it's the same stuff.

This is not the Dad I know. We've never talked about any­thing close to this before.

I guess grief does weird things to people.

I remem­ber 11 years ago. My lit­tlest brother was in a bad acci­dent. A really bad acci­dent. The kind of acci­dent that has 4 police cars, 2 ambu­lances, a firetruck & a heli­copter land on your front lawn.

I wish I was mak­ing this up.

I got a call from the now very much loved hus­band of my sis­ter — then the dubi­ously regarded boyfriend. He'd been call­ing every­one he could think of while Mum flew with my brother in the heli­copter to the hos­pi­tal. Any doubts any­one might have had about him dis­ap­peared like a snowflake in a flash fire that day. Some­how he kept his head about him while every­thing else exploded, includ­ing the family.

I remem­ber run­ning out of my house in the city car­ry­ing a mag­a­zine, a woollen jer­sey & a meat pie. All I could think was that hos­pi­tals were cold, bor­ing & had bad food. An odd time that a meat pie would be con­sid­ered "good food", but still. I jumped on a bus to the hos­pi­tal. The brother I barely knew being heli-lifted to the inten­sive care burns unit & that's not impor­tant enough to war­rant a taxi? Men­tal note: don't trust brain in times of shock.

In some odd twist of fate I man­aged to beat the heli­copter there. I guess life is fickle like that. I ran around the hos­pi­tal in ter­ror try­ing to find my Mum. Try­ing to find my brother. I knew I couldn't do any­thing, but thought maybe, some­how, me being there might help Mum. I didn't know. I just knew being there was important.

Even­tu­ally I found them. I'd man­aged to get there even before they sedated him. "It was an acci­dent" he said, "I don't blame anyone."

Six years old. Third degree burns to 60% of his body, and that's what he has to say. Some kid.

That's all he says. They sedate him, poke six tubes into him, and post three nurses on 24 hour guard. For a week. Two weeks. Nobody will say whether they think he'll live or die. We can't even get per­cent­ages. They flat out refuse to say. He's in a coma the entire time.

I see more of my brother in that time than I have his entire life until then.

I guess that's what hap­pens when you leave home before they're born.

Weird way to get to know some­one. We're still not ter­ri­bly close. I don't blame any­one. I guess that's what happens.

He spends three months in inten­sive care. Mum spends the entire time with him in the hos­pi­tal. Even­tu­ally, a life­time later, he's released. There's fol­lowup treat­ment, of course, and the scars will never go away, but he's alive, and, strangely, incred­i­bly healthy. More than healthy. He's one of the most well rounded, well adjusted kids I've ever met.

I can't fig­ure it out.

Mum has a the­ory. She says there were so many peo­ple pray­ing for him. Friends. Friends of friends. Peo­ple we never even knew. All of them pray­ing for that lit­tle kid — that huge out­pour­ing of pos­i­tive energy towards him just healed him of any crap he might have had.

When you meet him it's hard to argue with that theory.

I still can't remem­ber any­thing about Grandad.

No, I remem­ber the last time I met him. It was briefly, so briefly. I was just fly­ing through town & he was at my parent's house. Purely by acci­dent. It was awk­ward. Beyond awk­ward. I could feel him try­ing to reach out for me. I was in some point­lessly child­ish self-important phase, run­ning about doing God knows what. God cares what.

He looked so much older than I remem­bered. He must have been 75 by then. He just looked so worn out by life. Try­ing des­per­ately to con­nect with some­one he barely knew. I pitied him. Pitied the life he'd had, the pain he'd been through, how old he'd become. I brushed him off. My own flesh & blood, & I brushed him off. Chil­dren can be so cal­lous. Even into their late 20's.

I ask Dad a ques­tion: "Dad, I can I ask you a question?"

"Sure"

I ask him another: "Do you think it's worth­while me com­ing over?"

He thinks. "I have absolutely no idea"

Well, that back­fired. I'm in shock. I'm not trust­ing my brain.

