Pieces Of My Heart

I walked into the church, holding Mum’s hand, and wearing a borrowed dress because none of mine were good enough for a funeral. At seven years of age, people thought I didn’t understand, but I did.

It was traumatic seeing the dark wooden coffin at the front of the church, knowing my beloved dad was inside, his battle with cancer over. After the service, Mum said, “We don’t have a Daddy anymore.” And my innocent heart broke for the first time. It was 1968.

What scared me most were Mum’s tears — I’d never seen an adult cry before. I didn’t like this thing called grief. It had taken a little piece of my heart.

Life flew by, as life tends to do. I grew up. I loved and lost. And loved again. I married and had three beautiful sons. I lost friends along the way and shed many tears for precious souls taken too early.

When my marriage ended, a different kind of grief sat in my heart. I grieved for the ‘happy ever after’ that never eventuated. But I threw myself into parenting my three growing boys, and surprisingly, it was the best time of my life.

And always there, in the background, to help me through was my own darling Mum. She had the strength and courage of a titan. In my eyes, she could fix everything — except she couldn’t fix herself.

In 2000, she was diagnosed with cancer and for only the third time in my life, I saw her cry again. “I’ll get better,” she vowed. “I just have to get better.” She didn’t.

Her once vibrant energy vanished and her skeletal body diminished with every passing day. My sister and I were with her 24/7 once she’d gone into palliative care in March 2001.

We were each holding one of Mum’s hands when she took her final breath — a gentle sigh as though in relief to be leaving her tortured body. My tears were endless. Another piece of my heart had been taken.

Thankfully, being a parent meant responsibilities. Someone needed me and that was my salvation. My boys were such amazing people. They were all musically gifted, kind, funny and loving. I felt very lucky.

That’s why I was so unprepared for Monday, June 25^th, 2001 (just three months after Mum had passed away) when my world literally imploded. Two policemen knocked on my door and told me there’d been an accident. Rhett had fallen from a tower and I needed to get to the hospital.

In shock, I rang my sons Adam and Daniel while I raced to the hospital, hoping it was nothing more than a few broken bones.

Staff ushered me into the emergency ward where Rhett was unconscious. I sat next to him and I remember saying, “Don’t you leave me, Rhett. I love you so much.” But then I heard something that turned my blood to ice. The death rattle — that same sound that Mum had made just before she passed.

I was asked to leave the room as prepared Rhett to be airlifted to a larger hospital. Just minutes later the doctor came out and said, “I’m so sorry. We did everything we could but he didn’t make it.” I heard a primal scream of agony, and then realised it had come from me.

It just couldn’t be true. Not my beautiful, fun-loving boy. I had helped to create this child. I loved him, nurtured him and delighted in him for seventeen years. Then, with no warning, he was ripped away from me.

But worse was to come. A note was found, sent to the girl who Rhett loved (but who didn’t reciprocate his feelings) detailing his intention to take his own life. Because she didn’t want to be his girlfriend, Rhett saw himself as worthless, but he’d hidden his despair.

It was devastating to tell Adam and Daniel not only that their beloved brother had died, but that he had taken his own life. Daniel, at 12 and fiercely loyal to Rhett, said “He must have been pushed.”

When Rhett died it felt as though a giant vacuum had sucked out my heart. After the initial numbness wore off, a pain which defied words filled every part of me.

I envisaged my heart as a glass jigsaw that had been dropped from a great height on to a concrete floor. It would take an eternity to repair and, even then, some pieces would remain fractured or missing. I felt I would never be whole again.

I hurt each time I contemplated the vast despair that Rhett must have felt to reach that point of no return. I tortured myself, imagining Rhett’s last thoughts, his aloneness at that moment. The many tears he must have shed, unknown to those of us who loved him and would have willingly shared his burden.

I was racked with guilt, whether deserved or not. Although the logical part of me knew Rhett had given me no sign of his inner anguish, the self-persecutor within was unforgiving. As his mum I should have died first, and he should have lived a long, fulfilling life.

Mum’s death just three months earlier was ironic. She had wanted to live but the choice had been taken from her. Rhett had life but had chosen death.

My world, as I knew it, changed in a split second — permanently. I had to learn how to live again.

Despite everything, I still love life — even a life that has given me such intense pain and sorrow.

Rhett, through his passing, taught me to never take a minute of life for granted because there are no guarantees of tomorrow. I have learnt that love never dies and no one can take away your memories.

Many pieces of my heart have been taken over the years, but the miracle is that I am still able to love. And for that I am truly thankful.