COLOURS OF MY LIFE

I had the green light!

No question. I saw it! Dashcams and traffic cameras would all back me up.

Now, unfortunately, all I was seeing was a flashing kaleidoscope of colours – blue sky, red brake lights, yellow indicators – over and over, and then - blackness.

I was lost in a void of light. Black. Nothing but black.

Black is not a colour in the technical sense, black is the absence of light.

I don’t know how long I was there, in that nothingness, but now, suddenly, everything was red.

I will forever associate that colour, now, with pain. Excruciating, unbelievable fiery, pain. I wished for the black to return. At least with black, there was no pain.

Once, I use to associate red with wonderful things. The red glow from a fire that embraced me in its warmth; the dry red earth of our beautiful land that always filled my heart with pride. And red sunsets, so breathtaking in their splendour that you didn’t want them to end.

Now, if I could, I would scream to the world to wipe out red forever.

Relief in the form of black was always so brief. It only lasted till the red pain broke through again.

Time must have passed, though I had no true concept of it.

Suddenly my mind filled with blue. Why blue?

Blue is for air and water. The first had been cut off and now the second was overwhelming me. I was drowning!

How? Why? I hadn’t been swimming. How could I be drowning? But the waves of blue crashed over me. My lungs struggled to expand to allow air to flow in, but blue water was filling them instead.

Blue should be calm. Sky blue and all the shades that mother nature could conjure. Ocean blues I would watch for hours and never tire of the changing hues. The far-off horizon of deep ultra-marine to the beautiful turquoise and cobalt and all the gradations through the waves. The ever-changing hues depending on the light. A cloudy day would instantly change the bright, clear blues to dark, ominous blue-greens. And a flowing river or a still pond, reflecting the colours of the sky. These I could relax with and find calm.

But now, blue was my enemy!

I was struggling against the tide. I had been caught in a rip and I was going under.

Now the red was returning ten-fold. My throat was burning, my chest was being crushed and my lungs could no longer expand. What space they had was now filled with fluid and it was now red!

At some point, I know not when, blackness took me into its welcoming embrace.

* * * * * * * *

Time is a strange concept.

It only has relevance to those that can see and hear things flowing around them. Life and time - measured by a series of nights and days, sunrises and sunsets; hunger, thirst, warmth, cold. It is also measured by movement within space and emotions – love, hate, fear, relief, joy and sadness.

Without all these things, life is suspended; without meaning or purpose.

This is where I was.

For how long?

I had no notion, but at some point, in someone’s time – not mine – I came out of the black void.

* * * * * * * *

White! That is what I could see now. Again, technically, white is not a colour.

“White is what we see when all wavelengths of light are reflected off an object …”(1)

It was blinding, this white thing. My brain tried to give it a tag. I knew it was going through my memory bank of files, looking for a tag.

I read about it once.

Very interesting information about how the brain processes what comes through your eyes and how it identifies things.

So, with everyone’s brain being different, two people, looking at the same scene, will probably come up with different versions of what they witness.

Now my brain, finally, concluded that I was looking at a very bright light.

Then my other senses started to kick in. I could hear voices speaking in hushed tones. There was also a sucking noise and then a click, then sucking, then click.

I had no idea what that was.

Beep, beep, beep ...…

I tried to speak but found something was blocking my mouth. I started to gag but then blackness took me again.

Yellow. Yellow sun and its warmth on your face; marigolds bobbing in the breeze; yellow-striped bees sucking nectar from a blossom; golden blooms of wattle in spring; and warm sand between your toes as you run along the beach.

My brain was cataloguing the colour in my memories. The last memory was the strongest because that is where I thought I was now.

Running on the beach.

I opened my eyes but the bright sun was blinding me. Where was the water? I tried to turn my head to look but found something was stopping me. The sun turned from yellow to white and I was no longer on the beach.

I must have made a sound because suddenly the light went out, or so I thought. As my eyes adjusted, I realised the light was still there but someone was leaning over me, blocking it. I couldn’t see their face but they started to shine a pinpoint light in my eyes.

I tried to turn my head away but still found I could not move.

My brain was scrambling around trying to make sense of this fact. A voice spoke softly with words I could not comprehend. Though my mouth was free to move now, no words would form.

Violet – a colour midway between blue and red on the colour wheel. It is opposite to yellow and is classed as a secondary colour and complementary to yellow.

Well, that says it all.

One minute my brain is cataloguing all the wonderful things I associate with yellow and now my brain has flipped to violet and purple.

Fear! It screams – fear!

I can’t move, I can’t speak and I can’t feel anything below my neck.

Oh, God! Help me!

Violet and purple - magnificent avenues of jacaranda trees, agapanthus blooms at Christmas, lavender, lilacs and purple daisy blooms in a summer garden.

Now I wondered if I would ever see these things again. Violet was fear and it consumed my brain. My brain was being battered and it was bruised purple and violet. My thoughts had no escape. Now that I was out of the black void, time was my enemy too.

It seemed to go so slowly.

Eventually, it was broken up by familiar faces. When I saw my husband, he appeared to have aged at least 10 years. It made me wonder how long I had been in that nothingness.

But then, I saw my young children and was relieved to see that it must have been the worry that had aged him. He had to lift each of the children so that I could see them. I was still locked in my limited world. It was like I was watching a television screen and I could only see what entered that field of vision.

My brain started to decipher conversations that flowed around me. This only increased my fear. I heard someone saying that there was little more that could be done. I assumed they were talking about me.

Words such as ‘Nursing Home’ and ‘quality of life’ were uttered.

I had plenty of time in my limited world to contemplate the meaning of these words. There was no place, in my mind, that these words were acceptable. As much as I loved my husband and children and wanted to be there with them, there was no way to accomplish that as I was. I would not put them through that. My husband was still young. He could have a future and love again. My children could grow and remember me as I was, not as I am now.

I could not speak of this to them; I had no way to communicate my thoughts. My sadness, my fear. I have always been in favour of euthanasia but even if it was legal, I had no way to make my wishes known.

Once again, time passed, ever so slowly. My family visited and my husband was a constant at my side. He told me that my sister had stepped up to help with the children. It was, unfortunately, a very one-sided conversation. If I could have spoken, I would have told him to spend the time with the children instead of with me. There was nothing he could do for me and the children needed him more now than ever.

I could not say the words.

* * * * * * * *

I woke to the colour red again.

It was a fire consuming me. I could hear someone say “an infection, resistant to antibiotics” and this time I hoped for permanent release. Not just the black void, though that could be good, it wasn’t permanent.

I longed now for green.

Not the green light of the traffic lights that bought me here; not the beautiful shades of grass and trees, stormy seas and stormy skies. No, this was a special green.

Green is midway between the two primary colours of blue and yellow on the colour wheel. It is opposite to red so is classed as complementary to red.

The green I was wishing for was closer to the yellow end of the scale. I’m not even sure if I can describe it, but I will try.

Sometimes, at the end of a beautiful day, in that twilight time, when the gold of the sun has gone and the sky in the east has darkened enough to be able to see the evening star, there is a pale shade of green along the western horizon. It looks so beautiful.

It always makes me think it is the day clinging on, trying to hold back the night. I would often watch this battle between the last of the day and the encroaching night. I would gaze at that green light and will it to hang on.

But now, I was like that green light and, just like it, I was losing the battle – but this time it would be a welcome release.

By Margaret Flood

(1) britannica.com/story/are-black-and-white-colors