I make a ran­dom deci­sion. If I can find a flight for under eight hun­dred bucks, I'll go.

I don't know why, I just think that maybe, some­how, being there might help Mum. She adored Stan. I adore her.

I hang up, promis­ing to call back. Get to the travel agents across the road, nego­ti­ate a flight. There are two options. Stu­pidly expen­sive direct flights, or half the price with a stopover. It involves spend­ing the night in Christchurch air­port. I choose the cheaper of the two, despite the hor­ri­ble stop-over. Christchurch is noto­ri­ously cold & who wants to spend a night on an air­port floor? It's $794.

I guess I'm going.

It's the typ­i­cal thing with bereave­ments. You get the news. Life stops. For every­one, not just those who've left.

There's noth­ing else to do but be there.

What else can you do?

Just be there for the living.

Almost 20 years ago, my favourite grand­mother passed away. Nan Nan I used to call her. I've always called her. Always will.

Now her I can remem­ber. I could talk about her, my Dad's Mum, for weeks.

I remem­ber how she used to smile at me, so under­stand­ingly. I remem­ber what sports she used to play (bowls & golf). That she always wore makeup (helped keep the sun off, she said). That she used to keep mints in her car. The kind of car she had (a lit­tle beige two door man­ual Mit­subishi Colt). How she used to make the most deli­cious juice imag­in­able by buy­ing two dif­fer­ent kinds of pre­made juice & mix­ing them together. How she never swore. Her back­bone, her tow­er­ing strength & her love. Her fero­cious love.

I remem­ber spend­ing time with her, lis­ten­ing to the cicadas out­side & feel­ing that all was right in the world. Even though I only got to fly from New Zealand to Aus­tralia and see her a cou­ple of times, I loved every sec­ond with her.

I remem­ber hear­ing about how she slipped over when putting gro­ceries in her car one day. How she broke her hip. How she went from being out & about every day of the week — chair­ing this, organ­is­ing that, rac­ing all over town — to bed ridden.

I guess life is fickle like that.

I remem­ber know­ing she was sick. In hos­pi­tal. Unable to get out. No doubt frus­trated beyond belief.

I was at uni­ver­sity, a coun­try & a giant ocean away. I'd just started. Try­ing to find my way in the world.

I remem­ber being frus­trated myself. Want­ing to write to her, but not know­ing what I could pos­si­bly say that would help.

"I'm sorry you're sick"?

I said that last time. I don't want to repeat myself.

I didn't want to just talk about what I was up to. That sounded.. use­less. Self­ish. No help to any­one. And besides, what would I say? "Today I had lec­tures." Ugh. Terrible.

Month after month went by. The guilt built up. As did the unwrit­ten letters.

In my mind, some­how all this would resolve itself. She'd get bet­ter. She was strong, she was amaz­ing. I remembered.

And then one day I got the call. That call. The one you always dread.

Well, almost.

She'd stopped tak­ing food.

By that point she'd dete­ri­o­rated so far they were feed­ing her with a spoon. She had no body move­ment, could barely see.

Let­ters were being read to her. What let­ters she received.

Even­tu­ally, she'd made up her mind. When­ever they tried to feed her, she grit­ted her teeth. Deter­mined, proud to the end. She'd had enough. It was the only part of her body left that she had any con­trol over, the only power she had left, and by God, she was going to exer­cise it.

I phoned the hos­pi­tal. I didn't know what to say, but it seemed impor­tant that I call.

"I love you Nan Nan."

How late we realise I could have sent her let­ters say­ing noth­ing more than that, and that would have been enough. That would have been what she'd wanted to hear. All I needed to do.

"I'm get­ting on a plane to see you. So is Dad. We'll be there tomorrow."

So we did. The money sorted itself out — it always does in these situations.

Tomor­row we arrived.

She'd died in the night.

Proud to the end, she hadn't wanted us to see her like that.

