Two Friends
Death found its way to our door last year. It came around like that one guest we all dread, the one we can’t bear to host but don’t have the heart to turn away. Our hypocrisy becomes our punishment. Death came calling six times, once or twice admittedly having lost its way. The first time, Death brought along some old friends. Grief, Rage and Ghosts of old wounds who stood quietly in the corner, gloating, mocking. When the ghosts left, they took away a mother, a brother and a friend. One dead, the other two certified the living dead. But one ghost stayed behind. In the corner. Waiting. Watching. Curious to see how we in limbo existed. Ahh. But the joke was on him. He has been in limbo too. He must know this. Even Death has given up on him. Try as he might, this first ghost stubbornly resists oblivion. He still has scores to settle, wrongs to avenge. And so he stayed on with a mocking smile on his face.
To keep him company, Grief and Rage kindly took up residence here. Grief is a chameleon. She camouflages herself beautifully and pretends she is not even in the room. Then when we least expect it, she emerges, dressed in waves and walls – taking our very breath away. The walls were hard enough to handle. They closed in like a trap. They formed an implacable barrier so that reaching the other side, where lay redemption and healing, seemed impossible.
And then came the waves. We yearned for the Walls once the waves hit. Grief reveled in these breaking, shattering riptides. We forgot to breathe. We fought to stay alive. So tempting to give in to the waves. Under them, the world receded, every thought, every emotion muffled and muted. Things once in sharp focus, with the ability to heal and hurt, stayed soft and blurred. Grief became the world as we knew it. But it is apparent now that it was unreal. That world was only a chameleon changing its colours.
Wave. Wall. Wave. Wall. Always appearing when we were least prepared. Just when we turned tentatively away from the temptation, dared to take our first steps back towards the real world, all angles and sharp points and bright colours: a hollow pit in the stomach, a lump in the throat, shortness of breath. Grief tenderly took our hand and led us back under.
And Rage? He became our ever present loyal companion. He formed unwelcome words in our mouths, he taught us to hurt and lash out so that we could temporarily invite our loved ones into our world. The he whispered to us to shut them out, kick them out. He turned our mouths and stomachs sour, he closed our eyes to little joys, he reminded us of all the real and imagined hurts inflicted by the ones who walked away, the living dead. When our hearts yearned for them in the midst of the lonely days and nights, Rage returned to be our one true friend. He soothed our need. He kept us safe.
These are the kind pair Death brought to keep us company last year. They were old friends from a distant past but they had hardly changed. If Death was the unwelcome guest, then Grief and Rage were our dirty little secrets. The ones we’d rather not have acknowledged publicly but who enticed us again and again with the private peep show of self indulgence and pity that we were once addicted to. And what of the ghost who stayed behind? When Grief proved a better friend than old memories, he quietly faded away into a corner of our minds, waiting for the next opportune moment to gnaw at the wounds.
So once again, we learnt to swim against the tide, even if it meant swimming in the same spot for years. Climbed the wall again and again, even if it meant a battering and bruising of the spirit. Death visited us last year and will visit again, that is undeniable, but in the meantime, we relearnt old lessons – to leave Rage behind helpless, to let go of Grief made redundant. And to just let it be.