The Letter
Irrationality, despair and lingering feelings that I have no place for
Irrationality, despair and lingering feelings that I have no place for
The letter under discussion in this article is not as blood soaked as the prop used above in the fantastic Quentin Tarantino film The Hateful Eight, but it could be argued that it certainly is figuratively. Nor is it soaked in the cliched tears of bereavement. Those tears have been shed elsewhere and will continue to flow into the void left by the subject of the letter, and a letter that I finally opened today after staring at the damn thing on the kitchen table for exactly three months. The many and varied reasons for the long delay in opening the letter will hopefully become apparent as this howl into The Matrix continues but considering I’d waited for over six months to receive the letter in the first place you’d be forgiven for thinking I’d be anxious to open it at the first opportunity. Then again, the lead up to the six month period of initial waiting was a further 3 months of anxious telephone calls and a daily merry-go-round of speaking with strangers, well meaning strangers too, doctors, nurses, family I barely see from generation to generation as well as a heart rending inability to speak with the one person above all I actually wanted to converse with, and a “Zoom” call that I cannot forget and that will haunt me for the rest of my time in this mortal coil that we call life.
It obviously makes no rational sense to wait three months to open this letter but then again I make no rational sense either, and I knew in my heart of hearts that the contents would rip open and destroy an already broken heart, and it did just that. In spades. We can talk clichés if you wish: “face your fears” or “rip off the band aid” or indeed an old refrain of my dear old Mum of “acting your age”, but despite her wise words I don’t and I refuse steadfastly to grow up. Who wants to grow up and face the mortality of a parent? Who wants the hassle of being mature and acting your numerical age when a year down the line (the first year anniversary is in 24 hours) my heart is torn to shreds, I’m never going to hear that familiar croaky voice on the telephone ever again and I have to read the contents of a letter that raises far too many angry emotions that simply aren’t conducive to my well being?
The letter is littered with apologies and mea culpas in and around vacuous statements that don’t exactly answer my original complaints and questions raised and in fact, and as expected, the answers contained within the letter that has resided, unopened, on the kitchen table for three months, raises yet more questions. It also raises the blood pressure, the anger valve to boiling point and feelings that I wouldn’t wish on my dastardliest of enemies. Sure there’s a “procedure” and a further complaints process and I will diligently respond, and no doubt wait another three months before opening the response to this when received. It’s the way I roll. It’s a defence mechanism and one I know doesn’t work, but I have zero idea what to do with the feelings I have 364 days on from hearing that a light I believed would never go out, did, and I wasn’t there for her when she most needed me.
I could talk dates, time periods, places, a recovery, a relapse and all the unknowns that will forever be so as this letter, and any subsequent letters, will never answer. I could rant and cast aspersions in all directions for there are many to be cast and many directions in which they would fall. There are lots of missing pieces in this letter but the biggest of all is the human aspect of the larger humanity jigsaw that is missing many vital pieces, and the void this grand old lady has left in so many lives. No visits, no-one to hold her hand, no familiar smile, no crackling laughter at bad jokes. Instead, a cold letter, the informality of yet another “process”, the frustration of seeing evidence and questions asked going unanswered, a fucking “Zoom” call, a “pathway”, another “process”, a call at 12.10am and a question as to where can we send the body?
Where did our humanity go?
My dear old Mum wasn’t much for all the humanity angst I spout! She was far more straight forward, steadfast, proud, irritable and as I’ve said so many times privately a devoted misunderstood misanthrope! It’s one of the few areas where we disagreed, the wider picture of why and how and who and when we all lost that little bit of ourselves and that larger part of our collective humanity. No-one should ever have to face the indignity that this grand old lady did in her final days. It wasn’t human. It wasn’t kind or a “pathway” and it certainly wasn’t just.
And I just don’t have a place for the kind of emotions that I knew this letter would bring to the surface.
Alas.
In the words of Quentin Tarantino “Ole Mary Todd is calling me, so I guess it must be time for bed”, and you shouldn’t keep a good lady waiting.
You never know when you might see them again.