She wanted us to remem­ber her for what she was, not what she'd been reduced to.

She looked beau­ti­ful, as always, just how I remem­bered her, in the funeral par­lour. I had a few min­utes alone with her. I said some words, I don't remem­ber what. The thought occurred to kiss her good­bye, but I didn't.

There was a veil over the cof­fin, & I wor­ried. What if I'm not allowed to? What if I get in trouble?

I want to express a sim­ple act of farewell to some­one I loved with all my heart, & I'm wor­ried about get­ting in trou­ble? I guess grief does weird things to people.

I never did kiss her goodbye.

The funeral pro­gressed, as these things do. Words were said. Things eaten & drunk, & every­one dis­persed once more to the cor­ners of the globe.

I remem­ber my Grandad was a whizz at cross­words. He tried to get me into them, but it never really stuck. I love words though, love word­play, & language.

Maybe that came from him.

I remem­ber him telling me once about how he'd been in the sec­ond world war. About being in the blitz in Lon­don, with the air raid shel­ters & all. About how Frank Sina­tra had man­aged to escape con­scrip­tion because off his mob connections.

I think he resented Frank a lit­tle, but it made for a great story.

At 10 I barely knew who Frank Sina­tra was, but that didn't mat­ter. I would even­tu­ally. I do now.

I got back from the travel agents. A friend offered to give me a lift to the air­port. Keep me company.

I put my col­lec­tion of every­thing ol' blue eyes ever sung on the stereo & started to try and get organised.

I wasn't fly­ing to New Zealand for the funeral. My Grandad was in Ade­laide, Australia.

I was fly­ing over for Mum.

I checked the weather. A bit colder. Ten degrees. Think. THINK!

I end up stuff­ing way too many shirts in a bag. Not much else.

My friend arrives.

We sit on the couch. I drink some water. Try & fail to remem­ber some­thing, any­thing about my Grandad.

How can some­one who's a part of my life be so unknown to me?

How is some­one who cared about me able to be so dis­tant? How can that happen?

I give up.

I don't think I feel any grief, although I feel some­thing. I can't iden­tify it.

Maybe it is grief.

I haven't had many peo­ple near me die. Not yet. Every­one does even­tu­ally though. If they live long enough themselves.

I feel numb, but under­neath I can feel some­thing else. It doesn't feel like it belongs to me. I wouldn't be sur­prised if it's Mum's. We're pretty close, in an odd kind of way.

I go back to pack­ing, & even­tu­ally I man­age to throw out some shirts. Throw in a phone charger. What­ever else is required. Maybe. But really, who cares? It's just impor­tant I'm there.

My bag still won't close. Now what?

I used to be good at this. This pack­ing thing.

I still haven't cried, but my brain doesn't seem to be work­ing very well. Maybe it's the cof­fee. Yeah, that'll be it.

My friend helps. Thank God there's some­one here still functional.

I eat about twenty bananas, since they will have gone off by the time I get back. Some­how I still feel empty inside.

We drive to the air­port, get stuck behind a slow mov­ing tram. It's past check in time, and we're still dri­ving. For some rea­son I just don't care.

What is that, that feeling?

I still can't pick it.

I rush into the ter­mi­nal to find an empty desk. Some­how between buy­ing the ticket four hours ago and now, the plane has been delayed an hour.

Some­how every­one else in the world heard about it except me.

I check in anyway.

We head to a bar. On a whim I order a Guin­ness. I very rarely drink these days, so it's an odd choice. Maybe it seems right to kick myself in the brain for a bit. Hope­fully it will take some of the shock away. It doesn't work. I tell myself it's not for me, it's for Stan. For Grandad.

I can't remem­ber if he drank or not.

I fig­ure in the army he prob­a­bly did, and that's good enough. Right now, that's good enough.

With every sip, I say to myself, "This is for you, Grandad" & send my thoughts out to him, and huge waves of gunk pour off me.

