Airdre- “My stepmother died and my father had a house with a room underneath so we siblings in our wisdom decided we could put Angus in the house to look after our ailing father, completely forgetting that they hated each other. What were we thinking? He went back to the house and my father resumed the nasty relationship he’d had when Angus was a child, calling him the names he used to call him and Angus just drank more and withdrew. My father gave us both names. Angus was called Useless and I was Ugly. Eventually my older brother took my father to a nursing home. My father, I suppose in his penance bought my brother a flat in Wellington so we knew he was safe and warm. Then he died. Angus had an ulcer. He was on his own and it burst. My sister found him.
His story is so much a part of my story. Every morning I wake up and I say his name. I miss him and I have regrets that I couldn’t save him or do more. I have great sorrow about that and I was heartbroken. I think it contributes to some of the loneliness I feel now because I miss my twin. I found all my letters the other day urging him to come and join me. I was taken to his flat when he died and all the letters I had written to him from 30 years ago were in a neat pile on top of the desk. I didn’t know he kept them. It was kind of like they were waiting for me.
When my husband left and I didn’t know what to do with myself. My father said to me, You are milling around in an aimless fashion. I said, I bloody am and I will continue. It’s not aimless, I’m milling around in a tear struck fashion.
I had a really strong dream, I woke up and the voice in my dream said…You are going to do a PhD in Spirituality and Health and at the end of the dream it said I would teach at the University Tierra Del Fuego which is the island off the bottom of South America that nobody lives on. That part didn’t happen but I went to the Uni here and found someone to supervise me with a PhD on the relationship between Spirituality and Health. It was a long hard slog and took me 7 years. While I was doing it I was raising my girls and working part time at the Uni. I got a job in the teaching and learning centre which is where I am full time now. It turns out I’m quite good at melancholy, suffering, pain and grief (laughs). I write about that and I get published.
This year I’m invited to speak at a conference in New Zealand on suffering for the NZ Herbalists. Normally they talk about how many herbs you should take but I say ‘No! Let’s understand the story around the persons illness.’ I write about the narratives of illness and I’m terrific on suffering and pain. I’m just now writing about melancholy and disappointment. They are so central to who we are and often brushed aside, often told to get over it, toughen up… but disappointment is huge. It turns out that I’m good at that.
After Angus died and I was messed up as often happens in times of extreme upset there’s an element of magic. Your everyday covers are stripped away and the magic in the world becomes more evident. I discovered that I had leave owing to me I didn’t even know I had.
I went to NZ for Angus’s funeral and 2 remarkable things happened there. When I got off the plane my sister asked if I wanted to see him. I said ‘Yes of course I do’. We went to the funeral home and my eldest daughter was with me. We went into the room where Angus was in his coffin and my sister asked if I wanted to be on my own which I did. Everyone left and I pulled up a chair next to my brother. When people are in coffins they make them up and you touch them and they are so cold. I think it’s a really good thing to do. I pulled up the chair thinking it was impossible to recover from the pain I was feeling. While I was sitting there this incredible sweetness flowed out of my brother to me. It was incredible kindness and sweetness the like of which I have never ever experienced. It just flowed out from him and I became incredibly calm and reassured and I just knew he was in a really good place because his pain and suffering had finished. I sat there bathed in this love that came to me. After a while I went out and my daughter said ‘Mum, what happened?’ I said ’It’s going to be all right.’ I ended up carrying the whole funeral. I knew exactly what to do because I had that sweetness and love carrying me the whole time.
The second remarkable thing that happened. My daughter had to go back to Brisbane so I travelled back on my own from Wellington the following day. When I got on the plane I told the flight attendant that I had just come from my brothers funeral so I’m weeping and it’s probably better that I sit on my own. There was me, an empty seat then an elderly woman. Once we were settled for the flight I turned to the woman and I said, ‘Just to let you know I have just come from my twin brothers funeral and that’s why I’m crying’. She said, I’m a twin! I said What? She talked to me about her twin and that woman was like an angel who carried me across the Tasman. She said to me ‘You need to go to Iona.’ The island of Iona is a sacred island in the Hebrides in Scotland. It’s one of the sacred sites of the world. It’s a holy place. She gave me a postcard of angels carrying St Brigid across the Irish Sea to Iona and she wrote on it ‘Go to Iona’ this complete stranger! We got off the plane and I never saw her again. I kept that postcard and I thought, I am going to go to Iona.
