Thursday, May 23, 2013

A memo to every teacher I know




Dear every teacher I know (there's a lot of you), 

May you please, please, never, EVER, tell a kid that they're 'not the academic type'. Please don't call them the 'naughty kid' or a 'bad kid'. 

And please don't ignore the fact that their behaviour comes from somewhere. Acting out is the only way some kids know how to get an adult's attention. 

Also, please don't stop trying to teach them to read because they struggle a bit more than most - they might not have a parent sitting with them doing their reader each night. Those kids who are struggling are likely to need literacy in life more than anyone else in your classroom - please don't give up on them. 

Dear Teachers, I know you do lots of good things and I know you probably mean well. But you also need to know that there's a fair chance that you spend more time with these kids than anyone else in their life. 


In fact, you may be the only adult in you students' lives who doesn't hurt them. Maybe you're the only person who cares about them. Your classroom might be the only place in this world where they feel safe. 

Your influence is profound. 

One day I will write a longer post about the role of the teacher and I will acknowledge your strengths and the limitations of the system in which you are bound. But even when I write that, your responsibility to care for the young people in you class will not be diminished at all. I will understand that some things may be difficult for you, but I will not excuse negligence. If you choose a profession where you are charged with the responsibility of educating young people, you must take that seriously. (I am sure most of you do.)

That post is for another day, but for now, I just can't read another interview transcript of a kid who believes that they are worthless because their teacher had them believe that. 

Teachers can really transform people's lives - make that transformation a positive one, please. 


Sunday, May 19, 2013

Good friends




Last week was the 30th birthday of both my best friend and her husband. They've had a fabulous year after a few less-than-fabulous ones, so they decided to have a party. Our group likes to entertain – and we’re pretty good at it. A few of us cooked, everyone ate, lots of people drank – it was good. As the cake was being cut, Matt gave a speech after which I scuttled off into the scullery to get something and returned to see Mel in tears. It turns out she too was about to start a speech but was overwhelmed.

I would never have scuttled off had it even occurred to me that Mel was even contemplating giving a speech. The girl does not like public speaking – to say the least. She didn’t give a speech at her own wedding, and despite being the most caring person I know, has made me do the public speaking at times when I was almost voiceless from illness. So here she was, next to her man, trying to speak through many, many tears.

I wanted to go and hold her, but I also wanted to let her get her words out – they were clearly important. Once she began, she started talking about me. And then I started to get emotional. It was beautiful. 

Later in the night, when it was just the close friends left sitting around a fire and lounging under the outdoor heaters, a girlfriend said to me:

"Kat you know how you were talking earlier about that person who inspires you? Well when you were telling me about them, I was thinking, that’s what you are to me – you really are. You are my inspiration.  I know you always brush it off when people say they admire you, and that they don’t know how you do it, but it’s true – they really mean that. And then when Mel was giving that speech, and she was talking about you, I realised that’s how you do it; that’s how you keep smiling – because you’ve got people like Matt and Mel. You’ve had so much shit happen – too much – but you have such good people around you, that’s how you get through. You are blessed with so many amazing people."

Carla was right. Carla was so right. I have amazing friends. Most people say that, but few people have had to test their friendships in the same way I have.

Often you like to think the people around your will be there when disaster strikes, but I have had the disaster, several times over, and am absolutely certain of the calibre of the people in my life. Don’t get me wrong, the early disasters highlighted the false threads upon which some of my relationships were woven; but now, having been through a bit of a bad run, I look around and I see the most beautiful people holding me up.

It’s not only my immediate circle, in the past few months I’ve received messages of care from people I haven’t spoken to in years. Letters just to say, ‘I am thinking of you’.

Several times I have come home late at night to a doorstep with bags of meals at it. I’ll check my phone and discover a message: 

‘Made you some food, left you some snacks. Everything’s in individual serves to keep in freezer. I hope you’re okay’.  

