The Leatherback Turtle returns home for life significant reason or in this case a bereavement significant reason.
My journey home was paved with a deep intense sadness and it seems like every step only brings me further away from home.
Three days of travelling lasted like three years and every minute lasted like a never-ending hallway in a lost but never found.
That morning I received a phone call at my office desk in Harper. I was in the middle of preparing transportation to support road rehab.
Never entered my mind that the office is going to arrange my own transportation that same morning to the Netherlands.
My sister was on the other end of the line. Her voice already told me even before she could tell me. Imagine yourself in a quicksand sucking you down in a dark suffocating negative spiral and the sand closes down all the light above you. You try to breath, cry and control yourself all at the same time while the words handcuffed your fists of anger and strangles tight around your lungs pressing all the oxygen you have left to endure the moments ahead of you.
How cruel is life when you receive this message and realizing the distance between those you need and those who needs you.
How more cruelty can life bear when you have to deliver the message of mortality knowing it will cause an instant pain beyond ones imagination.
The impact of these simple words "zij is er niet meer”, (she's not there) rises above everything and covered your existence with a cloth of darkness. Darkness that will remain until .......... who knows when? Simple words put together in one sentence emphasizing an unthinkable future without her, my first of sisters.
Mortality revealed a hidden cruel dimension of the word PAIN and LOSS.
Travelled home, home where sadness and family were waiting together for my return.
Strong enough to travel and strong enough to fool myself thinking I’m strong enough to stop the rain from cascading down. Waterfalls of tears challenging my strength not to fall in pieces. Tears constantly raining inside my head hiding behind a facade of a soft summer breeze. Satanic dilemma between fiction and non-fiction.
In and out planes travelling light. People all around and yet isolated in grief.
Harper - Monrovia - Accra – Amsterdam - Vaassen. Destination reality!
When I left Harper a colleague told me to take courage. I took courage and spoke on her funeral on behalf of my family.
Amazed myself with the calmness of the same summer breeze that took me home.
In the speech I referred to the moment when I ordered the floral arrangement for her wooden carrier. Orchids were her favourite.
There were two ribbons attached to the floral arrangement. One ribbon with the inscription: “dari Adik-adik mu” from your younger siblings.
The other was empty. The florist asked if we want to inscribe some ordinairy tomb graffiti such as “Rest In Peace”.
None of that. The ribbon was too short and words were not enough to express our loss and above all our un-conditional love. Only the emptiness of the ribbon can emphasized the emptiness she left behind.
My journey home was paved with a deep intense sadness and it seems like every step only brings me further away from home.
Three days of travelling lasted like three years and every minute lasted like a never-ending hallway in a lost but never found.
That morning I received a phone call at my office desk in Harper. I was in the middle of preparing transportation to support road rehab.
Never entered my mind that the office is going to arrange my own transportation that same morning to the Netherlands.
My sister was on the other end of the line. Her voice already told me even before she could tell me. Imagine yourself in a quicksand sucking you down in a dark suffocating negative spiral and the sand closes down all the light above you. You try to breath, cry and control yourself all at the same time while the words handcuffed your fists of anger and strangles tight around your lungs pressing all the oxygen you have left to endure the moments ahead of you.
How cruel is life when you receive this message and realizing the distance between those you need and those who needs you.
How more cruelty can life bear when you have to deliver the message of mortality knowing it will cause an instant pain beyond ones imagination.
The impact of these simple words "zij is er niet meer”, (she's not there) rises above everything and covered your existence with a cloth of darkness. Darkness that will remain until .......... who knows when? Simple words put together in one sentence emphasizing an unthinkable future without her, my first of sisters.
Mortality revealed a hidden cruel dimension of the word PAIN and LOSS.
Travelled home, home where sadness and family were waiting together for my return.
Strong enough to travel and strong enough to fool myself thinking I’m strong enough to stop the rain from cascading down. Waterfalls of tears challenging my strength not to fall in pieces. Tears constantly raining inside my head hiding behind a facade of a soft summer breeze. Satanic dilemma between fiction and non-fiction.
In and out planes travelling light. People all around and yet isolated in grief.
Harper - Monrovia - Accra – Amsterdam - Vaassen. Destination reality!
When I left Harper a colleague told me to take courage. I took courage and spoke on her funeral on behalf of my family.
Amazed myself with the calmness of the same summer breeze that took me home.
In the speech I referred to the moment when I ordered the floral arrangement for her wooden carrier. Orchids were her favourite.
There were two ribbons attached to the floral arrangement. One ribbon with the inscription: “dari Adik-adik mu” from your younger siblings.
The other was empty. The florist asked if we want to inscribe some ordinairy tomb graffiti such as “Rest In Peace”.
None of that. The ribbon was too short and words were not enough to express our loss and above all our un-conditional love. Only the emptiness of the ribbon can emphasized the emptiness she left behind.
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