The Length of a Day

We spend a lot of time trying to discern what we love, it’s such a complex thing, I’m coming around to the idea that maybe we’re mostly the result of thousands of memories, which I suppose doesn’t sound too unreasonable, but it’s like we simply elect the things that matter, we gather experiences and evaluate them, losing some as one naturally does to the haze of memory, details that are lost, faces, sadly, there’s something very sad about forgetting a person’s face, when you loved them that is, it makes me feel guilty, how could I forget the inclination across the cheeks, the ridges and brow, the nape of the neck when she wore her hair up, I remember thinking these things were beautiful, but I don’t remember them…

Talking on behalf of another, when are you entitled to? What do you have to do to earn that? I was at a party last night, Alexandra’s 21st, the easiest way to put it is that she and they are my extended family, they brought me into their family when I met James in year 8 at school, I was 12 at the time so Alexandra would’ve been 8 and Ashley the youngest a boy would have been 6 himself. Last year Simon, their father, my, adopted father I suppose, died. It was a slow death, very painful for Simon in every way imaginable. So last night Alexandra’s friends are giving speeches about their love for her, which I don’t doubt in the least she’s an adorable girl, she’s loud, ridiculous, a little slow, but she treats everyone she meets as family, takes proper care of people, that’s quite rare and a trait that is shared in her family. The speeches always involved a reference to Simon, how proud he would have been of his little ‘pocket’, which was his nickname for her. I believe their sentiments are genuine, to give you an idea of the sort of love she receives her friend Zenia, whom isn’t even her ‘best-friend’ paid for the party, costing her about $1500 all up for the night, money isn’t the best way to estimate love, not at all, but money is just the liquid form of everything else, and for Zenia that would have been about about 3 weeks wages, that one night was worth 3 weeks of hard work so that her friend could have a nice 21st.

What I wondered though that night amongst all the speeches was the familiar way with which many of them talked about Simon, outside of the normal polite thing to say which is that ‘I’m sure Simon would be very proud of you.’ Which is almost a cliche it’s so obvious, but, they talked about the type of person Simon was, and their relationship with Simon.

This bothered me a bit.

Simon was, is, just a lovely person. A good man with a good mind and a number of failings. Simon was very lonely for his last 3 years, the wife left him and obviously kept the children, so Simon lived alone, the details of the circumstances are extensive and complex so I’ll leave them out but suffice to say, Simon wanted to see more of his family. James and I visited him often, together and independently, he had gone primarily deaf due to a few complications and he only had 30% hearing in is left ear, the other was totally deaf. Conversations with him then obviously weren’t as easy as they normally are with others, you had to yell for him to hear and that wasn’t always successful, often having to repeat yourself. The family basically isolated him and by extension so did their friends and acquaintances, so when I was there last night, listening to all these people talk about how wonderful Simon was and how they loved him all I could fucking think of was his last 3 years dying slowly and painfully, alone and scared and how none of these people went to see him, the only fucking time most of them saw him was during his last maybe 2 weeks of life whilst at the hospice. I hate the way when someone dies people pretend to be closer to the dead than what they really were, a lot of them do it looking for sympathy, or another common one is this horrible attitude where some people wear their tragedies as badges of honour, showing off how they’re privy to something that, generally people of my age and younger, simply haven’t experienced, so they couldn’t possibly know what pain and suffering this person has seen… and thus should respect them as an authority on it…

It’s not just a bad indication about someone’s personality but it’s also disrespectful to the deceased. Any decent person who really has lost someone close to them and has the sense of mind not to parade it around, it was likely agonising for them, they wouldn’t wish it on anyone else, they wouldn’t feel pride in their horrible situation. It’s not something to laud over others.

I don’t know. I just don’t know, and so I began wondering whether I really have the right to judge them for it, how well did I really know Simon? How qualified, how entitled am I to talk on his behalf now? At what point does it become okay? Then I usually think back to Fiona, I often say to people that I think she’d like them, which I do think, but what right do I have to say that? I knew her for 3 weeks. I mean, obviously I didn’t know her that well, things would’ve ended differently had I really understood her, had I paid more attention. Sometimes I think it’s weird that one person, from such a long time ago, who I knew for a handful of days ought to have had such an effect on me, she became the basis of my perspective, which is the thing I worked hardest on, the thing most important in my general approach to the world, in my general happiness, this sweet, quiet, girl who would patiently listen to me boast about my schoolyard adventures and all the other bravado of anything I could come up with to impress her, to get her to smile or laugh, to get her to think I’m interesting. I mean I didn’t even kiss her, we only held hands and rested on each other, I never even told her I loved her, and there are two questions that come to mind about that, did I love her? Or did I just really like her. Maybe the shock after the event was so much for me that she became something totally different to me, maybe I felt like I ought to love her, because, everyone deserves, no that’s not right, everyone ought, to have been loved and know love, no one ought to die without having had that, certainly not her, not someone as beautiful as she was, no, that’s too sad, too painful for me to consider.