Other friends call, tell me they’re dropping food off, they know I am busy, won’t interrupt, just want to do something to help.

It makes the world of difference.

There’s been so many gestures that really remind me of how caring people are. The week before last I had flowers delivered from someone in South America with a short note that said enough to really touch me. My colleagues at work ask me how I am with a sincerity that most people don’t. They give me a hug and squeeze me tightly. My research assistant notices when I have had a night’s sleep and compliments my appearance accordingly but on all of the nights when there has been no sleep she very politely does not mention that I look exhausted. 

There are friends whose help is equally as touching, but in less obvious ways. My friend, Prof Ought, reads and edits anything I send to him within a day of me sending it despite his own job and PhD and life going on. If I believed in God I would call him a godsend. It's like my thesis supervisor who will do anything to make sure I am able to stand on my own two feet in this world. Then there's my friend Russell who forgives me for being terrible friend and insults me endlessly as only the closest of friends are comfortable doing.

Generally, when really bad things happen to someone, there’s not much you can do to fix it. But you can cushion the fall for them and just make life easier and my friends do that exceptionally well.

A very dear friend who lives on the other side of Melbourne comes and helps me with the garden. Brings food. Listens endlessly. Writes me email all the time and was my pillar of strength when my brother died. I met her when I worked in a ballet store and I'd put up with those ballet mums all over again to keep her. 

My brother’s best friend has mowed my lawn since my brother died four years ago. My neighbours bring my bins in every single week. Matt and Mel keep suggesting I go to live with them, at least for a little while, as they don’t love the idea of me living alone. They laugh at me when I do dumb stuff (which is often), but would get furious if other people ever laughed at me.


***


The week before last I was walking down the street and I just couldn’t stop smiling. I must have looked a bit crazy. But I was just so excited, I had an appetite for life, it was that, 'I want to jump up and grab you by the throat', kind of passion. I felt the kind of excitement about life that pumps through your veins and gets you out of bed each day. The excitement that makes the walk to the station energetic and the prospect of tomorrow joyous. 

That’s not to say that there’s not a dark cloud weighing heavily in my life or that my days aren’t punctuated with sadness – they are. I know there is more sadness to come; but I know that my friends will be there. I know that I will get through, because I know that they will be there to help carry me. Most of all, I know I will be okay because they wouldn’t let me be anything less. This certainty, the assurance that the people around you are good, is a wonderful feeling. It gives me security, it makes me feel safe, and it makes me feel loved.

I can’t thank them enough. I am not always a great friend: I am bad at replying to text, rarely return calls, absolutely suck at being a bridesmaid (and have not gotten any better with experience) and yet here I am with so many really good people around me. Luck hasn’t always gone my way, but in the friendship category, I am the luckiest.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Defending the indefensible




(Trigger warning: sexual assault)

****

In the ultimate of ironies, tonight I was going to write a post about good people because I have a very disproportionate share of them in my life. But then I read the paper. And in today’s Victorian news there was this article explaining a case currently before the Country Court.

A 52 year old academic in Melbourne is charged with multiple counts of sexual penetration and indecent assault of two sisters, who were aged eight and 11 at the time of the abuse. The girls were friends with the daughter of the man, and one of the assaults took place while they were at sleepover for his daughter’s birthday. 

Another incident, as detailed in a January article, occurred after watching a movie at another sleepover. On that night the house was heated so much that all of the children and the accused watched it in their underwear. Another young girl commented to the police that they found it weird that this man was so often in just his underwear.

At one of these sleepovers, one of the assaults was witnessed by yet another friend. After this, the 11 year old reported the assaults, and then several months later the younger sister did too. 

Brave girls – very brave girls.

These girls are brave, because reporting a sexual assault involves the following:

Having to lose your best friend because her dad is hurting you.

Having to tell every single detail to the police. EVERY detail.

