Chin Up, Head Down

by Helena Tym

  I put dark red lipstick on this morning. I don’t know why, but it felt right. A gash of red on my face somehow seemed appropriate today. It was going to be a bad day, today. I could already feel it, working its way through my brain and I couldn’t stop it - it has a mind of its own.

  I feel like the Joker - all white paint and an angry gash of red; that Heath Ledger madness with crazed eyes and affected brain. He was brilliant in that film, and he too never made it to old age.

  I’ve never been to an Arboretum - didn’t even known what one was - but there we were being driven up the motorway towards Staffordshire. Debbie, my school friend and her husband Dave came with us, steering us in the direction of yet another stifling day of grief.

  We had been invited to go to a ceremony with all those families who had lost someone in Afghanistan in 2009. Each year the names of all those who have fallen the previous year are carved into the massive curved stone walls of the memorial and Cyrus’s name was added along with the other one hundred and eight who were killed in 2009.

  I saw that haunted look again that day. Not in my own eyes (I’ve got used to that now), but in the eyes of other families who don’t understand what is happening and what has happened. So many names, so many broken families and so much sorrow and pain. Today we are among the five hundred privately invited mourners. Five hundred, lost and confused, left to wonder what it was all supposed to be about - this agony that we share. So many people sobbed when they heard a name they recognised being called out - a roll call of the dead. Names added to the sixteen thousand who have died since World War II. I don’t think very many people actually realised how many have gone since then; to the general public they have gone unnoticed - just a headline one day and fish-and-chip paper the next. Cruel, but true. But then life is cruel.

  After the ceremony we sat, Rob, Dave, Debbie and I, at a table with another set of parents. Their son had been killed by a blast on New Year’s Eve - but no day is a good day to lose a child. The father asked Rob if it got any easier with time. What could he say? The truth is no - in fact it gets harder. Should you say this, or do you let them find out for themselves? Rob just told him the truth; that he found every day hard, no day easier or harder than another - all hard and uncompromising. Not what they really wanted to hear; but I suspected that they already knew this. I’d already been told by Maggie months ago that the pain never lessens - you just get used to it - so I suppose I’d been prepared in a sense. Don’t expect this to go away, it will just change. No amount of time will heal; time just allows you to get used to a new constant.

  On Saturday it will be a year since Paul Mervis was killed. What can I say to Margaret? There is nothing. I will send her an e-mail letting her know that we are thinking of them - not that I don’t think of them every day. Cyrus’s and Paul’s deaths seem to have gone hand in hand, and we share this common hole in our hearts. It’s one we share with so many others, but for some reason I feel closer to Margaret than others. So strange to end up having a fondness for and becoming friends with someone whom I would probably have never met if our sons hadn’t been killed. Such nice people - such a dreadful outcome.

  I sometimes wonder if there is an afterlife. It would be so nice to see them all again - hold them, stroke their hair, hear their voices, see their smiles. It would be lovely, but I just don’t know. I see images of earth from outer space, so where is the heaven? Does it hide behind some solar system, way out there in the black? I can’t picture what it would be like. Perhaps if I believed it would be different - of course it would... I’d believe. No, for me there is no heaven, a place where things are so much better than here and now. Why would we need to be here at all if the outcome was heaven? What would be the point of any of this? Are we all to spend eternity in white, looking peaceful and smiley? I just can’t seem to get a grip of that image. I know some do, and that’s good - but not for me I’m afraid.

  Surely one day I’ll run out of tears. I can understand how time might heal if you lose a partner. You can, if you’re lucky, fall in love again. We can never have another Cyrus. So time healing is a myth made up by those who have never lost a child. A white lie told to help you move on. We can’t move on - we just move along, and there is a huge difference. I hope next year we will be able to say we have moved on a little... who knows?

  I wish I could put my finger on what it is that makes some days worse than others. I do have better days, but I also know that these days are, at present, few and far between. I also know on a bad day that it will change again, and become not such a bad day. Perhaps this is how those who are bi-polar feel; never quite able to relax because you know it can change as quickly as a thought flicking across your mind.

  Black holes are all consuming, I’ve been told. Perhaps grief is a black hole. Cold, vast, uncompromising, and empty without end. I would love to be able to go back to having the life I had with no black holes - just hope and joy. The hope and joy of the young, not the worry that our young now have, wondering if we, as parents, will cope with life if they move on to have lives of their own. I don’t want them to feel that pressure, the pressure of responsibility. It is not theirs to have yet - they need their own children for that. There are still so many things I wish for.

  Should I care that they are thinking of pulling the troops out of Sangin? It won’t make any difference to our life. I suppose that it might stop others having to go through this, but for me personally it makes no difference. Soldiers go where they are told to - where they are needed - and if the need moves, so do they. It’s all political jiggery-pokery - vote-conscious men trying to win hearts and minds. I don’t want to be involved in the political side of grief. I have enough trouble dealing with my day-to-day ability to cope, let alone worry about where our troops are now.