His story is so much a part of my story. Every morning I wake up and I say his name. I miss him and I have regrets that I couldn’t save him or do more. I have great sorrow about that and I was heartbroken. I think it contributes to some of the loneliness I feel now because I miss my twin. I found all my letters the other day urging him to come and join me. I was taken to his flat when he died and all the letters I had written to him from 30 years ago were in a neat pile on top of the desk. I didn’t know he kept them. It was kind of like they were waiting for me.
When my husband left and I didn’t know what to do with myself. My father said to me, You are milling around in an aimless fashion. I said, I bloody am and I will continue. It’s not aimless, I’m milling around in a tear struck fashion.
I had a really strong dream, I woke up and the voice in my dream said…You are going to do a PhD in Spirituality and Health and at the end of the dream it said I would teach at the University Tierra Del Fuego which is the island off the bottom of South America that nobody lives on. That part didn’t happen but I went to the Uni here and found someone to supervise me with a PhD on the relationship between Spirituality and Health. It was a long hard slog and took me 7 years. While I was doing it I was raising my girls and working part time at the Uni. I got a job in the teaching and learning centre which is where I am full time now. It turns out I’m quite good at melancholy, suffering, pain and grief (laughs). I write about that and I get published.
This year I’m invited to speak at a conference in New Zealand on suffering for the NZ Herbalists. Normally they talk about how many herbs you should take but I say ‘No! Let’s understand the story around the persons illness.’ I write about the narratives of illness and I’m terrific on suffering and pain. I’m just now writing about melancholy and disappointment. They are so central to who we are and often brushed aside, often told to get over it, toughen up… but disappointment is huge. It turns out that I’m good at that.
After Angus died and I was messed up as often happens in times of extreme upset there’s an element of magic. Your everyday covers are stripped away and the magic in the world becomes more evident. I discovered that I had leave owing to me I didn’t even know I had.
I went to NZ for Angus’s funeral and 2 remarkable things happened there. When I got off the plane my sister asked if I wanted to see him. I said ‘Yes of course I do’. We went to the funeral home and my eldest daughter was with me. We went into the room where Angus was in his coffin and my sister asked if I wanted to be on my own which I did. Everyone left and I pulled up a chair next to my brother. When people are in coffins they make them up and you touch them and they are so cold. I think it’s a really good thing to do. I pulled up the chair thinking it was impossible to recover from the pain I was feeling. While I was sitting there this incredible sweetness flowed out of my brother to me. It was incredible kindness and sweetness the like of which I have never ever experienced. It just flowed out from him and I became incredibly calm and reassured and I just knew he was in a really good place because his pain and suffering had finished. I sat there bathed in this love that came to me. After a while I went out and my daughter said ‘Mum, what happened?’ I said ’It’s going to be all right.’ I ended up carrying the whole funeral. I knew exactly what to do because I had that sweetness and love carrying me the whole time.
The second remarkable thing that happened. My daughter had to go back to Brisbane so I travelled back on my own from Wellington the following day. When I got on the plane I told the flight attendant that I had just come from my brothers funeral so I’m weeping and it’s probably better that I sit on my own. There was me, an empty seat then an elderly woman. Once we were settled for the flight I turned to the woman and I said, ‘Just to let you know I have just come from my twin brothers funeral and that’s why I’m crying’. She said, I’m a twin! I said What? She talked to me about her twin and that woman was like an angel who carried me across the Tasman. She said to me ‘You need to go to Iona.’ The island of Iona is a sacred island in the Hebrides in Scotland. It’s one of the sacred sites of the world. It’s a holy place. She gave me a postcard of angels carrying St Brigid across the Irish Sea to Iona and she wrote on it ‘Go to Iona’ this complete stranger! We got off the plane and I never saw her again. I kept that postcard and I thought, I am going to go to Iona.