Where did he touch you? How did he touch you? Show me on this doll where on your body he put his fingers? Show me on this doll which part of his body touched you. Where? Did that part of his body enter your body? How many times?
  
Does this make you squirm? It should.

As well as police questioning, the girls would also have been examined by doctors. These doctors would have to put these children on cold tables and conduct an internal examination. They would have looked for proof in the way of broken hymens and damage to the rectums. It is simply impossible to imagine the trauma of this experience for these kids.

After all of this, the Office of Public Prosecution have to make an assessment about whether or not  there is enough evidence to take it to trial. In this case, there clearly was. But the thing is, these girls were assaulted in 2010-11. That’s two years ago and it’s only in court now. The man would still be free going about his life (lecturing to university students!) while their lives are in a permanently suspended state wondering what’s going to happen. How can they move on in their recovery while they do not know if justice will be served?

Finally, last week, or possibly the week before depending on how long the trial has taken, these girls would have had to face the prosecution and defence lawyers in court. Fortunately, nowadays, they do this via videolink. 

It’s likely that their mother and father would also be called as witnesses in the case. This means that the children would not have been allowed to speak with their parents about any of this as witnesses are not allowed to speak to one another. Consequently, the day the girls testified they probably wanted to go home and be in their parents’ arms and tell them all about what happened. Instead they would have had to go home and talk about the weather pretending that they didn’t just spend a day in County Court being interrogated by the defence.

This is why these girls are brave. Braver still they will be in their journeys ahead.

But why am I writing this blog? Why did I get so distracted by this article that my blog about good people was postponed? Because of this:

“[Defence Counsel] Mr Chadwick asked the jury to question why the older sister continued to visit the lecturer’s home after the alleged abuse took place, and also queried why the younger girl would wait so long before she accused the lecturer of molesting her. He said the younger girl’s delay in waiting three months after her sister made the allegations was a ‘clear case of me too-sim’.”

That’s right, the defence’s case is premised on the argument that the children were seeking attention and were of poor character. THEY WERE EIGHT AND 11! – Kids this age can’t make this stuff up, it’s not even in their realm; bad things involve monsters or something sad happening to a parent. The only way kids this young know what sexual abuse is if they have been victim of it. Even then they are unlikely to know what it’s called. The only thing these girls would have known was that they were scared and hurt and unsafe and felt very dirty.

The case made by the defence isn’t focused on why the alleged didn’t do it; moreover, it’s simply suggesting that the girls couldn’t possible be telling the truth. This would certainly be a nicer thing to believe. 

To think that someone’s dad, a lecturer, a seemingly ordinary middle-class man, molested his daughters’ friends while they were at a sleepover makes us all feel unsafe. It makes us feel unsafe because it could happen to anyone. It makes us question our safe – albeit illogical - assumption that sex offenders look like sex offenders and we certainly wouldn’t let our children near those sorts of people.

Unfortunately, that’s simply not the case.

This post was particularly direct, I intended that. It is imperative that the trauma that these girls went through, and continue to go through, is articulated. It is imperative that the argument that these young girls are of bad character and simply claim rape for attention is dismissed. Nobody wants this kind of attention. No eight year-old wants an internal examination by a doctor or to be questioned in court. No child wants to lose her best friend let alone admit that it's because her friend's dad was raping her.

I stand by everyone’s right to a defence; however, there is no right for a defence counsel to blame the victim. The role of the defence must be proving innocence, not shifting blame. I think the most shocking thing to me is that out of all of the possible angles the defence could have taken, they felt the victim-blaming frame to be their best shot – what does that say about us as a society?


(Image from smh.com.au)

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Balancing protection and participation in research with marginalised young people


A while ago I wrote a post about some of the ethical dilemmas which arise when researching the vulnerable and/or marginalised– I was particularly focused on the tensions between protection and participation.

