20 October, 1998

 

I have only once in the past tried to keep a diary. It was not an especially important time in my life and I have difficulty now re-constructing why I might have ventured into such a format. What I have no difficulty at all in recalling, however, is what then transpired. One of my best friends died quite quite unexpectedly. She had no right to die. I needed her and had an expectation of a lifelong palship that would course me into maturity. I was only 9 when she died, and she but 40. She kept a diary throughout her life, by all accounts most assiduously and she was the prime mover in my jumping on board the internet and becoming a cyberkid. It is I think therefore a necessary duty for me to express my continuing regret in her untimely death by dedicating this column to the loving memory of Dr Caroline Mary Fraser, erstwhile tutor in theoretical physics at Christ Church College, Oxford.

 

Besides 3 dear grandparents, she represents my only experience of loss but my grief was so physically painful for mony a month that I cannot conceive of how one can possibly cope with the sudden and enormous loss of a parent if one is a small child as I am still, or obversely the loss of a beloved child to a parent. The loss of my brother would be even more traumatic for I anticipate his having some sort of responsibility to ensure my welfare (because I am mute) when my parents have aged into decrepitude and death. My situation is made of course far more precarious by my disability causing dependence, but fear of loss must be something that is lived with by so many aging spouses..... I shall return to this theme of death another day soon with a holiday yarn of horror, but for now I am reproducing here the extract from my previous diary of the news of Caroline's death.

 

 

 

1st February 1996

 

I was woken this morning by the sight of mum crying as she drew back my curtains I foolishly didnt see the chasm as she picked me up and said be brave Caroline died yesterday

 

have nothing but hurt inside me. I could not move for a considerable hour I flung reality away and swung somewhere on the verge of collapse Nothing ever hit me so hard such horrid incomprehensible news it is Mum spoke out memories and cried and I ignored all of it I ran up to Oxford and lay sobbing in her room why have you left me why have you gone why have you left me here crying? no solid reality of a corpse to show me solid certainty a photo on the wall shows life and depicts the day she accepted my invitation to be my godmother I loved her as one loves a person chosen to share life with I loved her till her death her sudden untimely ridiculous death I scream with anguished terror at the pain caused by death what if my mother died like her what if it all just stopped how can all my plans just fall away to nothing how can she be dead I clutch the shawl she made for mother 20 years ago I clutch her photo and am inconsolable I have no sense of anything but particles dancin next to me her gleeful voice echoes over and over I am a particle look at me wheeeeee how can she never sit with me again how can she never stand waiting in college for me again how can she dance in my head when I am so fullof tears Tuesday passed and Wednesday passed I have written to her bro. I went riding yesterday. Ive eaten all my meals. I even watched half an hour of comedy on tv life goes on and on I go life without my friend golden is the brown light pale blue the sky chill and frozen lies the earth me I am same old little me I just had a knife cut out my future surgery without anaesthetic brutally brutally not at my request not to serve any need of mine my friend has left for another journeying and selfishly I think of nothing but self we to and fro between Cal and my room keeping almost half hourly in touch with her I feel a blur of telephone calls across miles of barren snows I flee round Russia is search of her jolly in my sleigh cosy in my boots sent yonand yon and yon further yon till by a frozen lake I sit and realise Ive lost my friend grey ice blasted snow from ice it hit me and tore flesh from my tearful cheek I could not dwell in this deserted shore for even 1 second longer I rushed to open the door of memory search the store for warmer clothes to drape stiff rooted me about with the shawl I must hold it forever the photo let me be with her cherishing replaced denying I sat with her under the African stars saw her stamp her foot at Edwin listened while she told me light was night and night is light I will go on I will I will I will not stop because my friend is dead how can I leave the African tent creep out into the savage outdoors Out there is death awaiting me out there is my path I lingered beside her hearth rug gloom and sauntered as if without care away see you then and out of the dark pip pip I heard cry babe I be since then 2 days of crying unquenchable tears 2 days of heavy sleep at night without a dream that I cn recall at all I have landmarks to live with like sculptured stone in my memory huge Easter Island monuments to my friend. all my guides will be like this, will fall like this, will be solid in the minds of many Maturity will leave me in a graveyard of lost companions mentors family. She was my chosen family. she was loved by me she is missed by me I cannot bear it I have greater sympathy for Granny today than ever before to be wrenched apart by death when no resources have you for being alone My mother said she was unlike Wendy who would live alone on an uninhabited island if she could at least for large parts of the year I always fancied I wanted to be alone to experience calm and quiet but Fidden beach had children playing Fidden was not private set apart solitary cell but a different way of living with folk. I am not Wendy either I am feasted by company to comfortable repletion I like to walk alone in a garden of friends I like to be within my room and feel I am a part of a wrm and close knitted love I want to dip in and out with ease like a gentle oaring paddle in a wooden boat becalmed and safe dripping gentle rain of music back into its element I want a full circle of enveloping warmth cosy not suffocating me but not gap toothed no chink for the draught friends protect me from the fearful void of seeming eternity and friends make me feel content and happy I ramble on in selfish vein as one who has lost a friend but friends warm my soul with the pleasure of my company. Caroline liked me. she was warmed by me. It is the warmth of reciprocated feeling that I name friendship.

