FAREWELL TO RAVEN
Isabella looked her brother straight in the eye and told him, “Go away!” This he did in an instant and when she looked up from cleaning her teeth he was no longer there, no longer watching her from the bathroom mirror, no longer reassuring her that everything would be all right and she felt guilt and relief in equal measure.
Guilt because Raven had always been there, he existed in her consciousness before she was aware of his physical being. He was quite simply an extension of her. A being whose heart beat in time to hers, who slithered and rolled to the same rhythm of life, whose body reached out and touched hers and then disappeared, only to reappear without fail. Whose touch said, “I am here too, do not be afraid.” Whose kick said, “I am here, I am here, I AM.”
Raven, that soft being who waited in the plastic womb of life for her. Two fish in the same pond had become two landed fish in the same bowl and they found comfort in each others presence. As they each struggled with the sensations of life they were never alone, there was a familiarity beyond language and time, which held them steady and kept them true.
Relief because now she could attend Raven’s funeral without him, for she knew that this was one thing she must do alone. For fourteen years they had been inseparable, the terrible twins.
Raven was like the sun, he moved out into life and grasped it to him, he heated things up to see what would happen and there were times when his effect was more forest fire than golden tan, but she loved this about him.
Isabella was like the moon, a spiral of gentle light that moved out and retreated, that brought back into the shadows that which she could bear from life to nurture it and make it ready to be brought back into the light again. She was the reflective pool that cooled Raven’s burnt fingers and soothed the scorched feelings of their friends. Their mother would describe Raven as a “Firebrand,” and Isabella as, “an old soul in a young body,” and her friends would nod in agreement as if they understood something about Isabella that she didn’t understand herself.
A wave of anger grasped her insides as she recalled this phrase, ”An old soul...” How dare Raven leave her to become even older without him? How could he abandon her to the terrors of life alone? As if that were not bad enough, he had single handedly created a whole community of grieving people who could either not look her in the eye, or who would clasp her to them in rough clinches and sob their grief into her reluctant ear.
“How many times have I had to sit still while Grandma pressed her boney hand into mine and wept uncontrollably? Too many Raven, too many. You did this to me, you divided my life into two, before and after, whole and divided.”
She found herself cursing his memory as she eased her way into her favourite clothes. “Wear what you like,” her mother had said, “this is to be a celebration of Raven’s life, not just a time to mourn what we have lost.” But even as she said it her eyes were full of tears and Isabella knew that they would always mourn their loss. That Raven was irreplaceable and that her parents simply did not know what to do with their grief for fear it might overwhelm them.
That fear of being overwhelmed Isabella knew well, she was aware that since Raven’s accident life had become a game of hopscotch. Most of the time the stones she walked on bore the inscription, “What if ...” “What if she had been with him she could have ...” “If he had listened to her ...” “If he had gone to their local park.” “If he had not met up with Danny ...” “If ... If ... If ... “ And although these thoughts tormented her night and day they at least made her feel powerful, as if – had she been in the right place at the right time – she could have averted this tragedy and saved Raven. It was the other stones that threatened to overwhelm her.
These stones were no stones at all, they were the gaps in between, the cracks in the pavements through which she would fall when the “What if...” stones could no longer could bear her weight. These cracks in the fabric of her existence took her to different dark places. The place where her own death seemed to beckon with the promise of everlasting happiness. The place where red hot anger would burn through a photograph of Raven and turn everything that they had had together to ashes. The place where her own survival was some kind of punishment thought up by some malevolent Being who, when rescuing Raven’s soul from the darkness, made sure he extracted his payment from her future by denying her happiness, until the debt was paid.
Isabella calmed herself in the bathroom, put on her favourite dress and with one last look over her shoulder to make sure she was alone, she steeled herself to attend her first ever public event without Raven.
She did it beautifully because she imagined his presence beside her all day, she felt his hand take hers when she saw his coffin for the first time, she heard him singing out of tune in her ear, she saw him roll his eyes as his teacher waxed lyrical about him and she saw him nestle between his mother and father, neither of whom noticed his presence. The sense of him beside her made her feel very special and cared for and she wanted to share it with others.
There was one difficult moment when her mother’s grief spilled out and filled the space between them. They were alone in the churchyard after the ceremony, her father had left her side for the first time and was talking to some of the guests. Her mother’s knees gave way beneath her and she crumpled onto a bench and sobbed. Isabella wanted so much to tell her that Raven was within them and OK, but she felt Raven shake his head as if to say, “Not now, not yet.” So she held her mother’s hand and waited for the sobs to subside, but she could not shake off the feeling of being useless and was grateful when her father reappeared, took her mother by the arm and led her back to the house.
