One Step At A Time (2016 FB Note)

 This note has the potential to be an inspiring one, whilst starting off on a somewhat macabre note (no pun intended). Earlier I saw a post about Celine Dion making a tribute to her late husband, and I just saw Gugu Zulu’s wife Letshego post the song ‘Recovering’ on Instagram. There’s something about both women’s journeys that speaks to me in a profound way, they lost their husbands and have been trying to figure out how this life thing works without their men in it. It’s been particularly difficult for Letshego as she’s received a lot of criticism for ‘how’ she’s grieving and people have decided to judge her for having interviews with the media. No one can really get the feeling of loss one feels when they lose a loved one. It’s like the foundations of your existence have been shifted and everything you thought you knew is no longer true. Who you are, what you are and who you can be. All of these may have been previously known but at this point, they become questions again.

Celine’s song is called ‘Recovering’. One of the first lines is ‘I am recovering, one step at a time’.... 2016 didn’t really give me a warning that it would be one of Those years. But as I listen to Celine and think of all that Letshego must be going through, it’s the closest version to what is consuming me right now. I lost a very dear friend this year, a friend who’d been my anchor and my sanity for most of my adult life. He didn’t die, I just lost him. And as much as I could state that the most tumultuous parts of my year involved moving into a new country, starting in a new industry and making peace with being so far away from all that’s familiar... Losing my friend was a big part of it.

When I started this note I stated that it had the potential to be inspiring, but I’m not inspired yet as I reach this sentence. In the place of my old friend I met a much better friend. A friend who’s attentive, affectionate, understanding and if it makes any sense... present. If life was simple, I would be grateful for having lost the old friend in favour of the new one, but life (well, at least not mine anyways) has never been simple.

There are still just a little too many questions, a little too many bruises that lay bleeding and unaccounted for.

So, as much as I’m not a widow, I feel both Celine and Letshego’s pain. When a world that made so much sense becomes so foreign, the loss cuts deep. And I guess the only way to deal is to take it all ‘One Step At A Time’. I remember how it felt like when my sister died in 2011, I never thought my heart was capable of carrying so much pain, and I still had to wake up everyday and live, work, pay bills and be. Even worse this time, I have a son who needs me. The toughest part is that no one gets it, no one thinks it’s such a big deal, and no one knows the tears that come with such loss (at the most inappropriate of times, as you pick a hairstyle or the colour of your nails or what to eat for supper).

I’ve had to learn to stop leaning. I lean a lot. When a stranger is nice to me, I start to see them as a friend and I want to share a piece of myself with them. And this year I had to go deep into myself and stop leaning. Leaning makes us victims, and one can’t always go through life as a victim...

This note is dedicated to the friend that I lost, the friend who left with too many questions and not enough answers, the friend who has defined me for so many years and is now a complete stranger.

I wouldn’t wish the destructive impact that drugs have had on my family on my worst enemy.

So much potential, so many regrets and so much has been irrecoverably lost.