Six months away from the keyboard. And what irony, my last posting was a blurb thanking my mum for being my mum.
Why's that ironic? Well, because between that post, and this post, we buried mum. Early August, driving to work on a Monday morning, doing a block in the city whilst S picks up her dose. My mobile rings - dad, at 7:30 in the morning. He never rings my mobile, and never at 7:30am.
Time slipped into one of those honeyed cliches, where I was hearing what dad was saying, but my mind had modelled his words before I heard them. I guess that's a wanky way of saying 'I knew she was dead before dad told me'.
So yeah, a life defining moment, a point where childhood is definitely over, and I'm blocking Main Street in a pensioners' Camry. S, god bless her cotton-socked empathic skills, could see something was wrong just from my posture, through a tinted window, two hundred metres off. Enough to ring me on my mobile rather than wait till she got there to see what was wrong.
'Mum's dead' was about all I could choke out.
So yeah, the rest of that week was, well, not fun. I went into work on Wed morning for a morning, I was glad I'm not still in the biz, as that woulda made me chop in like crazy, instead I had to wait (and feel real pain) till late Mon arvo, and (synchronicity), boy turns up in town for the first time I've seen him in three months...since he got out of jail. He's not meant to be in Qld, he's not meant to be driving, but he dropped off a packet to S' door, and for that I am grateful...
My sister flew in a few days later, from Philippines, youngest in tow, elder two left with friends as they'd just started school. Oh, what a thing, to have the requisite thousands of dollars spare to be able to drop all and fly in like she did. She arrived Thursday, flew out Saturday. She and mum had never had a chance to resolve shit, as far as I am aware. My chance only came due to being dragged around the house that time in handcuffs, kind of rubbing my failures in their face, forcing them to confront reality. Oh, yeah, and when the cops raided them at 6am a few months after that, and dad ran into my room to grab the sharps bin he obviously thought illegal...
Ah, good times, golden memories.
I miss mum the most when I've read a good book, and I want to tell her about it. Or of some stupid thing my boss said, some misuse of a word. Silly, but I have noone else to tell anymore.
My dad is distraught, and perhaps destroyed. He potters on, but mumbles to a point that scares me. I eventually worked out it was praying, I thought he was blaspheming after years of strict catholicism, but no, it's just prayers starting with "Jesus, Mary and Joseph". He must be so fucked up he thinks he needs the whole crew.
I woke at his this morning. And had left my metro at my Highgate Hill flat, where I have not slept in three months (I stay at S' or dads). Which got me out of there by midday. Leaving people in pain is, well, painful. But I have been doing it daily for a quarter year now. I don't see it getting easier soon.
I am reminded of the statistic that many couples die within a year of each other. If dad dies, it will be truly of a broken heart, and that is something that gives me a little hope, for what could be more romantic these days than dying of a broken heart?