This post was developed into a paper which has now been published in the Journal of Sociology. At the time of that post, some you of wrote to me asking that I post the publication details of the paper once it was finalised. Here's the title and abstract:


The wrongs of protection: 
Balancing protection and participation in research with marginalised young people

Abstract
Protecting participants – especially the vulnerable and/or young – is essential to respecting individuals and doing so upholds the merit and integrity of research. Research is a way of improving the lives of the vulnerable as research informs policy and service provision. Research participants need to be protected, but as their right, they also need to be able to participate in research as a way of being heard on matters which affect them. This article argues that ethical review of research is so heavily focused on minimising risk that young people’s right to participate in discussion is often overlooked. I use my own research with young people who have experienced problematic substance use as a running case study to discuss the tension between balancing protection and participation in research design and offer strategies for balancing the two when designing research.



Not sure when the print version will happen, but it's available through OnlineFirst here:  

If you'd like the full version, just send me a message, or leave a comment with your email. I know some of you have already asked for this, but I have lost my Twitter messages so I can't remember who asked - sorry!



Sunday, May 5, 2013

The human spirit




As I work through my data for the thesis, I often read a paragraph of a participant’s transcript which arrests me. Sometimes it’s the poignancy, sometimes it’s the sad reality – often it’s both. Inevitably, I sit ruminating about it for a while afterwards. Sometimes I post it on Facebook - it’s amazing how much one sentence from a 40 page transcript can move people.

One theme that keeps popping up is that a number of the young people I interviewed had liked being in State Care. When I inquired why, many replied, 

“Because there was food there.” 

Five words that tell you so much about where this person had come from. Five words that had the capacity to sadden my friends who read it. Five words that make you realise your life is probably pretty darn good.  

I’ve had another of these arresting quotes, but this time it’s of the uplifting type. Jai was 19 when I interviewed him. He had been homeless since he was 13, prior to which he was in the care of his grandparents after his mother had died from a drug overdose. Many times throughout the interview I thought to myself, "How the hell has this kid survived all of this?". I asked him, what had kept him going?

“I just wanted to live life and make the most of it because not many people in my family had much, or aspired to be much. I aspired to own the world.”

Jai’s spirit seemed indestructible. 

It never ceases to amaze me at how incredibly resilient the human spirit is. This fierce sense of determination – the drive to live – is awe inspiring to bear witness to. It is certainly sad that this trait is only ever apparent in those who’ve been struck by extreme adversity. But at the same time, I feel like it’s a gift to them, some sort of compensation: Yes, you’ve been seriously disadvantaged in life; in lieu of equality, you get to be a better person that most. You get to be the person everyone wishes they could be more like. You don’t get an ordinary life; but you get to be an extraordinary person.

So maybe instead of complaining about work tomorrow, perhaps we take a step back and appreciate our privilege and hope that our children have a spirit like Jai.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

My thesis supervisor




My thesis supervisor retired at the start of the semester. He’s been floating the idea since I was in Honours, but still, when he called me in to his office to break me the news that the following week he’d be announcing his retirement, I was choking back the tears.

Upon Chris’s retirement, I wrote him a letter. I gave it to him at his farewell morning tea but, knowing that it would make him emotional, I told him not to read it until he was alone.


***


Dear My Tyrant,

I can’t believe you’re retiring. I am so, so sad. But so, so happy

When I started the PhD and left my job as an outreach worker, one of my clients cried so much. She told me that she was so angry and upset with me, but that she was also so proud of me and happy for me. She told me that she felt my PhD was important and would help other kids, but that she ‘selfishly’ wished that someone else could do it so that she could keep me. She broke my heart and also inspired me. I was so sad to leave her, but it was moving that I had such a bond with a client that she cared so much when I left.

How she felt is how I feel about you leaving.