I'm heal­ing myself as fast as I can, but it doesn't seem to be help­ing. My friend looks concerned.

Maybe that just isn't how you deal with these things. I don't know. I really don't.

Nobody tells you how to deal with grief.

Yeah yeah, all those steps. Anger, denial, bar­gain­ing, accep­tance. Maybe I've missed one. I don't know, I really don't.

I don't feel angry, and what is there to deny?

Where does sad­ness fit into all that? Or cry­ing? Maybe it's in the psy­chol­o­gist footnotes.

I have another sip. Try to remem­ber any­thing about Grandad. Maybe if I could say some­thing about him, that would help. All I can remem­ber is that he was a super nice guy. Incred­i­bly nice, but that hardly seems enough for 90 plus years of living.

Nice? I always used to hate that word. I've mel­lowed with age, but mel­lowed to the point where I'm using it to sum up the life of a rel­a­tive? Some­one who lived almost 3 times longer than I have? There must be some­thing wrong with that. With me maybe. Who knows.

I still can't remem­ber any­thing mean­ing­ful about him.

I remem­ber that my friend is a psy­chol­o­gist, but it doesn't seem to help. As they point out, they can't help me grieve, but they can help me get to the air­port. I thank them any­way. It's about all I feel capa­ble of doing.

We talk about God knows what. I'm not really listening.

I've delib­er­ately cho­sen a seat fac­ing a cor­ner of the bar. I fig­ure maybe hav­ing a beer will let me cry. Or what­ever it is I'm sup­posed to do.

It doesn't, and instead I wan­der, alone, through secu­rity & onto the plane. Now what?

Plane goes up. Plane comes down.

Now here I am. It's 4am in the morn­ing. I couldn't sleep. I just don't have enough padding on my bones to sleep on a con­crete floor, although many peo­ple here seem able to.

Every half an hour a voice comes over the tannoy:

"Your atten­tion please. For your safety & secu­rity please do not leave your bags unat­tended. This is a safety & secu­rity con­scious airport"

I don't think any­one is really lis­ten­ing, but I find it strangely com­pelling. How does a buildng become an entity? Why the need to inform us that the air­port was con­scious of any­thing? What on earth will they do when build­ings have autonomous brains and really are conscious?

I think the floures­cent lights, lack of sleep & more stim­u­lants than I've had in for­ever are mess­ing with my mind.

Right now all I know is that I feel like I've been wedged behind these rub­bish bins, try­ing & fail­ing to sleep for­ever. The night has stretched on, and the freez­ing air is burn­ing my legs every­time the doors flick open from outside.

In a cou­ple of hours I might have a shower.

It seems impor­tant that I arrive tomor­row freshly shaved. I don't know why. Maybe so I don't scratch Mum when I hug her.

She doesn't know I'm com­ing. Please don't tell her. She has enough to deal with.

Oddly, finally I'm cry­ing. Have been for the last few hours. There are peo­ple walk­ing around, but I don't care. It just doesn't seem important.

There's still one air­port to go, but the flight doesn't leave until seven.

I still can't fig­ure out what I should do. Should I just heal myself of this pain? Is it even mine? Isn't griev­ing sup­posed to be healthy? Shouldn't I just let it take its course?

I just don't know. I have no expe­ri­ence in these things.

All I know is that I prob­a­bly shouldn't trust my brain. And that grief does weird things to peo­ple. And that I could use a hug.

I remem­ber now, after all this, that Grandad was a sim­i­lar size to me. Mum says I have his bone struc­ture. He was end­lessly patient, an incred­i­bly gen­tle soul. Maybe these choices I've been mak­ing, all this heal­ing I've done, this path I'm on, I'm becom­ing more like him. I think I might be ok with that. That might be mean­ing­ful. Maybe he might be ok with that too.

And get­ting on this last plane to Welling­ton. That maybe, some­how, me being there might help Mum. I don't know. I just know being there is important.