HECTOR BARBOSA LUCIFER WHITE

-

 Looking back on the memory of the dance we shared, ‘neath the stars above, For a moment, all the world was right, But how could I have known, that you’d ever say goodbye, And now I’m glad I didn’t know, The way it all would end, the way it all would go, Our lives are better left to chance, I could have missed the pain, But I’d have had to miss the dance. (Arata Antony M, sung by Garth Brooks).

How can I grasp the image I have of you as a kitten bravely squaring up to the vacuum cleaner with the image of your small body lying lifeless by the side of the road, just a few steps away where we lay sleeping? I can’t do it. And in that gap between life and death resides all the pain of grief.

My dearest darling Hector, my tiny wee baby Siamese kitten, we miss you very very much. Your beautiful little soul left this life on earth far too soon, leaving your mum and dada bereft, choking back our pain at your loss because it threatens to overwhelm us. How unfair life is. You hadn’t even reached your second birthday… When I reflect on the injustice of your death, I feel anger and blame arise. You were runover by a car that was most likely speeding down our quiet street at dawn. I am enraged, but the truth is that my rage is directionless, without a target. Because there is no target, my mind seeks what it must know in my imagination, where the darkest scenarios lurk. How fast was that vehicle moving? Did you suffer? You died alone on that spot where your blood seeped from the wound, just a few steps away from us, and if we had known maybe we could have helped you. But we are doomed never to know…



It is a gift to be loved by an animal and you gave your dada (and me) all your love and joy at being alive. Your day was dedicated to us, to being where we were. In the garden your delight was to “ambush” us as we walked past the bush where you were habitually hiding or to stretch your paw down from the arbour in the hope of grabbing a “pawful” of hair, usually mine because dada doesn’t have much hair to grab.

My darling Hector, soon we will have a new kitten and we are going to call him Hector. He will never compensate for the immensity of your loss because you were unique, so that wound will never completely heal. We need him to make us smile again and to give him all the love we have in our aching hearts for you. We will love you for all eternity Hector.
 .


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Selected Writings of a Trauma Survivor: Prologue

-
Image
These chronicles are dedicated to all the “Lukas” of this world .* This selection of writings has been chosen to reflect the variety of experiences I have undergone in my life. Many of them, but not all, are hemmed by the suffering that (complex) trauma has visited on me and this will become apparent as the reader progresses through these chronicles. However, in only one of these chronicles do I recount the cause of the original trauma: in a short story named A Cold Elephant , which is about the night my mother took her own life. The cause of complex trauma was the ongoing violence and brutality I suffered at the hands of my stepmother from the age of six onward. Add to this, my father’s indifference to my stepmother’s cruelty and, at times, his encouragement of the use of force against me and my younger sister, then the complexity of the causes of trauma in my life becomes apparent. It was only when I reached the age of 24, after having graduated, that the symptoms of trauma became ...
Read more

Uncle Hilary

-
Image
I’m staring at – or maybe into – a black and white photo of my Uncle Hilary jiving on the dance floor of his local club in Belfast. In the photo he appears to be about 19 years-old and is wearing a dark-coloured suit, matching tie, waistcoat, and black dress shoes. His head is inclined forwards and downwards as he monitors his moves in what I assume to be an effort to get it right. At that moment this is all that matters to him, getting it right, probably so that he doesn’t let himself down in the eyes of the girl who is dancing opposite him. Belfast was buzzing in the early 1960s with showbands and with the vibes from the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Righteous Brothers etc, etc. The city was fully alive and heedless of the ugly dark corners where sectarianism and violence were festering. The portents were there, but many didn’t perceive them or chose to ignore them. Looking at the photo I like to think that Uncle Hilary was blithely unaware of any of this; my uncle prioritised enjoyme...
Read more

Total Meltdown

-
Image
E ven through I don’t fully understand what happened to me and why, I am still going to write about the silent meltdown which has changed the course of my life… definitively. Maybe writing will offer me some clarity.  Three years ago, I walked into my classroom on the university campus for the last time. My job, a job I’d been doing for 13 years, was to prepare international students, mostly Chinese, to tackle the challenges of a postgraduate course in a UK university. The main focus was on establishing and developing academic writing skills. On that day, the day the meltdown began, there was no warning. The lesson I had prepared was in line with the syllabus and it aimed to introduce students to the various reasons why referencing is required. It is an important lesson to learn for success in academic life, particularly so if students want to avoid being charged with plagiarism and subsequently expelled from their course. It was to be the last lesson I taught. Every aspect of the ...
Read more