Closing Pandora's Box

I have a book at home titled, “What we believe but cannot prove”. It contains the responses of various scientists, journalists and other thinkers when they were asked the following question:

“What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove?”

(click the image above to visit the amazon page)

I sat down and thought about it for a while. I believe there is life out there, beyond our world which is our niche in the universe, beyond the vast stretches of stars and other celestial bodies. Maybe not necessarily intelligent life as portrayed by Hollywood but something nonetheless.

What about you? What do you believe in, that you cannot prove?

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Title: We are the people – Feeder
Picture of book cover taken from amazon (click on the image, or here to visit amazon page)

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
When death comes and takes all the bright coins to buy me,
and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes like measle-pox;
when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

“When Death Comes” – Mary Oliver

*****

Then…

There were times when I screamed out to God. It’s ironic isn’t it? When we are happy and have no need whatsoever of calling Him, some of us are inclined to think of His presence as an intrusion. Go to Him then and He would take you in with open arms and make you feel welcome. But going to Him when all help was lost and you’d be faced with a closed door and silence. Such loud and echoing silence, that could drive you mad. All you would hear was your own voice, full of desperation and need being thrown back to you. Was He ever there?

Then something happens, or I hear something, or see a picture, or visit a place and memories flood back like a gushing river. Every single particle of ‘rationality’, ‘logic’ and ‘common sense’ is swept away by tears of grief. Clean and honest tears. Bathing myself in self pity is something I find so disgusting. It makes me cringe to think to think the bubbly Charley I remember, whose happiness was contagious and who was always overflowing with life has now become someone who brings nothing but sorrow. If she were to see me now, what would she think? And that brings me onto my next point.

Promises made with the dead while they held our hand, walked beside us and shared the same air to breathe as us are all well and good. There are many promises I will never forget, promises that I will keep with me forever and  will try my best to fulfil. But there are times when this so called ‘respect for the feelings of the dead’ brings me doubt. Sometimes when people say “is that what Charley would have wanted?” or “Charley wouldn’t have liked you doing such and such,” I wonder whether it is really just them using her name to say a piece of their mind, to vent their frustration at my never-ending sadness, or to have their way. I know it’s wrong of me. Their intentions are pure, they don’t mean it that way. But that momentary flash of desperation, of exhaustion and annoyance in their eyes makes me wonder. I hope I never am guilty of saying it that way to anyone.

At the beginning I used to be so afraid of going all those places Charley and I used to go, the walk through the parks or taking in the view of London from the top of Shirley Hills. But over the last year, I’ve visited the park many times in the depths of the night, and despite a few early incidents it wasn’t as bad as I had expected. Her absence wasn’t any more intense there as it was in other places; it’s not confined to a particular place. Her absence is like the distribution of air, it’s spread everywhere. It’s like that, I feel it while I’m sitting alone on the bus or I feel it when I’m feeling sad and in need of someone to talk to for example. But even that isn’t entirely true. There is one place where I feel it the most. Me. I miss her hugs.

*****

Now…

Tomorrow will be exactly one year since she passed away. ******* Cancer. I was speaking to a friend recently and they said to me, ‘How do you think Charley would feel knowing she was the reason behind your grief? Do you think she would want you to suffer endlessly because of her death?’

That made me think. Yes, I still do miss her, yes I still feel the emptiness from time to time, but it’s time I let it go. It’s time I came out of the shell I have been hiding in, wallowing in my sorrow, and felt the warmth of the sun on my skin, felt the refreshing rain and tried to truly enjoy happiness and all the other wonders of this life. On new year’s I was recovering from a very long day, getting rid of all that exhaustion that I completely forgot about Charley. When I finally realised, finally remembered, it was much more than a fading memory. It would not be right for me to call it a meeting (that’d get me locked up), but it was as if the armour of sorrow which had confined me for so long was removed. So much easier to breathe, so much easier to move. There were no tears, and that I think that is why I could see properly. My eyes still need time to adjust but it’s a beginning.

Have you ever said, ‘tonight I must get a good sleep because I have a long day tomorrow,’ and found you sleep very little? Have you ever said ‘let’s talk. Now’s the time’ and noted how silence ensues? Maybe if you desire something too desperately, you may not be able to get the best of it. Is that the same with the death of a loved one? Wanting so much to keep their memory alive, to remember each and every detail you find yourself looking into a dark and dingy hole which drags you in. A bit like a black hole. In the same way, I’m led to believe God was there all along. It was my own frantic screaming which stopped me from hearing that voice of help I had relied my last hope on. God gives to only those who have the ability and the willingness to accept. I was not ready to accept, I was not ready to listen and it was my mistake.

A few days before she passed away, Charley asked me find and print out the poem shown above. Another patient who was reaching the end of his life had told her about it and said they’d discuss it together when she had read it. They never got the chance, he passed away that night. When Charley finished reading the poem, with tears rolling down her beautiful face she said, ‘It doesn’t sound so bad having read that. Are you afraid? I wont leave till you say goodbye’. But I never got a chance to say goodbye. I was reminded of the poem while at the weekly hospice training, and it brought back sore memories. Am I ready to say goodbye yet? I don’t know. =/.

