Letters to Shiloh - the anatomy of loss

Forks stab through soft flesh at plates, wine stains lips…

The dinner conversation lulls. I invite you in. Bursting in my mind, you are up to your mischief, a perfect story for the crowd.

You dance behind my eyes, and flirt with the room. You are alive in my animation.
I recall your stubborn beauty, the countenance with which you revered no one and the world at once. You tell us all with such charisma what defines you.

Your brother hears you and he lights up. Ever so briefly. But then he resumes chewing. Eyes cast downward. He is worried about me. Worried that you might spill out and push over my glass of wine. Splattering red like a crime scene across the white expanse of the table.

The other guests are nervous. I want them to love your antics but they wonder at the mother. A woman who could unhinge in the whirlwind of what they think is a memory.

Everyone feels trapped. By your beauty and my sorrow that bubbles underneath.

You aren’t at the table and I am the only one who doesn’t know it. Cannot see the dust reflecting in the light where you would have peeked up from underneath. Your brown hand, soft, warm, quick is not pulling at the tablecloth, toppling the fragile china. There is no reprimand for you. Only a fleeting pity for the mother.

A woman who knows a crushing void that cannot be filled by dinner conversation or the best Shiraz. A woman who lies so still in the night, straining to hear your voice in the still counterexistence of darkness.

You have not quieted in your absence. Still playing with me – dragging me to the point of tears with ease, triggered by one line from your favourite song on the radio.

Your crimson spirit so sharp, so elusive you make me crave the fiery child you were, and the boundless essence you will always be.

But for now there is dessert to serve and I must reassure the guests. I have to let go of the kite strings for now. I slump slightly in my chair, my excitement abated. The conversation resumes and turns swiftly back to the weather.



Art piece from Strange Skeletons Abstract Art, piece called Overwhelming Grief

5 Years since you've been gone: on visiting the cemetery

It was so difficult those first couple years, arriving at Osu cemetery, full of dread and love sick for the want of you. Incredulous that this place, wedged between the football stadium and the conference centre, scene of so many funerals, where swarms of black and red clad mourners and hangers on gathered, and the traffic piled up – could house you, my baby, my son.

Each time we emerged from the car, we were swarmed by the gangs of cemetery boys who spend their days sleeping on the grave stones and smoking marijuana.

I was floored as we battled our way through the crowd of them, jostling, each fighting for the tip they’d get to show us ‘our grave’.

I stumbled along the muddy path, blurry eyed, deep into the forest, serenaded by swooping moths and with the street-fight banter of the boys behind us, urging us onward.

John’s hand, a warm reassurance, tugged at me ever so slightly to the left, off the main path, toward your grave.

I was dizzy with grief and the pungent smell of weed, as the smoke wafted up in tufts, swirling through the green green forest roof, captive like us, under the oppressive heat. The rot of leaves and bodies left a stain inside me. Even now I can conjure up the smell, the sound…

A few boys would run ahead of the others, shouting your tribal name, “Kpakpo!”, and the others, “Kpakpo Mingle!”. “Madam, this way-o, follow me, I will show you.”

We clambered over other people’s graves, some smooth polished, others caved in completely, the name barely visible.

The boys would jump, triumphant when they found you. They tore rabidly at the wild vines that had smothered the site, ripping them from their roots in a frenzy to please me, to ensure a good ‘dash’.

I was too weak to argue, to shout, “GET AWAY FROM ME, FROM US! HOW DARE YOU INVADE MY SPACE AT A TIME LIKE THIS?!” Instead, I blinked away tears and nodded. Docile, non-present.

And then I would be faced with a terrazzo block, rectangular, with a raised panel, it had your name, misspelled though it was, written across the front in bold black letters. And below it, “6 YEARS OLD”. And each time I see it, even in my mind’s eye, I weep.

6 years old, yet gone. And I could not find you there at all. I sat at the edge of the cool stone, above the earth that houses your body below. And I felt nothing. And I knew you were not there. Not dumped into the hungry ground, part of a chain of decay and growth.

You, being the soul that dazzled my days, and the light that screamed out from your eyes – this earth cannot hold you.

And I looked up, through the maze of branches and saw a glimpse of sky. Through the tears I saw you in not seeing you at all. My baby, you shine down now.



And after John mechanically took out his camera and recorded the event, I stood and walked numbly back, staring at the red mud under my feet, even as he negotiated with the boys who hovered close by, how much each would get, who helped most, who was most aggressive.

I needed to protect the fragility of my mind and my bleeding heart. I flew up above and left my walking shell, the robot below to make its way back to the waiting car.

And since then I visit rarely. No reason to feed the boys; to tear at the eager vines. Leave them rather, to their lives, to that cycle of decay and growth.

You and I, we are out of that circle. We are free now. You above, and me here for now – meeting in dreams and in the laugh of children. Meeting as we do in the aisles of the supermarket through memories. You remind me of the times we chose which face on the hair dye boxes we would be, and of course which one was John, and we’d laugh – and there I stand with a knowing smile on my mouth, in my eyes, you shine.

Shiloh Nights

In the hours where night blurs the lines of day, and the laws of physics and form are soft and pliable, I often float to you.

I call out and find you, elusive and ageless. The energy of your smile dazzles and carries me into a new place where you comfort me with your presence. You take the form I know, the soft downy boy’s body I crave and adore, you come back to spend some time with me and fill my heart with just enough, so I can keep going in the day, when you’ve gone.

This is my secret – our night meetings where I give you your favourite biscuits and watch the crumbs on your tiny lips. Where your laughter is pure sunshine and your voice is an angel’s. My angel.

Last night you were three. All the memories of you then, so little, came flooding back...
And though it was such a short visit, and you slept in another room, I needed you and you came. I held your tiny warm hand. I draw around your fingernails with my mind. The rough skin at the edge of each round nail, the soft pad of your palms. I breathed you in and held my breath. Though I dreamt a regular dream, somehow we both knew that you had come to help. That I needed your eyes, your skin, your little soul.

And days that hold a silence and a dull gray emptiness, I find myself alone in the car, your song will tease me from the radio, “I will go down with this ship, and I won’t put my hands up and surrendah” I hear your proud little voice singing along. But it is only a memory and the reality of day pierces my senses. Tears roll down my helpless face.



It is only our secret nights where ‘real’ is weak and love is stronger, that I am strengthened. Your power my boy, is bigger than I and this shallow world that you have left.

I love you like my baby and respect you far beyond. At once you are gone and yet you haven’t left me.

When my brave face laughs and I feel the happiness of love, the joy of good friends and good food and the tickle of a gentle breeze, you are the one I cling to inside.

I know in a way that only mystery can answer, that we have traded places. I took care of you here, I wiped your tears away and cuddled you at night, and now you take care of me – soothing my fears and cuddling me in that special place where night blurs the lines of day.

Happy Birthday Shiloh

My amazing boy Shiloh died 4 years ago at 6 years old. What a statement, yet it's true. Today he would have been 10 years old. I can barely believe it.

I am crushed at times by the bitter sadness of not having him around us everyday.

But there's nothing better than celebrating those you love, and today I send all my love out to the universe for Shiloh.

A very special person sent me some words to live by today, that I share below:

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal. ~From a headstone in Ireland

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. ~Kahlil Gibran