Something or other.

[Annoying MSN Person]

These things shouldn't bother me, I suppose. After all, I'm all grown up now.
That's what he told me. I was grown up, I could get by without him.

I was seven. The middle of the night, I stood swaying in the doorway to the cabin, watching as the hungry waves swelled up to lick the deck. The stars, benevolently winkling, over the howling wind, urging the moon to give him more light as he climbed the mast to untangle the rigging. Mother pulled me back into the bunk I shared with my sister. Not to worry, it would be calm by the time the night relented to the dawn. We were in safe hands. Sleep came easily, back then.

It starts with the urge to walk. Run. Elude the hands that reach out to reign me in, scramble my way down once more to the shore. Find the high tide mark, brush away the pretty shells, once valued trinkets. Lie down, gazing into the nothing that is the expansive everything. The rising Pacific comes up to nibble my toes, brings me gifts from the sea floor. But it is hungry again. Just my appendages will not sate it tonight. It claims my entire being, plowing me under with the force it hides so well. Under the placid surface there is nothing but black, Cetus amusing itself by tearing me limb from limb.

There is no air. The blurred blue of my walls materialise, but the water keeps its home in my lungs. The roar of the ocean comes from the crimson flow through my veins. The wet pillow shows where it has seeped its way out of my eyes. How can something so dear, so much a part of me, treat me so callously. Worse still, I hear the call as I slide over to open my window. Not yet with my glasses on, the blue haze on the horizon seems an old friend, not in the least malicious.

These dreams I keep to myself. In my age of innocence, I would have sprinted the obstacle course of the gloomy hallway to his room, parental hugs washing away the taint of darkness. But when one is grown up such childhood nonsense is left behind. There are no monsters in the dark. Dreams will never hurt you. One must become self-sufficient.

There are worse, but I don't wish to recount them. Ignore them, they will fade away. You only lend to their power when you mull over them in your waking life. But I don't wish to sleep. Irrational as one part of my mind insists it is, I don't wish to reacquaint myself with the world of dreams. For sometimes, he waits there for me. Cursed reunions flavoured with fear and regret, these I long as much as I fear.

I was alone in the house, but I had seem him at the hospital that afternoon. So few hours ago, they had though it was only the haemochromatosis, nothing to worry about. I had teased him at how yellow the jaundice made him look, like someone had poured iodine over him while he slept. But mother rushed in, pulling me into a hug. He was on the phone, a shake to his voice I didn't recognise. I told him it was ok. But he kept apologising for doing this. My brain hadn't processed anything. This doesn't happen. He would come home soon, for who else knew how to change the gas? Only the grown ups, and I was still only a girl. I hung up the phone, barely noticing the sea water dripping down my face.

This probably doesn't make the slightest sense. Typing it has torn scratches in my hull, made me weep once more. The death counsellor says that I need to express this, but once more my house is empty, my bed a threat, my voice gone mute. I guess this is growing up. I have no choice but to get by without him, but there is a hole so big not even the ocean could fill it. I haven't found a way to cope yet, only mask what I feel with anger and fear. But anyway. Aroha.

[Stephy]

I'm sorry, Bubbles. I'm not exactly sure how to express my words to your thread... I'm not sure what to say.

I do not understand fully, but this did push a sad thought into my mind. Kind of saddened me.

I would also like to state, you have an amazing way with your words. A very good ability with writing.

[Jay]

That story sent more than one shiver up my spine and almost brought tears to my eyes. But don't despair. Time will heal your torment. Time heals all.

[MeneerDijk]

/me hugs bubbles

[Annoying MSN Person]

It turned out that day of the 21st would be a tad worse than we'd expected. But I'll get to that later.

That month had a haze woven into the mesh, the only definite way I had of telling the days apart was the increasing number of bouquets lingering in the lounge room. Father didn't want the flowers in the hospital, but it turned out the hospice had flower themed rooms. He was in the lilac one. He was wheeled in with not a word of protest passing his lips... that scared me more than the now bronze tone of his skin.

We'd squeeze the 11 of us into that room. Michael, 28, my eldest brother, had finally found his way out from a tiny airport at the foot of the Canadian Rockies and come back. He'd only said goodbye a few months ago, but a more serious sort were in order, so it seemed.

