#fridayflash: Tides | for the living

Grief comes in stages, like waves lapping on the shore, the crashing of the surf. Softgentleharshpounding.

You sit, staring at nothing, as grief curls its tendrils around your heart, squeezing, bleeding. There are no tears, because tears would mean you feel. You cannot feel. Not yet. Not now. When tears come, they come in floods, fast-rising waters from which there is no escape. You do not wish to escape. You are flotsam on the tide, drifting where grief would take you, tossed between happy memories and the ache of absence, never resting, never stopping, like the child who once ran circles around you.

Grief never sits still, never recedes. If it recedes, flee; the tsunami comes next.

The world is grey, monochrome, perpetually overcast. The cold moon speaks in words you almost grasp, pulling, drawing you into its silvery shine, offering empty platitudes; you are here, but you are not. You drift, ripped from reality. The house is empty, you are empty. You have a girl-shaped hole that can never be filled. A nothingness, a vacuum, a void. Avoid. Avoid everything that once meant to escape the cascade of memories you cannot bear.

Grief sucks you into a whirlpool of losspainsorrowtearsfear and never, never once, lets you go.

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In Memoriam

Annalise McKinney

1st Dec 2006 - 20th Feb 2018

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I cannot grieve for my dead…

Instead I must take my grief and make it into a figure of alabaster…

“Exhibit N.58 Grief, Alabaster. Miss Henrietta Savernake.”

The Hollow | Agatha Christie

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From our last play Stop Interrupting Me! at OBS, 10 July 2016.
L-R: me, Rebecca McKinney, Annalise McKinney
Photo by Thum CC (https://www.facebook.com/ccthum/media_set?set=a.10153919032313752.1073741996.683168751)

For the McKinneys, and Annalise who is gone too soon.

If you have cash to spare, here's a gofundme that's raising funds to cover the costs of Annalise's hospital bills in Children’s Hospital Colorado which has been rejected by their insurance:

"On June 30, 2010 the McKinneys lost their middle daughter, Anya, after a tragic accident. Now, their youngest daughter, Annalise, has lost her valiant battle against Idiopathic Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (IPAH).

Annalise was a vibrant young lady full of life. She loved singing, dancing and playing sports. But in July 2017, her world turned upside down. She was diagnosed with IPAH, a severe and progressive disease that causes irreversible damage to the lungs....

In the midst of this, the McKinneys face an uphill battle with their insurance company, which informed them the first week of February it would not cover the hospital stay at Children's Hospital Colorado. The McKinneys have retained legal counsel in the hopes of compelling the insurance company to pay benefits, but the outcome of the legal process is uncertain.

Sadly, God's plan did not include a miracle healing and double lung transplant for Annalise. Nevertheless, the McKinneys continue to stand firm in their faith in God. Please continue to pray for His comfort and strength for the family in this unimaginably difficult time. Stand with them. Cry with them. Love on them.

The McKinneys have incurred substantial medical costs through this trial. Though God has choosen to bring Annalise home, He is still our provider on earth. Thank you again for your prayerful consideration of being a part of God's provision for the McKinneys.

In addition to helping the McKinneys, we also would ask that you consider donating to the Children's Heart Foundation or other pediatric cardiology charity focused on early detection and treatment of congenital heart defects or reducing the incidents of congenital heart defects."

#fridayflash: Mince Pies

She'd been small then, a little slip of a child. Small-boned, brown-skinned, black-haired. Undeniably other. She peered up at the shelves of pastries. Stared at them hungrily.

He'd loomed large over her. Tall, white, hunched. A crazy grin on his face. Or maybe not so crazy. Just other.

"Which d'you want, eh?"

She pointed.

"Cat got your tongue?"

"That one, please."

"The mince pie?"

"Mince?" She frowned at it. Squinted, rather. "It's meat?"

He laughed. "Vegetarian meat. I assure you."

"Vegetarian meat?"

"Just pulling your leg. It's just a mince pie. You'll like it. It's dessert." He wrapped the little pie in a brown paper bag and passed it to her.

"Thank you."

"Merry Christmas."

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I'm writing this in a cafe on Monday afternoon, contemplating the loss of my uncle. Funnily enough the first thing I thought about (true-blue Malaysian that I am) was that there would be no more British Christmas dinners. With roast turkey and potatoes and carrots, cheese cauliflower (no matter how much I do not eat cauliflower OR carrots), trifle and mince pies. Home-made pizza. Dry British humour. The strange way he pronounces things. Stupid things like how he nearly drowned me because I don't know how to goof around in the water like his boys. How I don't always know if he's serious or he's joking (hint: he's usually joking).

By the time this is posted, we would have buried him. We would have bid goodbye to his earthly shell, to the flesh that breaks down and returns to the earth that it came from. It is strange, this coming and this going. Life, death, eternal life. Assurance. Faith. Hope. It is different when a person was still outwardly strong and full of life, than when someone was already nearing the end.

But for now, this is goodbye, until we meet again.

So we cope

Geoffrey Walter Elwell

1952 - 2016