  There are five stages of grief, or so I’m told. Only five? Surely not. Surely every second of every day is a stage. It’s not a red-lipstick-day today - more like a sloppy, slovenly day when my hair is unwashed and my socks don’t match. Those are my stages of grief. Everyday things, such as not being bothered to cook because everything tastes like sawdust - so what’s the point? The dog has chewed another stick into a thousand pieces so I’ll need to get the Hoover out again. Those are my stages of grief - things that happen without being noticed - subtle changes in mood, facial expression, tissues used and stuffed into pockets.

  It’s not easy to go through and, I guess, not easy to witness. I went to Cambridge on Monday to have a belated birthday lunch for my sister Mione, at Mum’s house. Mione has in fact, been one of our only relatives constant in her approach to this whole awful business.

  I understand why I feel animosity towards certain friends and my mother. It is because they have what I don’t, and I know now I have anger, and the need to direct it at someone or something. I realise now that it has been my mother who has taken the brunt of this, but I mustn’t compare myself as a mother to how she is as a mother. There is no comparison. There is no blame to be had, either. I know that neither she nor anyone could have changed this situation and I must not confuse my feelings of hurt in the past with the pain I feel now. I get a sharp pain across my shoulders, and I want to erect a wall around myself, when I think about having to face them, have a normal conversation, pretend that I’m doing well... getting on and feeling better.

  It’s rather like sitting behind a bullet-proof screen. I can have a conversation through it, but their breath doesn’t reach my nostrils, and if they put their hands up towards me there is no feeling of touch there any more, just the space in between our flesh. Nothing, an empty space where there used to be kinship and trust.

  Is my change in attitude obvious? Do I send out visible signals? I don’t think so, as I have a feeling they are unaware of how I feel. I have learnt to put on my make-up well. If I told them the truth it would hurt, and I don’t want to do that. I just feel completely remote. I have to pretend that I’m interested in what
they are doing and how they are feeling, and I feel guilty at that - and yet I’m unable to stop it. They too have felt the pain of Cyrus’s death; perhaps that is what makes me feel like this. It is my pain, not to be shared - but that of course, is completely untrue and even writing it makes me blush. But sometimes that’s what I want to scream at them. They have no right to look sad or think they understand how I feel - how we feel.

  Is it a photograph that triggers a memory, or a memory that makes you search out that photograph? All the photos are of a smiling boy who looked as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Those lovely smiling eyes... I miss them so much. It’s like being slammed into a wall, sudden, painful, hard, and cold - all those things and so much more. Words are so inadequate.

  It is human nature to want to retreat and lick our wounds. How many sores can I heal with the patient lick of a raspy tongue? Can a lick fix the very fibre of our souls - and would we want it fixed? If it’s fixed, is it forgotten? I don’t want to forget - I just don’t want to be here in the first place. This place of darkness, moss-covered walls that seep sorrow and anguish. Looking up, there is no speck of light - no warmth or comfort. I’m just left alone in the dark.

  I wonder if this is how my friend Jane felt when her husband had a brain haemorrhage and her world fell to pieces. Did she feel this helpless and hopeless? Was I one of the people she felt she couldn’t reach any more? Had we been too close, shared too many secrets, laughed too loudly before the world as we knew it ended? Was it my punishment for daring to have a normal life that carried on when hers was so obviously ruined? Strange how we have drifted back into friendship; I don’t truly believe it ever really went away, but now oddly, we share a common bond again - our changed lives. We both have changed lives we had never planned for or envisaged ourselves leading; we now have a bond too strong to break again - a bond borne of tragedy.

  So many lost opportunities of death; lost child, lost grandchildren, lost laughter, lost love, the lost life of one so young and so full of promise. We are a sum total of all those who have touched our lives, even on the fringes. I am who I am because I had a son who was Cyrus, because I have children who are Zac and Steely, because I’m in love with Rob. They are who I am, not the things I wish I had or the people I wish I’d known.

  Chapter 15: The Inquest

  We have some good family friends, Marcel and Sally Wagner who, together with Shiplake College, Henley-on-Thames, organise a month-long expedition to Kenya each year, for the sixth form. Included in these trips are climbing Mount Kenya, white-water rafting on the Athi and Tana rivers, safaris, camping and trekking in the Chyulu Hills. They have also formed a special Schools Project with Kikunduku School, raising money for uniforms, books and equipment.

  Marcel asked Zac if he would like to join them, knowing he would be an asset to the trip and the Schools Project would be grateful for his building skills.

  Armed with an extensive equipment list, Rob and Zac spent several evenings rooting through Rob’s survival kit - rucksacks, walking boots, waterproof bags and mosquito nets. There were two things Zac packed that weren’t on the list; one was a hip-flask containing some Sambuca, and the other was a 2 Rifles wristband - a khaki-coloured rubber strap embossed in dark green letters is 2 RIFLES Afghanistan 09 - Swift and Bold. We, as a family, have all worn these wristbands since Cyrus first went to Afghanistan, and now none of us can take them off. Over the months we’ve sold many to friends and family, raising money for the 2 Rifles Benevolent Fund.