The other question is if I did love her, how different would things be had I told her? Would she still be alive maybe, or maybe she knew that I loved her, and that still wasn’t enough of a reason for her to stay around, which is sad, but which is worse? That she knew and my love wasn’t enough or that she didn’t know and my love could’ve changed things? They’re both very sad, it’s a selfish sadness but it’s still sad, I like to think, had I told her, or if she knew, maybe she wouldn’t have done what she did, and she’d still be here. Had I asked more questions, paid more attention instead of just going on and on about myself again maybe things would’ve been different.

At the time I prided myself on being a good reliable friend who gave good advice, everyone I knew talked through their problems with me, I felt I was very competent at it, one complaint I developed was that, no one ever checked to see if I was okay, I don’t know, maybe I was thinking about it too much but I was surprised by how little interest people took in that. Fiona cared about my well being, I was certainly enamo

ured with that. It was a horrible story of hubris I suppose, I felt I could save anyone, help anyone, and the first girl I think I loved I couldn’t help at all… That was, crushing.

But I was young, how much can you love a person as an early teenager? Maybe had we spent more time together we wouldn’t have gotten along, moved away from each other without any concern, becoming just another person that I knew once… These questions don’t have answers really, that’s why they can be so consuming at times, because I can never definitely say yes or no to any of it, it’ll always be maybe, I know what I want to think, how I want things to be, but I’m not confident that they reflect the reality of the situation. 

There are so many questions, no answers I can just point to and say ‘yes, things are that way.’ Well, actually there was one thing I decided, one thing I was able to point to and say ‘yes’ which I am happy about. This is a horrible thing to do, but grief is difficult, nobility in grief is not simple, when I was at the height of my pain from losing Fiona, I began to wonder whether or not I would have been better off not knowing her, because then I wouldn’t have had to experience that pain, I know it’s selfish and awful, I really do, but, you must understand, the pain was terrible, it was like being broken in half, there was almost no one I could tell because I didn’t want my parents worrying about me and it would’ve got back to them had I told some friends, even today, my parents don’t know this story, I’ve never told them.

So I handled it alone pretty much, I told three people at the time, but they weren’t able to help, it’s not really something someone can help with, one of them later used it against me, she wanted more of my attention than I was giving her, she was this way with most people, she then confided in me that she was feeling suicidal, after losing Fiona, having struggled bitterly with that sense of powerlessness, a truly awful feeling, I did everything I could to look after her, we talked every day, I studied the psychology of suicide online and watched her closely, trying to see anything, she would call me in the middle of the night crying telling me she was about to end it all, that happened a number of times, it was awful, terrifying, truly terrifying. One day she told her friend, that it was an act to get my attention, the friend told me and I had no reason not to trust her, she had always told me the truth and had no ill will towards her but I still decided to inquire myself, so I saw my friend and told her and she confirmed it, saying that she was sorry for pretending but she was lonely and upset and she thought it was the only way to get my attention.

I was young, I don’t know, maybe if the same thing happened today I would forgive her… but back then, it was the worst betrayal. I had confided in her a secret that had torn me to pieces, something I couldn’t even talk about to most people, and she used that dark experience of mine to get more attention from me, threatening me with her potential suicide when she knew how fucking hard it was for me being powerless with Fiona, she had me in terror, I mean absolute terror, I was struggling to hold onto my mind as a result, it was all so much, I began thinking that things would always be that difficult, that I for some reason brought out pain in others, I even considered that maybe I should just stop interacting with new people because I seem to bring them undone. I wasn’t angry with her though, well, I was angry but that wasn’t the main emotion, when she told me what she had done, it was like being hit with a bat, I fell backwards against the wall and slid down it, I felt a terrible weight in my stomach. I told her I needed time to think about things and left. I sent her an e-mail, I simply didn’t have it in me to talk to her, I wouldn’t have been able to get through my first sentence, I told her we can’t remain friends, and asked her to get psychiatric help, because part of me still worried that maybe she really was suicidal, it was a small, tiny part, but that was still enough. I tried to explain to her just how much her behaviour hurt me, because I thought maybe she didn’t understand, surely if she did understand she wouldn’t have done it, I didn’t want to think she was that cruel, just that she was thoughtless and selfish.

Anyhow back to my point. After a lot of thought I was able to answer with certainty one major question, I decided that it was better to have known Fiona, that it was worth it. That might seem obvious, or small to a lot of people, and I envy you if that is the case, but it wasn’t an easy thing for me to decide back then. It’s now my general perspective, that in those situations, it’s still better to have known someone than not to. It was a big thing for me, if I had gone the other way, it means I would have regretted the experience and my life would be totally different for it, Fiona wouldn’t be the basis of my perspective, I’d be a different person and she’d be my greatest regret. Instead that experience is my strength.

Which leaves me with one final thing, that for me, each experience can be valuable depending on what you make of it, even a terrible one, can be important. That’s a good thing to know in general I think, and I hope that it is a reality, a truth, that everyone reading this shares. Life is so much easier, so much better, when regardless of the outcome you value the experiences that you’ve elected for yourself.