When we comfort our children during a time of fear, we make promises we cannot keep. Their tears will stain our top as we hold them tight, whispering whilst they weep, daddy’s here, it’s OK, daddy will always be here. We feed them ideas of immorality - that their birth somehow equipped us with the superpower of eternal life. For as long as you live, my child, I will live too. The sobbing will cease, slow down to a sniffle and our words of, I’m here, I’m always here will wrap around their infant body, a warm blanket of relief. Our children, our sons, our daughters, their fragile bodies will lose all tension and they will collapse further into our arms - caving into comfort.
When it’s all over, when our children resume all innocence and find peace in the present, thoughts of those fabrications will form in our mortal minds and bring with it the harsh reality: Death cannot be escaped, cannot be cured by the promotion of man to father. It exists and cannot simply be spoken away. And what we have left our children, what we have sown into their subconscious are all lies. These assurances that we give them feel like mantras, that we believe must be said over and over in order to give it truth. At birth, as we cradle them in our arms for their very first waking moments, listening to them inhale and exhale their very first breaths of life, we want to believe, desperately, that death will not exist in our reality.
We will cheat it, somehow, a pupil sneaking a look over the shoulders of their classmate to get the answers to the test we take, sat at our desk in life’s classroom. Somehow, we will find the fountain that will feed us the elixir of life and to merely take a sip will send, coursing through our veins, the ingredients to eternal living. And the days will be paved with lefts and rights that will steer us away from fatality as we spend them, caring for our children. Further than that, we would all be protected, pardoned, given pure passage to never-ending nights and even our children will be spared from harm.
I remember the first time I began bargaining with a supreme being, an ethereal, mythical figure beyond the skies to never, ever, let anything happen to my children. In the most pinnacle point of the night, surrounded by silence and darkness I would hear myself pleading - mouthing unspoken words of reason and emotion - please, please, protect them from harm. I could feel the pleading take the form of discomfort and it would have me writhing underneath my blanket. It begins with panic, since everything else around me is shrouded in darkness, and I would see horrific scenarios in which they would perish. They would feel so real, so visceral in the shadows that I could feel the tears form in my eyes. They were merely metres away, sleeping in another room under the same roof but to me, they were gone. Forever. After the scenes had played out and I would succumb to the heavy breathing, I would enter disbelief. No. Never. These things will never happen. Then in the final moments, I would beg. Please, spare them of tragedy and give their lives longevity.
I understood that I would grieve for them even in their existence.
The grief would then find the most unexpected moments to appear. Again, scenes would run riot in my mind. The most realistic kind - it could happen to any of us - suddenly stricken as if their life were meaningless. I would feel the tears, I would feel the pain of their loss through my body, I would hear the psychotic sobbing that would come about from losing them. And I would grieve. The more I would grieve, the more I would follow the imaginary steps thereafter. At first, it was there is no me without them. But the force in which I would I see the tragedies would have me looking beyond the grief. I would be lying on the floor and limb by limb, I would get up. I would envisaged how I would heal.
Stories in the real world would have me placing myself in that exact situation. It would be megoing through it. Grieving, healing, grieving, healing. Hurting. Either it is I that goes or them. Tragedies in the form of accidents would swirl around me in haunting sweeping circles. My only escape from it would be to feel it. To shut reality out for a moment and enter into a parallel universe that would have me experiencing it. Finding out. Seeing the body. Holding the coffin. Leading the sermon. Smelling the clothes. Scrolling through pictures. Playing the videos. The day after. The day after that. Grieving until there is no more grief to give. To cope. To see out the remaining years. In their memory.
I understood. I would grieve for them even in their existence. To prepare for the absolute worse. To find strength in the imaginary to give in a very real moment. To be able to weather it all, so they don’t feel the rain. To be so equipped with a kind of superhuman strength that it all just bounces off you. Bullets on a bulletproof vest. So when we tell them, with mountains of confidence that everything will be OK, we believe it. We lie until it is truth. We lost the right to their life the moment we held them in our hands, so all that remains are our words.
Jagdish Patel. As you lay there in sub zero temperatures feeling your body freezing up, did you place a hand on your 11 year old daughter, Vihangi and 3 year old son Dharmik’s face and stroke it with your fatherly touch, did you tell them “I am right by your side” and “I am so proud of you both”
Mike Perdue. As the plane plummeted to the ground and you used every inch of your body as a shield to protect your 11 year old daughter, Laney, did you find the breath in you to whisper, “don’t be scared, I’ve got you. Daddy’s got you.”?
Naya Rivera. In your last moments, as you fought with every ounce of strength to stay afloat, did you make eye contact with your four year old son, Josey, who watched you from the boat and did you tell him, “I love you. Mummy loves you.”
Kobe. When the helicopter lurched violently to the side and all systems failed, did you hold Gianna close? Did you manage to kiss her on the forehand? Did you find her hand to hold? Did you lock eyes and smile with ease? Did you then keep her head just under your arm and did you whisper to her “daddy’s here, daddy will always be here, daddy loves you so much. Everything’s going to be OK”?
