Pictures

...because today, for the first time, I allowed myself to grieve...

There is a picture of my family which I particularly love because it was taken before our world fell apart. We are sitting on a carpet of leaves in the park. It is autumn and the warm sunlight dapples my father’s golden hair. He has impossible hair, my father, and a corsair’s moustache: a survivor’s bravado. My mother has impossible hair too - long and black like Joan Baez. She leans on my father’s shoulder and smiles the smile of a woman grateful to have been released from demons. As for my brother and I, we are quirky and alive in a way only children who are deeply loved can be. My father is holding my brother up by the arms, all baby fat and bad moods. I think he is sort of weird but cute - me with my Mona Lisa smile and cowlick that just won’t stay put.

When I tell you I had a perfect family, please don't feel envy, for our world fell apart. Instead, feel awe and reverence. Know that the shining sunlight of promise did indeed shine for a time on four lovely people, two golden haired and two dark haired; two older ones, two younger ones, intertwined – sharing a simple picnic on a carpet of leaves, laughing in the beauty of an existence unclouded by illness...

Mourn, my mother says. Mourn the loss of this world. Know that you cannot go back, for it is not there. We were lucky that for a time we knew this peace and this ease, so blessed. Take your hand in mine, my son, for I have been waiting for you. Go out into the wide world laughing and aware and accepting yourself for who you are. You cannot hide in a blanket, nor crawl back into my arms – nor should you, for all the security in the world can be taken away from you when you least expect it. We are living proof. Because of this, and especially because of this, but not only because of this, be brave. Take your hand in mine and know that the sun shines on us still, and that the seasons will turn and in the fall there will be a carpet of leaves to cushion our steps. We may not be able to ride our bikes to the park, but we can take your father in his wheelchair and you can make that potato salad he likes so much.

I wonder what this picture will look like….

I push my father in his wheelchair through the streets of Berlin. His hair is still impossible, Einstein-like; wild. He sits on that wheelchair like it is a throne. Until the end he will never give up an inch of his dignity. My father has not been back to this part of the world since he was a boy. He tells me that Berlin reminds him of Poland. But he will not go back to Poland. My father and his sister walk with pain even though they are still young and I know it is because their health was compromised when they were children: I know this is because of decisions that were made in Berlin. I push my father in his wheelchair, the sleet pelts my face. I am glad for it because maybe he will not notice I am crying. But would that be so bad?

My father has been sick for 20 years.

Take a picture.

It will last even longer.