Miracle of Life
Our
Story
This book is a celebration of life and shares a journey of love, loss, despair, longing and remembrance.
It is dedicated to all of us who have losted a loved one. A book inspired by the sheer joy of life and everything in it that was embodied by my late daughter; and the tsunami of sorrow and pain that was felt when she was so suddenly taken from us. I was fortunate to have her mother, younger siblings, family and friends around me to help, together with a psychologist I can never thank enough.
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Mourning the loss of a loved one is a universal truth. This is my private story, but I’ve gone public with it in the hope that there is at least one person out there that will find it helpful.
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With artwork by Steph and words by her dad, this book of 19 "words on the page" follows Tony’s 10-year journey to a more positive place after losing his eldest daughter.
HOME FIRED MOONS​
(Birth Day) Her first day of life, started writing soon after arriving home from the hospital following a long night into early morning and the arrival of our first-born child (America)
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The day of your birth we held onto each other
The little finger of my right hand
Held by your left, gripping tight the cry of freedom​
When you're away, digging deep down cool moon roads
That lift and sigh, star struck in wonder at your travelling
Can I dig the mundane?
Nourishing with water the red-hot dirt
Till once in a long while the big earth
Slumber stirred, soup slurps you back Into your birth home, into my arms
Cupping hands again
Warmed by fires of love and family
No poem or words possible just pain
(Here at 26)
She found love in New York City
then lost her life to a taxicab
FLOWERED FIELDS
(Here but not here at 27)
Emotional paralysis. Showers triggered uncontrollable sobbing as I went into a kind of lockdown. Very dark thoughts (England)
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Imagine lying half-awake
In wildly flowered fields
Half-naked and with fork in hand
You score the skin, then sprinkle in,
Small coloured seeds.
Then doze away to dream of birds
In tall trees green but turning black
RAGE
(Here but not here at 28)
Anger all consuming (England)
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Pulling myself apart. Standing outside alone
Looking into view
The cold sweat horror of a stranger
Out of mind control into rage overload
Fused brainbox short
Black shock terror for the loved ones
Light the blue touch paper on my head
Explode the violence
Of a red messy endgame
Angry shrapnel daggers inflict and imbed
Their poison into others
No safe retreat for them as their lights go out
REAR-VIEW MIRROR
(Here but not here at 30)
Reflecting on the past 4 years when I was able to scream my head off in a private space (England)
Year 4, post Armageddon
Still driving the valleys in a beat-up daydream, still sobbing away, still shouting at the glass
What’s left of my children start up battery charged chatter in the back
Gears engage, radio crackles into life – Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror”
Falling out of a clear blue sky, a blinding sun. I slow down. We’re on an open road in the outer suburbs.
“Welcome to the City of Happy-ness”
Split second thoughts that things really should be different, that the horizon brings an upbeat City
But parent to its alter ego; Munch’s Scream. A great unending, piercing through nature
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And running on ahead against a violent, blood red sky.
A close-up blinding vision of the present, that trips the switch and pulls the plug.
Lights out, brakes jam, wheels skid, gears reverse.
Crash my foot down - get the fuck out.
Prior removal of rear-view mirror always an added bonus
As I wave myself a welcome back to dream valley.
To die, to sleep from ages gone. I cannot be these words outside
The windows closed, the heaters on
I shuffle on ... I shu​ffle on.