"Is it true?", she asked her Uncle as she reached his bed during her first and only sleepwalking experience. She was nine years old and her mother had been taken from their home by ambulance the previous night. "Yes sweetheart, it's true", her Uncle replied as he enfolded her in his arms and cuddled her. She went back to sleep feeling safer.
The waking that morning was wrong. Usually Nan would have lit the fire in the kitchen and would have a cup of tea ready for her. This morning the next door neighbour was there, sitting at the table with Nan. Nan was smoking her cigarette in the usual way, with a two inch long ash held upright so it wouldn't fall. The kitchen was cold. "Come here sweetheart", said Nan to the girl. She went and sat on Nan's lap. "Mummy died last night", Nan told the girl. The girl can't remember if she cried.
She remembered crying last night when the ambulance people had her Mummy on a stretcher and they were taking her out of the house. "Not my Mummy! Not my Mummy", over and over again. Someone held her back.
The girl had a cup of tea. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know her Mummy was going to die. The girl knew that Mummy was sick - that's why she couldn't sleep with her any more in case the girl hurt Mummy. No-0ne ever told the girl her Mummy would die.
The girl did not remember much about that day. She sat in the lounge room while people came and went. Some of them she knew and others she didn't and yet others, she wished were not there. Some of them tried to talk to her or give her a cuddle. The girl just looked at them; she was angry. She went to bed.
Who was to blame? The people who didn't tell her Mummy was going to die? The cancer? The man who inserted himself and his five children into their lives six months before she died? The doctors who didn't do a good enough job? God? (who she didn't believe in after all the parlava that went on when she was in scripture and the man told her if she didn't read the Bible she would go to hell so Nan took her out of scripture and she played knuckle bones on the green grass under the shade of the trees with her friend instead. And anyway if there was a God he could have kept her alive). Was it her fault?
Was the girl not a good enough daughter? She had done lots of naughty things when Mummy married the man and became mummy to another five children. The girl had run away; she had torn up her new step-sister's library books and thrown all of her nail polish out of the window into the night; she had walked out of the wedding and refused to return; she had hated the bigger step-brother who always wanted her to sit on his knee; she had refused to have her last name changed to the man and his children's last name; and there were more things that would have upset her Mummy.
The girl was not involved in the funeral arrangements. She still to this day does not know what happened at the funeral. She was not allowed to go to the funeral. On that day she sat outside playing with one of Nan's marigolds. Nan always grew lots of marigolds because she said they were easy to grow and looked like sunshine and happiness. The girl picked all of the petals off one marigold, then another and then another. All afternoon. They brought her back some of the flowers from the funeral. No-one mentioned the marigolds.
Now who was going to look after the girl? The welfare woman came and asked the girl who she wanted to live with. "Nan". And so she did. Until Nan died at her son's wedding when the girl was sixteen. One of the Aunties told her. The girl had already started smoking and drinking. She smoked and drank more.
The girl went out by herself to buy a black dress to wear to the funeral while the Aunties packed up her home. When asked, the girl did not want anything from the house. She can't remember being at the funeral.
Depression ensued, school grades dropped, darkness covered the girl's world. She tried to kill herself once but it was a half-hearted attempt at running her car into a tree at low speed. She ended up living with the next door neighbour until the night she went to the pub. The girl would go into her house next door, lay down on her Nan's bed and cry for hours hoping that someone would notice her missing and actually care enough to find her. That never happened.
A move to her Aunt's in a small northern country town. A new school where she knew no-one. The onset of anxiety. Terrible grades. The old school bus with the vinyl seats with no heating or air conditioning that she travelled on for an hour to get to the new school. The declaration that she was leaving school over her Aunt's dead body. The girl got her driving license and left to return to her home town.
Now eighteen, job in a bank, travel to Europe, having a boyfriend, renting a flat, completing high school education, entrance to university to study social work. And the young adult life continued with parties, pubs, night clubs and drugs.