I know you’re not actually leaving me, and I know that I am not 17 and living in an abusive environment with a heavy heroin habit and a psychotic disorder. I know that she probably needed me in slightly more obvious ways than you think I need you, but nonetheless, I still need you. And this is why I am happy for you. I am happy that you are doing what you love. I am happy that the piles from your desk are gone and that you don’t need to write any more annual reports for CASR. I am happy that you will be happy and, selfishly, I am also happy that this will probably be good for your blood pressure and increase your life expectancy, because really, you simply cannot ever die.

You have been so wonderful for me, but also for many others. People admire and respect you. They hold you in high regard both professionally and personally. News of your retirement has saddened many. The common sentiment expressed has been ‘It is such a loss’. And it is. Not just because you are Mr Homelessness, but because you actually have made a difference. A difference in your field, but also a personal difference in the lives of so many – the thousands of workers who speak of ‘The Homelessness Man – Chamberlain’; the thousands of students who have been blessed to have had you teach them; and also your colleagues who all hold you in such esteem. Few academics are so fondly regarded. You demonstrate that even when at the top of your game and in no receipt of any benefit, you choose to go the extra mile. You appearance at school events, your considered words, guest lectures, and collegiality encourage and foster a culture which makes academia a great place. It is so appreciated.

It’s been five years since I tentatively entered your office seeking an Honours supervisor – who’d have thought we’d get to the point that news of your retirement would bring me to tears and that I’d be nagging you about your blood pressure and you sending my mother Christmas cards? I am glad we have.

So much of you is now in me. Even if you’re not downstairs every day I can predict what you’d tell me to do and what words of advice you’d give me. So much of my decision-making is informed by, ‘What would Chris say?’. You’ve totally brainwashed me. But you’ve also taught me to write. So on balance, we’re even

I’ve been so blessed to have you. I really didn’t have any confidence when we met, and I most certainly would never have believed that I was the sort of person who applied for PhD scholarships were you not so insistent. When we co-authored that article and you told me the next one I would have to do alone, I thought the prospect unfathomable. I would never be able to do that. ‘I can barely string a sentence together – he’s not really going to leave me in this alone?’. As it turns out, you taught me a thing or two. Enclosed please find some letters that I think will make you proud*. 

You may be retiring, but all of your lessons live on. In our school Dean who relays stories of his tyrannical PhD supervisor and through students like me who given their students ‘RULES for writing’ based on the same rules you wrote for me.

I am so proud to have you in my life, and am but one of the thousands who feel this way. You’ve had a remarkable career which you should be so proud of.

Much love,
Kat the Brat.

p.s. Don’t even think about moving to Japan.

 *I included some letters that journal editors had written me in praise of my work. Chris holds editors in extremely high regard – I knew these would please him, probably even more than they had pleased me.


***


Now I should make clear that among all of this sentimentality is a very tough man. He is hard on me – very hard. Our deputy dean of research likes to tell people, especially new PhD students, about the supervision dynamic between Chris and I. She knows that it works and likes students to see that there’s many ways a student/supervisor arrangement can work. But she always qualifies it with, ‘But not many students can handle the level of bullying Kat receives from him’. And while I wouldn’t use the word ‘bullying’, I will acknowledge that you certainly need a thick skin as Chris doesn’t gloss over the point:. For instance, ‘Kat, this was so bad I wanted to throw it out the window’. But after telling you this he then he sits with you for hours explaining how to improve it. He is a teacher - in the finest sense of that much abused word.

Chris pushes me because he cares. He is tough, but I always know he's on my side and there's a deep sense of security that comes with that.

In my first year of my PhD, months after he’d counselled me through my brother’s death, I had taken a week off. Chris suggested I was lazy. I explained that I was sick. He doesn’t believe in sick – you’re either alive or you’re dead and if you’re alive, you should be working.

I met with him the week later. He made a disparaging remark about my ‘illness’. I had to tell him that I actually was quite sick. It was pretty serious. I knew he was going to be upset. I didn’t know how to tell him. I told him the story in a convoluted way.

He couldn’t speak. He asked for more details.

