Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Luana

I am so tired. I got out of bed at about 4:40am this morning so we could catch the first ferry from the bigger island back to Upolu. It wasn’t so much the early rise though that’s put my body to strain as the fact that I didn’t have much sleep at all to begin with. And then I got a massive shock hearing about a friend that’s got into a horrible accident and is now on life support. Life support that the family will be taking off shortly as her condition is dire and chances of recovery is next to nothing. Seeing the family mechanically move through the motions of funeral arrangements and what not while their eyes represent all that is shattered, all that could have been. What do you say to someone that has just had their heart wrung dry of all the tears their eyes could produce? Sorry about your loss? Somehow words like these just don’t cut it and all you could do is have your own heart bleed out with your sorrow overflowing out of your eyes for the mother, the father, the brother, the sisters, those that are her family and loved her and the rest of us that knew her and were somehow connected to her.

Life is so precious. So brittle. We know this, and yet, we go about our lives recklessly creating complexities for ourselves that seem so big and important and yet, in death, nothing else seems to matter…its al left behind. But then again, how else are we suppose to live if not the way we do? Should we simplify everything because of death? Does it mean we have to be so careful as to prolong our lives? Is the point of it all to live until we are old and grey?

Carrying this tiny life in my belly, I cant help pondering these things. As my pregnancy progresses, my plans are that this baby will be born. Somewhere along the way, he will grow up in the same world we are all in, go to school, make friends, learn to drive, eat pizza and he will get married, bear children and make me a grandmother. Im sure Adria thought these very thoughts from when she felt Luana move in her tummy. When she took her first steps, when she saw her off to her first day at school, when she took her to the doctor for a simple flu.

Someone murmured at the hospital this morning about how all the good ones seem to be taken while the bad are still alive. I couldn’t help thinking that we all go and yet, the loss that remains with those left behind could never be comprehended. One of the many complexities of being human I suppose. We hurt, we heal. Or we don’t but we keep going until it’s our time to depart and leave the hurting for others to do.

Okay, I am making myself cry here as I am writing this. Emotions going haywire with the pregnancy but oh well…adios