Got a dog and took him to the beach one day. The girl drove past the cemetery where her Mummy was buried. On the way back from the beach she stopped, put the dog on the lead and bought a bunch of flowers. The girl walked directly to her Mummy's burial site. She had only been there once before when she was ten. She was now twenty-six. The dog started digging up her Mummy's grave. The girl laughed.
She sat and pulled each petal from the bunch of marigolds and tossed them on her Mummy's grave. Then she left, went home, and fed the dog and herself. Then they watched TV and went to sleep.
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Ric
It was late afternoon, around six, when I checked my phone. There was a voice mail message from Ric. This was strange - Ric would never leave a message, he just wasn't into that kind of thing. If he called and you picked up, then great. He also didn't respond to texts. So you had to call and not leave a message if he didn't answer. Ric was like the dad I never had.
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The River That Carried My Questions
The river appeared where the forest ended, wide and patient, reflecting the pale light of early morning. Its surface moved slowly, as if reluctant to disturb the silence that rested over the valley. Imran stood on its bank, hands in his pockets, watching the water carry fragments of leaves and sky toward a destination no one could see. He had come here after many restless nights. In the city, time ran fast and loudly. Clocks ruled walls, phones ruled hands, and thoughts ruled sleep. Even when Imran closed his eyes, the world continued speaking inside him — about plans, regrets, deadlines, and choices he feared he had made too late. So he escaped, carrying nothing but questions. The path to the river wound through tall trees whose branches filtered sunlight into trembling patterns on the ground. Birds sang without urgency, as if music itself were a form of rest. Imran walked slowly, uncertain whether he sought answers or simply silence. When he reached the water, he sat on a smooth stone, letting the river speak first. At first, he heard only motion — the soft collision of currents, the whisper of water sliding over hidden rocks. But as minutes stretched into stillness, the sound became something deeper. Not noise, but rhythm. Not chaos, but order. He remembered stories his grandfather once told: that rivers were old teachers, that they carried memories of mountains, rain, and time itself. As a child, he had believed them without question. As an adult, he had forgotten how to believe at all. Imran picked up a small pebble and tossed it into the water. Circles spread outward, widening until they vanished. “Everything leaves a trace,” he murmured. His thoughts drifted back to the crossroads of his life — the job he accepted when his heart hesitated, the relationships he left unfinished, the dreams postponed in the name of safety. He had told himself these were sacrifices, but lately they felt more like abandonments. The river did not argue. Instead, it showed him something simple: every leaf, no matter how torn or twisted, kept moving. Some spun in small circles, trapped briefly by eddies, but eventually they found the main current again. Perhaps, he thought, confusion was not failure. Perhaps it was only a pause before direction. A fisherman appeared upstream, casting his line with slow precision. Each movement seemed deliberate, free from hurry. Imran watched him in quiet admiration. The man waited without impatience, as if time were an ally rather than an enemy. For the first time in weeks, Imran stopped checking his watch. He closed his eyes and listened — not to the river alone, but to himself. Beneath layers of worry, he found a gentler voice, one he had ignored for years. It spoke of curiosity, of unfinished ambitions, of a desire not for success, but for meaning. The river flowed on, unconcerned with human hesitation. When Imran opened his eyes, the light had changed. The sun now climbed higher, painting gold across the water’s surface. He realized that hours had passed unnoticed. Strangely, he did not feel he had lost time. He felt he had recovered it. Before leaving, he dipped his hand into the river. The water was cold, alive, undeniable. It reminded him that motion was natural, that stagnation was the true danger. As he stood, a thought settled gently in his mind: answers were not destinations. They were directions. He did not leave with a plan. He left with something better — clarity without pressure. Walking back through the forest, Imran noticed how light filtered through leaves, how insects traced invisible paths in air, how life continued patiently in every corner. He understood then that wisdom rarely arrived as thunder. More often, it came as water. When the city finally rose again before him, tall and restless, he did not feel the familiar tightening in his chest. The noise would return, yes. The responsibilities too. But now, somewhere beyond schedules and expectations, a river continued to flow — carrying not his answers, but his courage to keep asking. And that, he realized, was enough to begin again.
By Muhammad yaseen4 days ago in Families
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