I told him I didn’t know much more. I told him I had to see a lot of doctors. 

His eyes started to fill with tears. His voice was choking. He wanted to know the next step. I said I didn’t know. He replied, ‘Well if there is nothing we can do then you must focus on your thesis’.

It was so typically male: I can’t fix it so let’s focus on something I can.

A while after that, I had an episode at uni. I was on campus and could feel my blood pressure dropping rapidly and I was waning in and out of focus with a colleague. I left and tried to get back to my office. Chris was interstate. There’s a hospital just near uni. I got a tram there. I walked in. I told the nurse what was happening. They rushed me in. Someone came and asked who should be called? No one, I said.

A few days later I spoke to Chris. I asked if he would be my emergency contact. Of course he would, he replied. That was like the time I had to be interviewed by the police about my brother’s death and he was insistent that he would be taking me. That’s the thing with Chris, I always know that he is there – he shows his care by doing things.

But given this, when Chris told me that he doesn’t give instruction on my life, except for the thesis, I nearly spat out my water laughing. He then retracted, ‘Well, I try not to’.

Here are some examples of Chris not interfering:

At the beginning of the year when he came back from a trip to India he told me about it and about the safety issues. He explained that he would certainly not let any son or daughter of his travel there‘If you told me you were going to go there, Kat, I would have to simply say that you cannot’. 

I am almost 30. I am not his daughter. But okay, Chris, sure you can tell me where I can travel to!

Chris has a deep interest in my love life. Mostly for entertainment, I think. He asks about it a lot but rarely gives me advice, except in the case of one guy: ‘This is the first time I am scared you have any chance of being hurt – be very, very careful, Kat’. (Thanks, Dad!)

Generally, Chris is a bit like an overprotective father who thinks his daughter is far superior to any suitor. He declared before Christmas that he strongly encourages me to date – ‘a nice distraction’, he says. But I 'must be explicit' with any man I meet that my thesis is my priority and that I do not want commitment. (Well thanks for clearing that up for me, Boss!)

I am laughing as I write this because his seriousness about the matter was actually hysterical (for me). Who has these conversations with their PhD supervisor?

Chris and I talk about everything. We argue a lot. We argue about ideology, politics, semi-colons, does capitalising ‘State’ identify you as a Marxist?, Should we ‘thank’, or ‘sincerely thank’ our participants in this article?, What’s the best way to teach first year sociology?, Is it ethical to use clinical data-mining as a research method? … and on and on it goes.

He tells me I get to make my own decisions. And this is true as long as my decisions are consistent with the decisions he’s already made. Sometimes he lets me do my thing and sometimes when I try and do my thing he describes me as ‘so fucking difficult’ - which I take as a compliment. 

We laugh a lot. Well, he laughs at me a lot. One of his colleagues told me, 'I always know you're in his office when I can hear his big belly laugh'. I like that. 

I do get moments - more and more in recent times - where he seems to be satisfied to sit on the sidelines as a spectator in my life rather than coach. He saw me do a conference presentation a little while ago – I met up with him later. I was expecting a dissection of what needed improvement (that’s his usual style). Instead he told me that he was sitting in the audience thinking about how proud he was of me, ‘I was thinking “She’s MY student!”’ ... Him telling me this was so shocking that I asked if he was drunk.

The notion that Chris is only involved in my thesis even my mother finds absurd.

Last week, upon me arriving at the hospital to see her, she tells me, 'I text you earlier telling you not to come - you need rest, you look exhausted'
‘I got the text and I ignored it – you’re not the boss of me’, I replied, 'Chris is the only boss of me', 
‘Yes, this is true, I have to admit – he is the ONLY person you listen to’.

Mum likes me having Chris. She likes that he’s tough on me. Whenever I make a  decision she replies with, What does Chris say about it?’. I think it’s of comfort to her to know that after she’s gone I’ve got someone here with high expectations of me and whose interest in me is based solely on what is best for me. After all, apart from gossip about my love life and emergency calls from the hospital, Chris doesn’t get anything from me. But I get so much from him. He is the kind of person you seek to emulate in life.