 

 

8th February 1996

 

I went to the Academy and my song of grief was sung for me Rory noticed my black mourning John held my hand I met Steph who fell frm Rory's bike and injured a musical shoulder On Saturday they didnt want me at the College so we shopped for dad's main birthday presie and found a lovely olde worlde battery radio that he is pleased to cherish particularly since mum xplained about the vibrations in the wood a thing picked up of course from me! Mel was doing Mussorgsky's Pictures on Friday and said I should write a book on it because I saw it in a wholly different light from the conventional one yet brought understanding to her that had hitherto been absent She sat close to me and stared intently into my eyes and said i had given her insight and had real wisdom within me I was puffed up with absurdity of it I little me is being told I am teaching well There was a role reversal that was unexpectedly honest its not that she has nothing to say but that I added to it and there was a respect for me that made me feel so appreciated as if I am me not a child to be put into child's place. I worry about the LEA statement. It is at variance with their policies towards me but Marlene's visit seemed to go well and new advice is being sought. Mum suggestedvthey should make better use of the evidence they have available I think. The Ombudslady wrote to say they are coming to visit me and the tv man wrote to say he is working on it and Sarah dear Sarah replied to my reply by return with her condolences I took a turn in the hydro session towards a overwhelmingly black void teetering fit and shock into juddering fear easily o so easily rectified by cuddling mum she got wet tho and i was so miserable I sank at home into her arms for a few more hours but i turned a corner in my grief and saw Caroline laughing gleefully at the depths of my love she would hate me to be unhappy she would love me to bellow forth my love in my own way I see I make you sad ho ho and Im glad you did love me truly get up absurd childand sing me a thingy like you like to do it will do me fine if you do me that rather than this snivelling snivelling I say show them your cloth of gold the woven metal of my mirth and ur worth make me immortal ho make my particles sing with motion whizzing round these foolish men's brains I be what a fine thought ho what a fine time it will be I do no justice to her at all but I have her converted into 3 songs with one of them so very shrill and full of merriment Wendy came and sat close to me I have my funeral dress and tights and cardi all at hand i am off to view my last view of her grey dawn comes o'er her shroud yon sunshine palls the mirth into gloom and draws tight my tense sinew no cathartic tear can fall what future can I bear death the inevitable death I must out my Carolinian songs for her there may be opportunity at a memorial service in May to be my true self mourning. I adored the feeling I got in my trying out a prone stander. hip hip for mumsy pip pip Caroline.

 

 

 

22nd February 1996

 

sad sad days have torrented by I wrote up for Simon what I felt at Highgate Cemetery her body was not recognisably my Caroline I met people who wanted to meet me I liked Anna very much but Cal warns me not to love her The musician was very intensely odd and upset I am told she is a lesbian in love with Caroline She did not interest me very much: I think she is a snatcher I am increasingly aware of snatchers around me and I infinitely prefer the generous

diary writing is a waste of time fin

 

Now I suggest you do as I am doing in exiting these morose sentiments into a sunnier somewhere.

 

 

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