Survivors' Tears

24.04.07

That is what we are defined by at the moment John, out survivors' tears.

In short, they bring us sweet relief when we think of how sad it is to have lost you. We remember you every single day. And I am beginning to realise that they will define us for a long time to come.

And when they come, we just let them fall, because to resist is futile. They serve to cleanse and to give us some small release from the pain we feel, when it is simply too much to bear, when we think of life without you.

I think often of how we are just standing on the other side of the mirror from you. The anguish and hurt we are experiencing are a simple reflection of your own experiences prior to your death: the constant questions to which we cannot find any real answers, the frustration at not being able to change the course of events, the sense of longing for what we cannot have, the feeling of total impotence and the constant nagging thoughts which never leave us. You experienced all of these.

I imagine that you are on one side of the mirror and we are on the other - the line which divides us and separates us from you is the invisible mark in space which signals your death and our life after it. It's hard for us to understand how completely tormented you must have been, and harder still to accept that you kept it from us, while all along you were contemplating the unthinkable. We retrace our last moments with you at every available opportunity, and we still cannot reconcile ourselves to the grim outcome. We ask repeatedly if there was something more we could have done or said; we wish that we could have you back - even just for an hour, so we could be with you again and impress upon you how loved you are still and how we miss you. I sometimes think that if you could witness these survivors' tears, then you would undo your decision and stay to comfort us.

Still, all this makes us survivors, for all the consolation that can ever bring in a world without you.