Its a strange coincidence that the Lone Groover made a post about songs taking him back to bad times and then me having the same sort of moment on Sunday while I was painting the bedroom.
The smell of fresh paint and actually even the process of painting took me back about four years ago when I painted downstairs and the stairwell of the house during the Christmas season. Anyone who knows a trini knows that we always paint at Christmas, I believe it goes back to our grandparents who used to "prepare the house for Jesus' visitation" but I digress. My mother had gone to the states to visit her sisters in California and I decided it would be a good idea to surprise her when she returned. A few months later we extended the house and I once again was primary with help from then "living-in-sin unit". The extension consisted of a bedroom with toilet and bath and back porch for my mother and so now I apparently associate painting and the smell of paint with her.
Needless to say my mind was constantly on her while I was painting, with secondary thoughts of my father who had died when I was one and a half. She died just shy of thirty years after my father was buried, I only realised this while going through her papers afterwards and I found the records. She had a couple of relationships during that time but she never ever got over him, it seems as if I would never get over her either.
The pain when she died was actually physical as well as mental, it had since been reduced to a dull ache but smelling that paint yesterday brought it back.
When a person dies all you are left with are memories and a good helping of regret. My regrets stem from the fact that I was not able to help her the way she needed to be helped in the months leading up to her death. I was struggling with trying to get myself under control, not being able to focus on anything for any period of time and not being able to read and understand anything. At that point I could not even help myself much less anyone else, but I regret that I was both impotent and too caught up in my own world and my own worries to give her the support and help that she needed. A few days before she died I apologised for not being as good a daughter as she deserved, to which she replied that I was always a good daughter and I had nothing to apologise for. I don't believe it , I probably never will deep down.
The actual illness that led up to her death was short, two weeks between getting sick and being dead. It could have been prevented, had I paid more attention to her and helped her keep her illnesses under control she would have been here today. Had the doctors been able to read all the signs better and looked carefully at all the symptoms to make a diagnosis instead of treating each thing differently and not making a connection, she would have been here today. Its everybody's fault, its my fault, its my sister's fault, it her fault, its noone's fault.
Paint
painting
painted into a corner and forced to look inside.
Smells
memories
triggered
no tears shed
another day survived
Its a strange coincidence that the Lone Groover made a post about songs taking him back to bad times and then me having the same sort of moment on Sunday while I was painting the bedroom.
The smell of fresh paint and actually even the process of painting took me back about four years ago when I painted downstairs and the stairwell of the house during the Christmas season. Anyone who knows a trini knows that we always paint at Christmas, I believe it goes back to our grandparents who used to "prepare the house for Jesus' visitation" but I digress. My mother had gone to the states to visit her sisters in California and I decided it would be a good idea to surprise her when she returned. A few months later we extended the house and I once again was primary with help from then "living-in-sin unit". The extension consisted of a bedroom with toilet and bath and back porch for my mother and so now I apparently associate painting and the smell of paint with her.
Needless to say my mind was constantly on her while I was painting, with secondary thoughts of my father who had died when I was one and a half. She died just shy of thirty years after my father was buried, I only realised this while going through her papers afterwards and I found the records. She had a couple of relationships during that time but she never ever got over him, it seems as if I would never get over her either.
The pain when she died was actually physical as well as mental, it had since been reduced to a dull ache but smelling that paint yesterday brought it back.
When a person dies all you are left with are memories and a good helping of regret. My regrets stem from the fact that I was not able to help her the way she needed to be helped in the months leading up to her death. I was struggling with trying to get myself under control, not being able to focus on anything for any period of time and not being able to read and understand anything. At that point I could not even help myself much less anyone else, but I regret that I was both impotent and too caught up in my own world and my own worries to give her the support and help that she needed. A few days before she died I apologised for not being as good a daughter as she deserved, to which she replied that I was always a good daughter and I had nothing to apologise for. I don't believe it , I probably never will deep down.
The actual illness that led up to her death was short, two weeks between getting sick and being dead. It could have been prevented, had I paid more attention to her and helped her keep her illnesses under control she would have been here today. Had the doctors been able to read all the signs better and looked carefully at all the symptoms to make a diagnosis instead of treating each thing differently and not making a connection, she would have been here today. Its everybody's fault, its my fault, its my sister's fault, it her fault, its noone's fault.
Paint
painting
painted into a corner and forced to look inside.
Smells
memories
triggered
no tears shed
another day survived