  The trek up Mount Kenya takes six days and when Zac reached the summit he took out his hipflask, toasted Cyrus, then climbed to the top of a flagpole that has been put there, and slid the wrist-band over the top.

  It was during this trip that he met Mark Savage, who runs the White-Water Rafting Company that, coincidently, is used by the Army for R & R after they have been on training exercises in Kenya. Whilst talking with Mark, Zac learned that 2 Rifles were due there in September. Cyrus would have loved it.

  When they arrived at Kikunduku School they were greeted by hordes of dancing and singing men, women and children. Some danced with wooden guns and the women had made themselves belts out of bottle tops that jingled as they danced. Later that afternoon a Kenyan tribal banquet was laid on, and the main course was goat. How strange that while Cyrus was in Afghanistan, he too had a banquet of goat. I don’t know if either of them thought about it, and I don’t expect for a minute my mother meant to do it - but they did get that Christmas present she’d given them all those years ago. Your day will come too, Steely.

  The next day, Zac and some of the boys from Shiplake College unpacked large amounts of wood that had been purchased with some of the money raised. They set up an assembly line building desks, and soon there was a crown of wide-eyed children. Zac has a way about him - he is softly spoken, kind and has infinite patience when it comes to showing people how to do things. The tools used to put the desks together were a novelty to the children, so Zac explained with sounds and actions how to use a saw without bloodshed and hammer in nails without bruising any fingers. ‘Smooth,’ he would say, as he used the saw. ‘Smooth, smooth,’ repeated a whispering chorus of children. ‘Flush,’ when joining two pieces of wood, and again, ‘Flush, flush,’ they’d repeat. He came back brown and refreshed, and I’m glad he went. I hope, if the opportunity arises, he will go back to Mount Kenya and the Schools Project.

  It is tragic that Cyrus can’t be here to compare stories of African adventures with Zac, and be here to see Steely grow into a man, and go off to start a new life in America.

  The summer is coming to a close and so too another chapter of our lives. Soon we board an aeroplane headed for Los Angeles; Steely to a new life at the Musicians Institute (MI) in Hollywood where he will be studying the drums - something he has aspired to since he first picked up a drumstick at the age of thirteen - going to America and becoming the best, surrounded by the best and competing against the best. The rest of us back at home in England head towards more uncertainty of what’s to come. There is that mixture of pleasure and pain. Pleasure at the leap Steely is taking in attaining his new life, - one I hope will be filled with laughter and all the experiences adventure can push his way - and pain at another son leaving home. I know that this is completely different, but the feeling of life changing and being unable to stop it doesn’t. I do need life to change; the boys need to move onwards and upwards. They are free to fly, and we as parents are the launching pad. Their lives are just beginning - we are part of that, but in the span of a lifetime (one of great age I hope) we are such a small piece in the picture they have yet to complete.

  I must try and curb the rising panic in my throat - the need to hold him and never let go, even though I know I must. The dry catch of my heart, its beat irregular, pounding out the minutes and hours until we have to say goodbye, punching at the walls of my soul and enveloping me in glue all over again at the thought of losing another son. Even the knowledge that this is different doesn’t help. It’s because I’ve seen the reality - I know what it is like to lose someone you love - which makes my love for Zac and Steely almost smothering. It is the constant fear of loss. He will leave another empty space, even though it is a positive one.

  I know too that I must not crush Zac in my need to hold on to the new ‘normal’ that the past months have become. He too must be allowed to find his own niche, experience all life can and will throw at him. Grow, move on, have his own complete life; one that has changed but one that will, hopefully with time, be filled with joy and the smiles I know have been temporarily lost. And, I hope, will prove that there is a life out there to be had for all of us.

  Los Angeles was hot and busy. Rather like living life on the M25 - constant movement, constant noise. Steely will love it, I’m sure. Now to the task at hand, to find him accommodation, meet the staff at MI, sort out his Health Insurance (thank goodness for the NHS - we truly don’t know how lucky we are in
this country), mobile phone, crockery and cutlery. So many things that he has taken for granted over the past eighteen years; clean bedding and home-cooked food. He is going to have to sort these out for himself - a steep learning curve then, Steely. Good for the soul or so they say - leaving home and becoming self-sufficient.

  It is just impossible to get the vision out of my head of the day we took Cyrus up to Bassingbourn, leaving him on a bench at a bus stop, waiting for a mini bus to whisk him away to a new life. He had whispered under his breath, thinking we hadn’t heard, ‘What the fuck have I done?’ I felt physically sick and we were still about half an hour away from the barracks. He knew deep down that he had made the right decision to join the Army, but the actual cutting of the umbilical cord is painful and tricky for both parent and child, and the reality had finally dawned on him. No hugs or hot chocolate tonight.

  Now here we are, saying goodbye to another child - cutting the cord, and praying that goodbye does not mean we’ll never see each other again and trying so hard to not make any comparisons - but finding it impossible not to. Could this be the last goodbye too? Stop. I must not live continuously worrying about what might be - but the enormity of letting another son go, and not knowing what the future holds, weighs heavy on me, leaving me tearful and tight-throated.