Reflections and Refractions

As I was sit here alone and lost in my grief, my eyes filled to overflowing with tears, the words I struggle to write feel as empty as I do.

I struggle to find the words to say how I feel.  In fact I’m not even sure how I feel.

I feel angry, but angry at who?  I feel that it’s not fair, and damn right – it’s not fair.  But then as I look around, who could have done something different to make it fair and just.  Yesterday, as I struggled against the tears, Linda put her arms around me, and in a breaking voice I said “Its ok.”  “It’s not ok”, she said.  “There is nothing about this that is ok.”  And she’s right.  There is nothing about this tragic happening that is ok.  There is nothing about this that is fair and just.  We are right to be angry.  We are right to feel despair.  There is this enormous black hole in my life right now, a hole that seems to be sucking in pain and hurt until I feel overwhelmed and I wonder how I will survive.  And if this is how I feel, I cannot begin to imagine how it must be for her loving parents, husband and brothers and her three beautiful children.

We tend to say ‘How can this happen?’ or “Why?” and these are the unanswerable questions.  In situations like this it is often to God that we assign blame.  “You gave us this angel, only to take her away again.”  We struggle in the beginning because all we feel is the loss, the emptiness and the pain.  The shock and the horror, the tragedy of the situation, consume us, overwhelm us.  We feel angry and hurt and we want details and facts and we wonder what those final seconds must have been like.  It goes round and round and round until we can’t bear it any more.

But we don’t need those things.  The God I believe in doesn’t give and take away.  The God I believe in doesn’t make decisions like these.  The God in whom I place my faith and trust stands beside us in grief.  The God I believe in mourns the loss of this beautiful life as much as we do.  The God I believe in gives us memories; memories of a life filled with laughter, and joy, of love and of family, of children and friends; memories of struggle and hope, of difficult times and achievements over adversities.  Over time those memories will work to fill the hole in our lives, ease the pain and gradually enable us to move on, but always carrying the memories with us.

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“You are my favourite niece” I would say.  Hands on hips, a cheeky grin on her face, she would reply “I’m your only niece.”  And then there was the inevitable hug.  With arms wrapped around each other, it was always one of those beautiful moments of life, one of those moments you never want to end.  A moment of happiness, a moment of joy, a moment that could be, and indeed was, repeated over and over during the 29 and bit years that she was part of my life. “You’re still my favourite niece” I would throw back, and it ended with the tiger hug where I would snuggle into her neck and make a grumbling, grunting, snarl that sort of sounded tigerish, and she would giggle and laugh.  When she was little and I was holding her in my arms, she would push away with a pretend grumpy look, and after a few seconds she’d say “Do it again” and giggling, she’d snuggle in for some more.  It became our thing, something that always happened anywhere we happened to see each other, even in the middle of Hog’s Breath Café when she was 28 and I was 59!

I can remember the first time I held her in my arms.  Jane and I lived in different states.  So it was some weeks after she was born that we got together.  I had two sons by that stage and I have ended up with 5 boys who I love dearly, but I guess Enid was sort of the daughter I never had.  There were many happy times together, particularly at Grannie and Grandpa’s place at Christmas and other times when we were all able to get together and it was always a great joy to watch the 6 kids, at that time my older 3 boys, Jane’s 2 boys and one girl, laughing and playing together.  And Enid was always the boss, determinedly, but gently getting her own way.

I feel we grew close as she grew up.  We didn’t always live physically nearby, as I moved around quite a bit, living in Melbourne, Adelaide, Darwin and now in Perth.  But every time we got together, we would pick up where we left off – the tiger hug ritual always kicking things off and being repeated several times during the visit.  She talked to me quite a bit about various things in her life and I was always impressed with her openness and honesty, particularly at those times in which she struggled with her life and what was happening in it.  But along with her openness and honesty there was definitely a strong will that was open to suggestion but not easily persuaded.  She was always willing to listen, but she had a mind of her own.  And there were times when Enid was willing to share that mind even if you weren’t ready to receive it.  She didn’t take any crap from anyone, but I always felt she was fair and reasonable and always seemed to have good reason for what she had to say.  Perhaps it was growing up with two brothers and having to stand up for herself, despite being the oldest, which was behind her strong determination to be her own person and to live her own life.

Enid had a difficult start to life, with not the best of biological fathers, and as she grew into her teens she struggled with who she was and where she was going.  When her biological father came back into her life and made contact, wanting to get together, she thought long and hard about it, but in the end decided that he had walked away and she had a new life.  She told me on several occasions that the best thing to ever happen to her was that Mike came into her life, and she had both great pleasure and pride in calling him Dad, and as soon as she turned 18, she changed her surname to be the same as his, such was the love she felt for him, a love and pride that I saw as genuinely reciprocated.

Both Jane and Michael were wonderful parents to Enid, providing both love and boundaries that helped her develop into the beautiful, loving and caring person she was.  And the love she received from her parents was given back in bucketfuls.  She was always around and always willing to help out when things got tough.  And she had love to spare as she looked out for her brothers as they grew up together, and later became a loving and caring mother herself, first with Lilly and then later with Paul, having Grace and Meredith, the three girls being the delight of her life.  It is sad to think of these three beautiful girls growing up without their mother, but those of us who knew Enid all have wonderful and irreplaceable gifts to give them as they grow – our memories of Enid.

The last time I saw my favourite niece was on the occasion of Paul’s birthday in October last year.  We had gone to Hog’s Breath café for dinner.  During dinner I sat and watched Enid interact with her kids.  I remember thinking, as I had on several other occasions, how much she reminded me of my mother and I can still remember the happy warm fuzzy feeling I felt at the time.  It was some of the mannerisms that she used, the way she stood sometimes, the expression she displayed on her face.  There were a lot of similarities between Jane and Enid, for sure.  But for me, one gift Enid gave was reminders of my mother.

We all have memories and stories of Enid, and those memories and stories will undoubtedly bring back the tears as we grieve her loss, but if we can let them, those memories will invade our inner-being, enabling us to move on with our lives and we will be better people for having known and loved this beautiful person.   Enid has been part of who we are today and she will always remain part of who we will be.

As I have sat here in my chair for the last couple of hours and typed and deleted and retyped these words, the tears have come and gone and come again.  But there have been one or two smiles along the way too.  And even though the pain is still raw, I think I feel a little bit better.  The black hole is not so black, perhaps.  Such is the power of the gift of memory, and I have no doubt that this is just the beginning.

…and, Enid, you are still my favourite niece!

In loving memory of my niece, Enid Sutton, who left this life in tragic circumstances on Friday, 1st November 2013. Your memory will be with me always.