Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world

I have not written anything in weeks, perhaps months. Sometimes my lack of creativity is a result of anxiety, stress or upset. I usually find my mental state is in direct proportion to my creative output. But actually, this past period, Christmas and the New Year, has been a wonderful time with family and friends in Northern Ireland.

2018 was not a great year, I have to say. I lost far too many family and friends. I remember loved ones living or dead each morning and night. I write their initials down as they are recalled. The list is burnt into my memory with repetition but this year suddenly a host of new initials have been added.

I recall what my dad used to say in his 80s, “I have more loved ones in the next world than here, in this one”. It was a strange sensation, he said, to dream and be surrounded by those who have loved you and awake to find them gone. What is the mystery of this dream world where emotions run riot and our subconscious thoughts, past experiences and even future seem to flow together?

Because of such precious time over the festive period with loved ones I came back to Malta buoyed up with injections of energy and love. Wonderful conversations have worked their magic. Laughter quieted down the worries of this world. Instead of longing for all the things I don’t have there is a powerful sense of gratitude for all that I have been given.

Then, in the New Year this second week, news arrives of yet another loss. A dear friend who I visited only a week ago has died. When I called he had been in bed at home and was bone tired. When roused he lifted his head and opened his eyes seeming to recognise me. Then, he lay back into a deep restful slumber. Suddenly far, far away in a dream world and a better one. He was a Buddhist for much of his life and had meditated for an hour each day. It made him ever centred and calm.            

People brought him their problems because of that still centre. He was an excellent counsellor. Not one of the ‘new age’ bunch that prattle on “tell me more” without any valuable input of their own. Fear of litigation has created a new species of counsellor who say nothing for fear of doing harm. Given their lack of real experience and sometimes questionable motives it is perhaps not wrong for this to be their aspiration!

But real counsellors like him listened intently and then spoke to the issues raised. He never claimed the guru status or assumed he knew all the answers. The views he expressed were not channelled from a mystic source. Instead, they came from years of experience in healthcare, management and life. They were often insightful, at times unexpected, but always useful. The fact that his words never came from a desire for power or control but instead from a deep understanding and humility made them all the more welcome.

Utterance has the power to destroy or rejuvenate but real understanding can bring progress and healing. His honesty and humility allowed real consultation to take place and important truths to emerge.

For all those we have lost I find myself mourning their absence but also celebrating their loving presence in my memory banks and heart.  Today, when another dear friend’s funeral takes place in N. Ireland I am reminded of these heart-wrenching lines by a Pulitzer poetry prize winner.

“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay

There are people and things we take for granted until they are taken from us

There was a time when they were just so many weddings. It felt like the whole world had conspired to get married simultaneously. Especially to a 23-year-old me who had never even had a boyfriend! My fridge door was covered in invites and large periods of time was spent buying wedding presents and working out what to wear.  There were so many that they seem to blur into each other.

Then they stopped.  Suddenly it was baby showers that popped up interspersed with children’s birthday parties. Children’s presents, balloons and games dominated everything.

Unexpectedly the weddings stopped and as children grew into teenagers, who sneered at the very thought of a birthday party organised by parents, those parties frizzled out too.

There followed a long period of expectancy with no weddings and no birthday parties. In the gap that followed, we examined all the 20 and 30-year-olds around us wondering if marriage was even on their radar at all.

The sense of expectancy was broken by a funeral of a loved grandparent, then an aunt and uncle. Suddenly it seemed that the wonderful forest in whose shelter you have long stood is being felled. These major oak trees that have remained consistent for eight decades begin to topple. The void they leave is huge. There are people and things we take for granted until they are taken from us. Then the space they leave seems unsustainable, unbearable.  With each new loss, the landscape seems to change and not for the better.

I mourn my uncle with his smiling good humour teaching me about beekeeping. My aunt whose laughter was only exceeded by her golfing expertise. The list goes on I cannot name them all, there are simply too many.

Yesterday another dear friend passed away. I remember her living room, chairs all drawn close, warm and cosy, full of love and anecdotes. Rocking with laughter we shared tales of woe and triumph.  These immense oak trees are falling around us.  I mourn their loss, their integrity, their faithfulness and their love. I want to speak of these great souls and all those who are heartbroken at their loss. But what do words matter?

At one recent funeral my cousin was asked that traditional question, “what charity should contributions be sent?” He explained the family had decided that in lieu of giving money each person was asked to do a good deed in memory of their mother instead. What a lovely way to be remembered. As I see the voids left behind my thoughts turned to searching for actions in their name that will contribute to the betterment of others.  In among the fallen oaks seeds of goodness need to be planted. It seems a befitting fruit of lives well lived.