Retirement’s been wonderful for him, so I am very happy. Mostly I am happy that I have him at all. You couldn’t dream a better supervisor or friend.  


Sunday, April 21, 2013

The good in all of the bad

This week I was contacted by a former student who reads my blog,
“I wanted to write to you to say thank you for sharing with us all your feelings of grief and loss … I want you to know that in a strange way, your writing is helping me. I doubt I am the only one. You manage to very succinctly say the things that so many of us struggle to even understand.”

She really touched me and I have wanted to use this excerpt of her email as a link to write a post to say thank you to those people who have really stepped up for me in the past fortnight - people who have provided a soft catch to a very hard fall; people who have given me hope when the world has given me none. But ironically, I feel like I don’t really have many words to write that post because I am struggling to understand what’s going on around me.

Lots of bad things have happened to me in my life, but I can generally make sense of them - find a way to sit with them. For instance, my mother’s terminal illness is softened by the knowledge that she will no longer have to live with the endless pain that comes with having lost her son. And my brother’s death meant that he no longer had to live with the suffering that his bipolar manifested. I do miss him terribly and I so wish he was here, especially now when I want to be around people who really know me, but I don’t wish him back because wishing him back would be inflicting more suffering on him. 

I can’t make Grant’s death fit into any small sense of reason. It’s not a story I have any intention of relaying here, but his death was a tragedy for many reasons and makes no sense at all. While I am not going to write endless posts about grief and loss and pain, I don’t really have words for much else. I do want there to be a conclusion to my narratives of this tragedy and I would like that to be something more positive. I would like to tell you about how tragedy can illuminate the very best in people - it really can. And I will write that post. But right now, my energy is invested into processing very sad emotions and  just trying to just get through my days, so I am not able to adequately illustrate how beautiful some of these dear friends of mine are. I will do this, but when I can do so with the energy it deserves.

In the interim, as a break from the heavy sense of sorrow that seems to be becoming the defining feature of this blog, I want to tell you that people are good – people are so good. I have a disproportionate amount of tragedy in my life, but I also have a disproportionate share of very good people around me. I’ll tell you more about them later.

Today, I just want to tell you that I took a four-year-old boy to the movies and by doing this, made his day. He clung to me, jumped on me and told me that he loved me - not because he feels sorry for me but because he is four and still has that beautiful ability to demonstrate unadulterated emotions. After the movies I went and cuddled my godson whose arrival in my life is a constant reminder of the incredible good among so much bad (see picture at the top). The unconditional love of children softens everything.



But something else happened today that really moved me. After the movies, Jace and I were playing arcade games – those games where the machines give you tickets and the tickets can be exchanged for a prize. We had a collective total of four tickets (no prize). As we were playing a basketball game, a couple of teenage boys came up to us and gave us all of their tickets – all 80 of them. Jace was ecstatic. (He used the tickets to get a toy ring which he used to propose marriage to me.)





There was so much about these boys' act of kindess that I loved. I loved that Jace was happy. I love that it taught Jace that young men are kind and caring and thoughtful. I love that these boys were genuinely happy when they saw how happy Jace was.

The world can be really fucked up. Some things will never make sense. Look for the good people and hold onto them. They keep you afloat when you would otherwise drown. 

Friday, April 12, 2013

Grief and death and shock




The picture above was posted by a friend who’s grieving his fiancé’s death. He’s been posting lots of really good quotes and captions and sentiments. Also a lot of Hemingway. A LOT of Hemingway. Someone wrote underneath this photo that they weren’t sure about this sentiment - this didn’t make sense to he nor I given the phrase is the only thing that helps us to make sense of the world.