Reach – S Club 7.

We used to sing this song at school back in year 6. It was our song. It is now the first song on my playlist and I thought I’d share it with you.

I read this quote a few days ago, and it really hit home and really made me think:

If you focus to much on those you have lost, you’ll end up pushing away those that are left. – Unknown²

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Title: Iridescent – Linkin Park.
Picture 1: I have had this picture on my computer for a very long time, and so no longer have the link to it.
Picture 2: Same with this picture.
²Quote from http://www.boardofwisdom.com/

“Gravity is a force,” I said. “Caused by attraction between things.”

“So how was it discovered?” my brother asked with the distinctive I’m in the mood of asking a lot of questions look etched all over his face.

“Ummm, some guy called Issac Newton was sitting under a tree one day and an apple fell and hit him on the head or something along those lines. He sat down and thought why it happened,” I replied trying to remember physics from a long time ago. I stopped liking physics after year 9, so the direction of this conversation was not good. But It was my fault really; I had promised him that I would help him with his studies.

“That’s a dumb thing to think about. He got hit because he was sitting in the wrong place! And he’s so weird too. Whenever I get hit on the head, I get a headache and can’t be bothered to work. But I still don’t know how to answer this question. What is gravity?”

“Everything that has mass has gravity. So basically that means everything attracts everything else. Those things that are big have lots of gravity and attract smaller things to them. Small things also have gravity but it’s so weak it isn’t really noticed. That’s why things fall to the earth and apples hit you on the head because the earth is just so huge.”

His brow crossed even further. “But then why does my fart smell go in all directions?”

“Why would anyone or thing want to be attracted your farts? They’re lethal man!” I replied, trying to supress my laughter at his logic.

“You know when I get married, does that mean my wife has to be really fat because I want someone that’s really attracted to me?” he asked in his 12 year old confused and innocent *cough* voice.

*****

Do you remember the days when you could run around naked or just in your pampers and everyone would smile at you and hug you (if your pampers were clean) and it was all perfectly normal. You could say and ask pretty much any thing and no-one would think of you as a complete dufus. Asking questions I think is extremely important. It helps us understand, pass exams, and sometimes lets us know we’re doing the right thing and brings us peace of mind.

When I was 16 or so, I came to a stage of my life where I began to question. Life hadn’t really been a joyride and I wanted answers. One of the things I began to doubt was God. Where was He when I called for Him? Why did it seem as if He wasn’t answering any of my prayers? It was a bit of a downwards spiral falling into an abyss of darkness.

GCSE exam time came. I hadn’t really prepared, due to the ‘baggage’ that was weighing me down but biology is a subject that I’ve always enjoyed and it was probably one of the few subjects I had put some work into. As I sat down in the big hall with bright lights above, the heat became noticeable. I needed some water but my bottle was ice and literally frozen because I had forgotten to take it out of the freezer in the morning. I licked my lips trying to stop them from drying too much. On the table in front of me I could see my shadow; hair pointing skywards with something moving in it. What the hell? After a few minutes I managed to remove a minute spider from my hair. At that time I used to be hysterically scared of spiders and a spider in the same room as me would be an excuse to get up and run like my younger brother (read here). It was small and I felt sorry for it having been lost in the gelled up jungle on top of my head. I put it on the the table and left it to do what it wanted climbing and crawling all over the place.

The biology exam begun. It was going okay; I’d done most of it and with 20 minutes left there were only a handful of questions I couldn’t answer. One of them was about mitosis, a process which results in the formation of 2 identical daughter cells from one parent cell. There were 6 diagrams on the page labelled A, B, C, D, E, and  and at the bottom of the page were 6 empty boxes into which we had to place the letters in order of what stage that picture represented of the cell division cycle. I had done the first 2 and the last 2, but the middle 2 were giving me problems. I know this. I had spent 3 hours the night before learning this exact cycle. Help me God, I know this. Please help me. I just sat there for a few minutes reciting all the prayers I had ever learnt, relevant and irrelevant, hoping that something would happen, hoping that He would plant the seed of knowledge which I was after in my mind. He did better than that.

I don’t really know how to describe this next bit because sitting there watching things unfold, I could not believe what was happening. The spider that had been walking all over my arm and enjoying the freedom of the table suddenly stopped and made its way to the centre of the exam paper. It was so small and helpless I decided to let it do what it wanted. Anyway I had much bigger problems to deal with. Subsequently, It walked onto one of the 2 pictures I was confused about, changed direction and faced the empty box on the right. I couldn’t believe what was happening. When the little insect walked into an empty box, I was too stunned to do anything. How could a spider so small answer the mitosis question I was stuck on for so long? The overwhelming warmth and awe of the moment left me momentarily stunned. It was then that I realised He was there, listening to me. It was then any doubt I had about His existence were removed and I once again became a true believer. It was also then that I stopped being scared of spiders.

*****

There’s some more things I have to add to this but I’ll save them for another post.

=].