Michael deals with dirt and life

Michael Abateo wiped his brow as the sweat pulsated from his pores. He was getting old. He reckoned you leaked more as you age. From one’s bladder, nose and even eyes. He had grown accustomed to the gradual changes in his body. He didn’t complain but hugged the physical pain close to keep other pains away.  Losing his wife Maria had broken him in so many ways.

It was only after she died he realised her happy nature has ever been the sunshine in his life. Of course, she had driven him crazy at times! Her good nature seemed to extend to every passing stray she met. But she had chosen him to love and that still felt like an undeserved blessing, even 50 years later. He couldn’t put into words what she meant to him but now even a year later, her loss felt like a mortal wound.

The children had been great. Loving and supportive despite their own personal loss. During Maria’s illness and funeral, he had been shocked that they had become mature adults and he a devastated child. Every day that passed he was reminded of Maria in all their acts of kindness towards him. When they called at his house there was always a tender look of concern as if to ask, “Are you, alright dad?” Their faces reminded him of Maria and sometimes when they spoke to him he stopped listening to the actual words and just drank in their similarities to Maria. The way they laughed. Full-throated, head thrown back and arms flailing. They seem to use their hands when they talked just like their mother. Turning both hands outwards as if opening two door handles at the same time. He remembered the gesture and it felt like being in her presence for a second again, warm and loved once more. Michael had realised he wasn’t getting over his loss.  He didn’t need anyone to tell him that.

Neighbours had been kindly, he couldn’t complain about anyone. Even Maria’s friends had cooked meals and dropped in to try and cheer him up. He realised how Maltese he was in his ability to have so many people around him and yet feel so truly alone.

These days he’d taken up a service project in Valetta and as he walked rapidly through the steep streets he’d begun to notice the lonely older faces in upstairs windows looking out. Strange how you can live in a place for decades and yet fail to see so much. The project had been his son’s idea. An old palazzo needed weekly cleaning and Michael for some reason had accepted this suggestion when he had rejected so many others.

He actually looked forward to his weekly visits to the empty deserted building. Dust covered the front door and the litter box was ever filled to overflowing with stupid fliers. He liked the silence and the practical tasks, they both soothed him.  Even dumping the fliers felt like a weekly ritual cleanout. He would take a wooden folding chair and place it near the front to prop the big green wooden doors open to help dry the tiles while he cleaned. He’d been startled to find a huge dead red cockroach near the front door lying belly-up in the empty corridor. It must have cooked in the heat, he thought. Although he had spotted it the week before, he hadn’t disposed of it. The big front doors that day had proven difficult to open, so he’d gone to the ironsmith shop close to Saint John’s Cathedral. The owner had explained all the old wooden doors swell up in the summer sun and become stuck.  He explained,

“You have to be careful though, if you sand them down in summer then in the winter you’ll let the rain in!”

Michael had enjoyed the chaos of his shop and their conversation. It was rarer these days to find shopkeepers with time to chat. He’d carefully sanded the door of the palazzo, just a bit, to make it easier to open and so hadn’t had the time to deal with mopping and cleaning. He wasn’t getting paid for his services so he wasn’t unduly worried. When he returned a week later the red coloured cockroach was exactly where he had left it, still lying on its back.

Rather than handle it, Michael decided to use the mop and just wipe it off into the water in his bucket. He’d done the whole of the entrance hall when he noticed movement in the container. The cockroach had come alive! Given that the bucket was full of strong cleaning fluid as well as water, Michael was shocked to find the dead cockroach now clinging to the mop head in his bucket.

He was incredulous at this rejuvenation of a previously dead insect. Unsure how to proceed he decided to shake the mop out through the front door over the metal gate. The cockroach landed on it back on the pavement and Michael forgot about the incident until he’d cleaned the whole lower floor and was ready to head home. He was delighted to find the front door easier to close, following his sanding of the previous week, and as he closed the door he straightened his back and stretched his arms above his head.  It was good to be physically tired from real work.

A movement on the curb drew his attention. It was the red cockroach! A little the worse for wear but sitting the right way up shaking its wings in the sun, loosening up just like Michael. He looked at this fellow creature and remembered it lying seemingly dead to the world. It was saved by immersion in the dirty detergent water. Brought back to life by moisture’s magic. Michael felt a strange surge of optimism. Perhaps it was a sign of hope? Sometimes life leaves you with nothing, hardly a breath, barely a flicker to show the life force within. Unexpected things can bring you back from the edge, even the dregs.

As Michael walked home he began to feel a shadow lifting from his heart. Maria would’ve thrown back her head and laughed with her arms aloft if he’d told her about his encounter with the insect. That made him smile to himself and chuckle.


Previous story about Michael and Maria Abateo from years ago - Maria's kindness