Emma's wedding dress

“I hate talking about my mother. Not because she was a bad one just because it frustrates me”

“Why does it frustrate you?”

“There are no words really.” Emma awkwardly turns in her seat. There is so much room for her to move and be comfortable but she is stuck in the corner, feeling rather tight.

“I couldn't fully paint a picture of her, who she was” Emma continues to say.” She was incredible.” She rubs her face, it has a pained expression.” That doesn't even,” she pauses trying to find the words to make Dr. Assange understand,” get across the person she was. Anyways she's dead, why does it matter? I’m not struggling with her life. I’m not even struggling with her death. I’m just struggling with death. It just...it's just so unreal. So hard to understand.”

“Losing someone is never easy and everyone experiences grief differently. Your mother’s life is important Emma, because her life and what it meant to you is why this is so difficult. You would not have a sense of loss if you didn’t know her, if you didn’t love her. Grieve is the natural response to losing something or in your case someone you love. The key is not to ignore it but to experience it…” Dr. Assange was saying but Emma cut him off.

“I would really appreciate it if you could just fix me, fix these feelings. I just don’t want them anymore. It’s your job; you aren’t very good at it clearly.” Her agitation building, it was threatening to make her lose her composure. What little she had left.

The death of her mother had turned this poor little girl’s world upside down and she wasn’t willing to acknowledge it. She cannot possible begin to put all her tiny pieces together, until admits she’s all broken inside.

Their session was over; Dr. Assange put his pen and notepad down and walked over to his desk. “Emma our time is up. I’m going to print you a pamphlet on grief. I would like you to read through it and write down the points you can identify with, point out the stages you feel you've experienced and the stages you haven’t. Next week we can talk about grief and what you've written.”

Dr. Assange knew she would be very displeased. Her distress was growing at an accelerated pace and she just wanted a quick fix. If they didn’t have some sort of breakthrough soon, he would have to seriously consider medication.

Dr. Assange thought about his patients all the time and worried about them more often than not. Since the day he first met Emma, she preoccupied his mind more than his other patients ever did. He worried for her a great deal. He made a mental note to call her father and ask him to be very cautious when dealing with her. He didn’t want to worry him but at this point he felt as though there was other option.

Emma took the pamphlet and smiled at the doctor. She thanked him and assured him that she would do as he asked; she told him she would try harder. This pained Dr. Assange; it wasn't her fault that this was such a difficult time. He was about to tell her but stopped himself. Don’t get too attached, he reminded himself, he would be no good to her if he got too emotionally attached.

On her way out Emma stopped at Lisa, Dr. Assange's sectary’s desk and asked for an envelope. Lisa gave her one. Emma thanked her and left. She walked to the park around the corner. It was 11am, children were at school and adults were at work. Apart for the occasional vagrant the park was deserted. Emma sat on a bench and for a few sweet moments she enjoyed the sunshine. It warmed her up from the inside out. This was the sign she'd been waiting for. Things would be better she told herself. “How could they not be on this fine sunny day” she said it out loud and a vagrant closest to her looked at her as if she had completely lost her mind. She couldn’t blame him, she was all smiles and talking to herself. The thought made her giggle. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt this way, the last time she heard her own laugh. For a brief moment the sadness crept in again. Emma stopped it dead in its tracks. There was no going back.

She scratched in her bag searching for a pen. She was certain she would have one. Nothing. No, that can't be right. She emptied the contents of her bag next to her on the bench. “Ah-ha” she cried in victory. It was a purple metallic pen, but it would do the job just fine. Emma took her notebook she normally used to write her shopping list on, ripped out a page and began to write. When she was done she placed the piece of paper and her special necklace in the envelope. With one lick she sealed it and addressed it. She walked back to her car parked just outside Dr. Assange's office. Once she was in her car she took a moment to think where the nearest post office was. It wasn’t too far, a 15 minute drive at most.

At the post office she bought a stamp and gave the envelope to the lady behind the counter.

“How long will it take for it to be delivered?” Emma asked the lady

“Not long at all, tomorrow or Thursday the latest. Is it urgent?”

“No, I was just wondering. Thank you.” Emma replied

From the post office Emma drove straight home. She opened the garage door, drove in and closed it. Once it was shut, she opened her door went in the house. Ran upstairs and changed. She’d left the car on. She ran back downstairs and went back into the garage, closing the door behind her.

Frank had been away on business. He hated leaving Emma at a time like this but he had responsibilities and it was just one night. His flight wasn’t delayed, which is a baldly miracle he thought to himself. He travelled often. He was operating on autopilot. Collect bags. Pay ticket. Walk to long-term parking. Insert ticket into machine and home. When the garage opened, Frank’s heart lifted...Emma's car was there, she was home. He drove in, he was exhausted. He turned his car off got out and as he was about to take his bag out of the backseat he noticed Emma in her car.

