Understanding
Picture of the sea by Liz Rule
During our second workshop, we printed sea-related images on
fabric. Jane asked us to make an image of a fish or other object which would
symbolise the person we lost I chose a mermaid. Why?
I think I chose a mermaid because Liz was and still is, in
my memory, someone beautiful. Tall and striking-looking, always making a effort
with clothes ad make-up, I feel I have to represent her with a beautiful image.
If I dig deeper, I realise that there is something elusive
about a mermaid. She is a mythical creature. Did a sailor ever let his heart be
stolen by a beautiful woman perched on a rock with her fish tail skimming the
surface of the water, or are mermaids just stories from the imagination of
lonely travellers?
I know one thing: I want the mermaid to be real just
like I want Liz to still exist somewhere, somehow. She has become like a
mermaid glimpsed out of the corner of the eye. When a memory stirs my bruised
heart into feeling, is she pulling at the connection between us, however
stretched and thin it has become?
The net which we will place above our images is poignant.
There was, or should have been, a support net of health services in place for
Liz. As a decent society, we don’t leave those who are desperately ill to
suffer and struggle alone, or do we? I also, in my own clumsy way, tried to
weave a net of support for my sister. I wanted her to know that I loved her and
that I was there if she needed me, but Liz slipped through both of these nets,
like an elusive mermaid whom you can’t catch or contain.
And there’s another net Liz is slipping through – that of my
memories. I can’t pin her down or hold onto the essence of her. She always
seems to be just beyond my ability to remember a concrete image, something I
can hold onto and say, “That was her.”
Then, unexpectedly, like the glint of hair and fish scales
bright in the gloaming, she steals in. I remember things I never particularly
noticed when she was still with us, like the way she would give a shy,
half-smile, or the way she would hold herself back on the edge of things,
watching and not saying much. And I never noticed or really considered the
humility it took to accept and live for seven years with post-natal psychosis,
a mental health condition which brings with it a huge burden of stigma.
In his book, ‘The Sixth Stage of Grief’, David Kessler reflects frankly on losing his son to a drug overdose. He says that our relationship with a deceased loved one can evolve and grow in the years after their passing. There is nothing spooky or supernatural about this. Simply, as we grow older and have more experiences, we understand the person we have lost in a different way. There are things about Liz I can see more clearly now, and which I wish I had understood when she was still with us.
There was so much I didn’t know or didn’t understand about
Liz which I am just beginning to be aware of. Ironically, my own experience of
trauma and PTSD following Liz’s death by suicide has shown me what it is like
to live with the weight of mental illness. I now know what it feels like to
have an overwrought nervous system which reacts to minor events or changes of
plan as if a major emergency has occurred. A few months after Liz’s death, a
glass bowl falling to the floor and breaking left my heart racing and my body
tense with fear for days. Since Liz’s death, I have suffered from chronic pain
although I am slowly, through writing and meditation, creeping my way out of
it. When the pain and fatigue catches up with me, I often think of Liz and her
daily struggle.
The pain, both physical and mental, which followed Liz’s
death has given me an insight into her struggle. Liz was an artist. I hope that
by taking part in this art project, all these creative makings, I can be open
to understanding a different aspect to Liz’s life.
As I cut out a template for the mermaid shape, applied the
ink and then used sponges to add in the details, I wasn’t quite sure what image
would emerge, whether it would ‘work’. Likewise, I am not sure what will emerge
from these art workshops. When she was an art student, Liz printed on fabrics.
She might have used some of these techniques. By taking part in art and letting
something creative happen, I am understanding a little better another aspect of
Liz’s life.
