Millie O’Neill
As a child, you always see your parents as these invincible super-humans. After all, they did put up with my psychologically traumatic teenage hormones at their peak. Parents want to protect you, they put on a brave face, they try to shelter you from what is dark in life. But sometimes they can’t, and sometimes, it’s important for them not to. When someone you see as so incredibly strong is forcibly made weak by disease, it’s an adjustment, to say the least. Before he got cancer, I had only seen my father fighting for me, and in that battle he was undefeated.
The poem below is about the circular patterns and routines of life, and how something as incomprehensible as cancer can put it all into perspective. Suddenly so much that was so important seems trivial. I realise what I took for granted: the moments I should have savoured; the conversations I should have had in the car on the way to school instead of glaring at a screen. Suddenly it’s a struggle to go to do simple things, like open your book in class, or maintain a bubbly and bright aura in front of peers. Everything seems superficial and inauthentic to life’s true purpose. Everyone’s complaints about minor everyday problems enrage you. When events like this give us a broader perspective, sometimes our philosophy of life changes.
Many New Zealanders have first-hand experience of earthquakes and through television have seen the devastation caused by hurricanes, floods, typhoons and tsunamis. The stories that come out of these disasters are similar to the stories I read during my research into parental bereavement for my PhD thesis. First, in terms of reaction, there’s the initial paralysing shock and fear of the future, then there’s struggling to survive, and finally, for most people, there’s rebuilding. In grieving any kind of major disaster it can take a long time to determine how to make life work again in a world that has irrevocably changed.
