The Longing

Some people say children cannot grieve, that the losses we experience as children have to be grieved when we are adults. Those same people say that all psychology is child psychology. I kind of believe that. Still it's a surprise when a feeling from my fifteenth year is finally released into my dreams now, at fifty.

I suspect the dream was triggered by the audiobook I'm listening to. In the book, a mother leaves and a girl is left alone with the care of her dad. She's too young for the job, but she manages.

So I found myself back in the old homestead of my uncle and aunt, with whom I went to live after my father had died at our house in Hall Street. One small-town Sunday afternoon in May he suffered his final heart attack alone in his darkened bedroom while I was out visiting a friend in the sunshine. The guilt that ensued sanctions its own chapter. For now we'll stick with the loss.

In the days after his death family flocked to our house and I don't remember much, other than sitting in a car outside the house, being told to choose with whom I wanted to go and live. I chose the old people, because I thought I would be less trouble for them. I wasn't.

I remember waiting in another car in the parking lot while my much older cousin went into the local hospital to finalise something and was walked out by the matron. The latter asked where I would be living and my cousin said I'd go to her mom and dad in another province. Ten minste kom dit dan nie op jou af nie, the matron said. It was not the first time I had felt like a burden, but it was possibly the most acute.

The word orphan was never spoken. I thought I was too old for the classification, anyway. Technically I could have been institutionalised were it not for family. My uncle and aunt went out of their way to make a place for me in their modest farmhouse and in my post-bereavement stupor - which would last many years - I tried to fit into the confines of that prepared space.

But it was not my home. I would have preferred to be left alone in my own home with all my animals like Pippi Longstocking. The tale of Pippi was a fantasy I would revisit often as a way to avoid dealing with the loss of home, parents, pets. Pippi's mother died soon after Pippi's birth and her father was absent, "lost at sea". Yet Pippi was able to remain (by) herself thanks to a suitcase of gold coins, her friendship with neighbours, her beloved animals, her story-telling imagination, and a home of her own.

As an adult I can see why the character appealed to me. Astrid Lindgren herself explained that Pippi's significance lay in the fact that she had power and could defy social conventions. Neither of which I had, or could do at the time.

So in the dream two nights ago I saw myself telling my aunt I didn't want to stay with them anymore. I had spoken to my dad on the phone. The phonecall had been so real I could see his face clearly and I felt like I used to feel when he was near: safe, loved, connected. My love for him flowed freely. So did his love for me - which I had thought lost - and the possibility of a home of my own became real. His absence remained unexplained in the dreamworld, but I knew he regretted having left and he was ready to stay with me.

I knew I had to go and live with him; I needed it more than I had ever needed anything. The craving for my father was excruciating. I could never feel this savage pull at the time the loss happened. All I felt then was ugly and undeserving of life.  This fervent longing was unpolluted and unbearably beautiful. It was finally safe to experience only three-and-a-half decades later and within the confines of a dream.

I, the me inside me, was restored when I decided I wanted to live with my dad. We would make it work. We would look after each other. I had never known such deep yearning, such a raging desire for a home of my own. It felt good to take the power back, to steer my life towards fulfilment of this long-negated need. It felt good especially because it was finally possible.

I rose repeatedly from deep sleep and willed myself back into the dream to experience the heady freedom of self-determination, the restoration of identity, the experience of a different past. I'd got my father back! I could have my home back! I felt simultaneously overjoyed and deeply humbled; intensely alive. I could be myself again. All I had to do was phone my dad and tell him about my decision.

But I couldn't reach him. I called and called his number, but he didn't answer.