Grant’s death hasn’t hit me yet – not really. It’s too abstract. I have these moments when the reality permeates. These moments catch me by surprise. They are on the train and I pull my sunglasses down because the tears begin to well. When I had a death notice in the paper on his birthday. When I had to stop running because the crying was too much and I was gasping for air. When I compiled the photos to send to his sister. When my friend’s ex-boyfriend wrote me a message telling me that ‘Grant and yourself had a special bond, like not many people have, nor are likely to have, in a lifetime’. When I came home to a doorstep of food. When my best friend messaged me to tell me that her husband would be taking me to the funeral.

A fucking death notice on his 29th birthday – how do you make sense of that?

But the real tears are still coming, I know it. I know because I know my body. I haven’t lost my appetite yet. I know because I can still make small talk with people at work and pretend that things are okay. I had to teach this week and it was fine (albeit laborious). Fortunately I’m teaching a subject that I know so well that I didn’t have to think too much to prepare for because I can’t think. In fact, my total inability to think makes me know that my body knows that something’s up, but is only slowly transitioning me into the depths of it.

As well as an inability to think is the strange thoughts that come into my head which elicit the inner therapist in me saying, ‘that’s a bit of a maladaptive thought’. 

Last night, for instance, I came home. I am living alone but knew someone had been to my house during the day (someone I knew and who was invited, not a stranger burgling me, calm down).  When I went to the bathroom, the door was closed. The door’s never closed. Did I think to myself that perhaps the visitor used the bathroom and closed the door? No, I did not. Rather, my first thought process was ‘there might be a body behind the door’. 

I shit you not – that’s what I thought. Many of my female friends don’t like being alone because they are scared someone might get them. They would have thought an evil person was behind the door. Not me. I anticipate dead bodies. You know, because that’s likely.

I went and got a glass of water.

I realise this thought process reflects that I feel like I am enveloped in death. Two weeks ago I found a dead body on the footpath of a very busy street. He had been there for hours. Now Grant’s gone. Mum’s in palliative care. My brother’s dead. A colleague has been given months to live. Today I witnessed a horrific road accident which I suspect was a fatality but I don’t know because it is mysteriously absent from the Internet (or is less important than the demonisation of James Hird [for my international readers, he is a football coach]).

So I am aware that things are a bit haywire in my head. And if I didn’t yesterday, I certainly did today.

This morning I got up at 6am. It took me HOURS to get ready. I stood in front of my wardrobe just staring at it. I simply could not put an outfit together. By ‘together’, I do not mean in any stylised way, but as in, I could not get dressed. I was picking low rise pants with shirts not long enough to stay tucked in to them. Then I picked a woollen knitted jumper because it feels like a big warm hug which is never a bad thing, and right now, the perfect thing. Except that it was a sunny day and a big warm hug that you can’t take off leaves one feeling smothered. So I didn’t wear the jumper. Then I was overwhelmed. So I went to hang the washing out. And then I couldn’t remember what I was doing. Still in a nightie, I made a protein shake. Then I thought I’d have a piece of toast. Which I proceeded to cook in the microwave.


After the microwave went off and I tried again with this really innovative appliance called a 'toaster', I then put the margarine in the cupboard and the vegemite in the fridge.

Then I started shaking – physically. I thought I was cold. I put on the hug jumper. Turns out I wasn’t cold – the sweating should have indicated that.

When I eventually left the house (dressed, I might add) I found my car was unlocked. Again, no scary man  I’d not locked it last night.

I have little recollection about the rest of the day save for the fact that it continued in this stream of absolute futility.

I am running a seminar tomorrow on research interviews. I am sitting here writing a blog about my uselessness instead of preparing for it. I also have two very complicated ethics applications to assess and a journal article to peer review and I can’t get past the first paragraph of any of them. The mind knows that something is up even if my heart hasn’t caught up completely. 

The grief hasn’t dropped its weight yet, but it’s let itself be known – it’s a shame there’s no controlling it. 

It is what it is I guess.