Colin, 25, and his girlfriend Rebecca, had flown in from London the week after the diagnosis had come in. As I sat with mother in the hospital cafeteria the next day, she was strung out on whether or not to tell them to come home. I was till sort of in shock, but I said it would be better while he could still be the way they remembered him.

Daniel, 23, had been the first to get back. Working in Auckland on the ferry, Dad's friend, John Lister OBE, had pulled him off the boat and put him on the first flight here. The brother I had never had a good relationship with, I hugged him for the first time in years when I saw him walk in.

Catherine, 20, my big sister. The girls of the family, we had always stuck together, though more of a love/hate relationship. After sharing a room for 13 years, being forced to share clothes, birthdays (ours are 2 years, 2 days apart), there was one more thing we had to share together. It was her that I could weep with. She was busy with her final year in design and arts school in our hometown of Christchurch, and as always, getting the best marks in the field she so dearly loved.

With her came AJ, my aunt, and my uncle Dave. The same name as my father, it had often caused confusion within the family. AJ had married late in her 40s, and had always been a fun and crazy auntie, going off to strange places, bringing me back t-shirts like 'hard rock cafe, kathmandu', and a dozen exotic things to show on the playground. I didn't see her being serious that often. But here she was, shaking as uncle Dave wiped her tears.

Nana, mother's mum. Just about to turn 89 at the time. I love her, but some of the things she said and did... I'm not sure I can forgive.

Then there was Grandad. Dad's dad. The hospital let him out on day trips to sit beside Dad, their interwined fingers trembling as they silent messages passed between them. Grandad had already lost one son to cancer, the uncle I had never known. He wasn't in a good way, needing fluid drained from his abdomen and brain. Troublesome thoughts plagued me when I saw them together. Grandad had been through heart attacks, mini strokes, continued heart problems and some other things from the war. He had a metal rod stuck down his spine. He had always pulled through, he survived the bombing of London. As ashamed as it made me, I wanted Dad to take that power from grandad. As it turns out, I won't have grandad that much longer either, but no need to go there now.

Mother, ever the nurse, spent most her time with Dad. I can't say she was coping though. I'm at a loss as to what to say about her, really. She's always been loud, so petrified of silence. I guess this is her nightmare. I was helping her write a university assignment on palliative care earlier this year, getting her resources from the online university library, clearing up the essays she tried to dictate to me. All the procedures we had so briefly glossed over started materialising around us. Mother had dealt with this at work every day. I don't know how she found the strength to go back.

And there was me. Little Helli bubble, never mind that I was the same height as 2 of my brothers, and taller than my older sister. In this large family, I kept in the background. That was the way I liked it. Helen coped. Helen got things done quietly. Helen did well in school, but not quite as well as her big brother Michael.

But I digress. I keep thinking of the night he left the house for the last time. The hospital had let him come home after the diagnosis. There was nothing more they could do for him there. Palliative care nurses came and gave him ridiculous numbers of pills. He could sit in the chair and the lounge, spend time with us. When he got tired, we helped him up the stairs to his room. Something in his eyes each time made me want to cry. He resisted this helplessness so much. Only a month ago he had walked these stairs with ease.

We were sitting in the lounge watching home movies when my eldest brother called for Daniel to come help and to get mother up there. I stayed sitting out of the way, hearing as the shower in their ensuite was turned on, panicked voices, my brother grabbing the phone and dialling 111. Mum and Dad watched my three older brothers play in the snow in Cromwell on the screen behind me. The ambulance came screaming up the hill, the same screams I longed to give. Up the three flights of stairs came the ambulance crew with the stretcher, then I saw the back of his head as he lay unconscious before the door shut and they took him away. One of the sites of the biopsy had opened up, he had burst an artery and a site of an earlier operation had all screwed him over. I went to help my brother and sister clean up. The shower was red. Droplets betrayed the path he had taken from his bed to the bathroom. They persistently clung to the walls, the tiles. My tears couldn't wash away the sight, couldn't wash away the same blood that ran through my veins so wantonly spilled.

Ugh. That was hard. The next one will be worse. I suppose I don't want to lose my memories of the day he died, but recounting them isn't getting easier, no matter what that therapist says. Thanks and hugs to the netizens who have been there through this though. As always, aroha to you.