An unbearable lightness of being

Monday 22 January 2018

3 degrees, sunny spells, bitter wind

Last Tuesday, I was chatting late night to a lady from back home.  We were on FB and talking about the best ways to sell the huge range of soaps she has been making and looking at the cheapest ways of getting the toxicology reports she needed, without paying a small fortune.  It was a normal night and we signed off eventually and both, I presume, dreamed normal dreams.  I woke to a normal day.  My friend did not.  When we had been chatting about soap, a young man's body had been lying crumpled on a chilly hillside.
She sent me the following message next morning.  

Kxxxxx is dead.

All I can think is that at least he's no longer suffering...he hated being bi-polar.

I could kick his ass for not at least leaving a message or calling, first, though. His ex gf called to tell me, then I called the gendarmerie to ask if it was true, and they were just on the way to the house to come and see me. He jumped off of the telephone tower

They said it seemed he didn't suffer, as his face was peaceful. Two of his friends found him. They hadn't heard from him in a day or two, and went looking for his van. Poor kids.

His body is at xxx, and will be transferred to xxxxxxxx for an autopsy. Ha, I told them they won't find drugs or anything. I have to meet the gendarmes at his apartment in the morning, then go back and sign papers and stuff. I did ask the gendarme if they had an instruction booklet to give me for this kind of thing. They have a shitty job, sometimes.

This is going to take weeks and weeks. All the other kids are crying and want to drop everything and come home, but I told them not to.

The gendarmes said to come with a friend or someone, in the morning...but I'm going by myself. What good is it going to do to bring someone along with me, anyway.

I told my mom. I also told her to not go and have a heart attack.

It'll be just fucking great to stick my head out the door, come morning...facebook and the kids will make sure that all and sundry will be au courant.

I think I'll call (doctor) in the morning...I wouldn't want to compound the issue by going off the rails or having my own heart attack, and maybe he has some kind of magic pill that I could take to get through this.

K was the youngest of her four children and just 19 years old.  He was such a beautiful child, with thick golden hair and deep blue eyes.  So bright and loving.  So alive.  So ready to come over and give me a hug when we saw one another in town.  It utterly breaks my heart that he felt so desperate that he could not bear to carry on.  I cannot even begin to imagine how his mother will cope with this.  No mother should know their child's death day.

They have decided on a cremation - the Maire has offered to pay for it - and then a big party.  K's friends are fundraising for a huge send-off and they will wear Hawaiian shirts and it will be as joyous as possible for such a terrible occasion.  His ashes will then go to the Big Island and be scattered in a place where he was happy.

When we become parents and receive that little parcel of blood which is our blood and skin which is our skin and an assorted mix of the genes of everyone who ever contributed to the whole, only then do we become of the awe-some and awe-full responsibility we have acquired.  We are no longer an individual, separate and apart.  We are a mother.  We are a father.  And our world has changed; irrevocably and forever.

Some say that it is not our inadequacy which terrifies us but rather the fact that we are powerful beyond measure.  Did K climb the tower and then have the insight that he was a being filled with light and could fly over our town and away from his demons?  I do hope so and I hope, wherever he is and whoever he is with now, that they will surround him with love and fill him with joy.  And that he can be reborn, fresh and new, into a better life.