“Hey Em, where are you off to? I thought we could have a nice evening you and me.”

 He walked over to see his daughter, his beautiful baby girl.

“Em...Emma...EMMA!”

Nothing. No response. Emma was gone.

It wasn’t even a month and Frank was planning another funeral. All these people here, trying to comfort him. He wished they would all disappear. Their words of comfort were insulting to him. Did they honestly think their words would make things better? Fuck them. Fuck them and their meaningless words.

Frank was relieved when the doorbell rang, even if for just a moment he could get away. It was just the mailman. He took his mail and walked into the kitchen. The usual stuff. He scanned through them anyways, just for the time alone. Frank froze. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t think. It couldn’t be. But he was one hundred percent sure it was Emma’s handwriting. He couldn’t read it. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction, she doesn’t get this closure. He wouldn’t let her rest in peace. He left the letter with the others on the kitchen counter.

After Emma’s funeral Frank was back at square one. Left with his messy emotions and this time he was alone. No one who understood him. His family, his true loved ones had abandoned him. He was still so angry at Emma but he was even more desperate for a piece of her. He walked into the kitchen, picked up the envelope. It was exactly where he left it.

He opened it. Come on Frank, he told himself. You can do this; it’s just a letter …just a letter.

There was something else in the envelope. In his rage, Frank hadn’t noticed it before. It was Tina’s necklace. The one he gave Emma shortly after Tina’s funeral almost a month ago.

Frank unfolded the letter and began to read it.

Daddy

Here’s our necklace, I want you to have it and I’m sure mommy won’t mind. I’m sorry I hurt you. I can’t anymore. I am so tired. I'm too tired to try. One day I hope you forgive me. I need my mum; she is so good with these things. Now she can take care of me and you don’t have to worry. There isn’t really a choice here. Once I decided, I was happy again, I’m laughing...it will be over soon and I’m not scared. I look forward to it. I don’t have anything special to say that will make you feel better when you get this, but please know that I considered not...because of you, daddy. Because I love you! I left all my love behind for you, every single bit of it.

I know you will never get to walk me down the aisle. But at least you got to see me in her wedding dress, so now you can imagine it.

Always yours

Em.

Short stories

I’ve been toying with the idea of writing short stories for a while now. Wanting to be bold and never having regret, or as little as possible.  I went for it. I will be posting the three I have written so far.

Emma’s wedding dress.

Hardships of love.

Rape.

I hope you enjoy them and look forward to hearing what you think. Please be one hundred percent honest. I want to improve and I will take all criticisms with the upmost humility. 

It's black, it's white, it's racism?!

“Racisms still alive they just be concealing it.” Let us just all agree now, regardless of his crazy nature and complete arrogance Kanye West is a genius and speaks the complete truth most of the time. His lyrics more often than not are thought provoking. So I thought I’d share my little epiphany and I hope that if you disagree with me you have the humility to respect my opinions and the wisdom to realize that they are mine and you are more than welcome to have your own.

If you are in a relationship and your partner cheats on you. Even if it was completely out of character and they will never do it again. From the day they cheat till the end of the relationship the dynamics have forever changed. No matter how much you want to trust them, the doubt is still there. Are they really with friends, was that really a business trip, that tiny bit of doubt forces you to be weary without you ever intending to be, sometimes without you even noticing.

“Trust is like a mirror, you can fix it if it's broken, but you can still see the crack in that mother f#cker's reflection.” (Thank you Lady Gaga’s songwriters, because I refuse to believe she could come up with this on her own.) That’s exactly the same for me as a black person, I’m very happy building relationships with people from every race, BUT, the amount of different cases of racism in different countries all over the world has made me cautious, has lowered my expectations and has made me expect the worst more often than not.

The problem isn’t that we are different. The problem is that we refuse to admit that we are different. If we don’t profess, except and embrace our differences then there is never a reason for people to be understanding and accepting towards one another. Till you do we’ve condemned ourselves to a polite (at best) existence.

A time to move on?

The most significant and defining event in my life was, is and will most probably be the death of my mother. I use writing as a way of expressing myself and somehow I have never really written about her life or death. It was never a conscious decision, but now I am consciously making a decision to write about her.

When people ask me how I felt about her death and how I feel not having her around now; my answer is much like anyone who has experienced a death of someone close to them. It was devastating and unbearably hard, I miss her but of course life goes on. That’s not a lie; those statements do have some truth to them. But it’s not the whole truth; I couldn’t tell you what the whole truth is because I still don’t know what that is.

Death is the one thing we all have in common, no matter what race, region, nationality or whatever else separates people, we are all going to die. You would think that that would make death something we should be able to understand and yet death seems like the most unnatural thing.

 I can’t say how I feel, if I can’t fully wrap my head around what happened. Not that I don’t understand that she’s gone and never coming back, I do. I don’t even know what I don’t understand. It’s difficult to explain which makes it difficult for me to talk about, to write about. If death was a novel, I would still be stuck on the first word of the first line. Five years later and I haven’t made it past the first damn word.

Not that I haven’t moved on, my life is not frozen on the 26^th of April 2007. I am capable of loving and being loved. I don’t run from relationships. I am not afraid of life because death is a part of it. I just am not able to tell you how it felt or how it feels. I know how it should feel and I acknowledge that I was sad and angry and just broken really but that’s not it entirely.

It’s somewhat comforting that I’m so puzzled by death. If I’m always confused by it, she’ll never be lost. I’ll be reminded of her whenever I try to figure it out. Not in a bad way or a sad way just the remembering kind of way. I’ve gotten to a point where I can remember her and not feel sad, where I can go a whole day and not think about her and not feel guilty about that.

Death has taught me that even though she is gone, I had her. For 17 years of my life I had an amazing mother who wanted me from the day I was born and loved me till the day she died. I had lost so much when she died because in her life she gave me so much.

I LOVE YOU MOMMY! And you’ll be my mommy till the day that I die.

Go on then.

It is difficult to understand why so many women emasculate their men. Surely it is as simple choosing a man you respect and then respecting him. Then you’re genuinely surprised when he cheats on you with someone who makes him feel like a man. Now I’m not man, hopefully that’s obvious, but I assume men want to be respected, needed and appreciated. So if you don’t respect him, need him or appreciate him why are you wasting his time and your own? Why are you setting yourself up for hurt?

Depending on where you are in life and what you’re looking for, you’ll be “looking’ for someone who is where you are. Why do woman date guys who are nowhere near marriage and then expect them to want to marry you one year down the line, he’s PROBABLY still not going to be ready for marriage.

If you want children why would you choose someone who you don’t respect and will most probably not value his opinions on how to raise your children? How exactly do you expect that to work out?

Then there are the unrealistic expectations, and this is the one that really baffles me. You want a gorgeous chiseled man and you don’t know why he has not arrived on his white horse to sweep you off your feet and wine and dine you. Ladies have you not noticed how swallow men, how swallow they’ve always been…why would that have changed now? You want to know where he is…he’s in the gym with the gorgeous chiseled ladies.

You want something; do what you have to do to get it. You want to get married, start dating men who want to get married, and you want a “real man” then stop dating boys. You want a Ken then start looking like Barbie. But for all that is good and holy in this world please stop giving men a reason to treat women like they are idiots and TAKE CONTROL. Weak and pathetic has never been a good look and right now most women are just that.

Also get your hands on Steve Harvey’s “Straight talk, no chaser”. It is fantastic, honest and super helpful :)

Forgive Me

Forgiveness is not my problem. Or maybe it is, but not in the normal sense. I forgive too much, too easily, too often without accessing the problem. I never think how things must change. If nothing changes then the need for forgiveness is inevitable.

I forgave him the first time he cheated.

I forgave him all the times after that.

I even forgave him when he snuck the mistress in my room when my mother came home early to surprise him.

I forgave him for the Pethidine again and again.

I forgave him when she got sick and he left me.

I forgave him when he did not come back for me.

I forgave him for not even thinking about me.

I forgave him when he took all her money and did not send any for groceries.

I forgave him when my brothers’ friends were doing grocery shopping just to keep her alive.

I forgave him after finding the pictures of his vacation with his mistress.

I forgave him for lying about not being able to come home.

I forgave him for letting her die.

I forgave him for inviting his mistress to the funeral.

I forgave him for taking such good care of my brother after he got the same sickness that killed her, the care he just did not give to her.

I forgave him for bringing his mistress into my mothers’ house.

I forgave him for getting his mistress pregnant.

I forgave him for letting his mistress tell me on my birthday, the birthday I shared with my mother.

I forgave him for making his mistress, his wife.

I even forgave him for never being a father.

It not that I am tired of forgiving. I just realized that the problem was that he was never sorry. There was never a moment of regret or shame with him. If he is not sorry, he will do it again. Does that not make me the fool? I just do not give him enough room to need my forgiveness now. I do not hate him or resent him. I just do not; when it comes to him...I just do not. I just cannot. How many times have I heard “they can only hurt you as much as you let them”, how many times have I said it? Well it is true! Life has given me a choice, my life or my father. And I choose life. There is just no room for both. I hope he can forgive me, but even if he cannot I will not be around to notice.

I love him, I was made to, that comes naturally to me, more naturally then loving myself but I am learning still. Learning to love him less and love me. And it will come because I made my choice, the right choice. The only choice...really.

Dear Men