Dark Places

Today I did what most people do when after a period of a long illness that want to regain control over their life; I cleaned the fridge. After finishing the meticulous task, I could not stop myself any more. Craving for a cup of my favorite tea I went over and reorganized all the food shelves adding labels and even notes outside some jars.

Looking over the tea shelf I made a sad realization. I had arranged the tea bags exactly how they were in the hospital. It was in a highly efficient manner that someone could overview and re-stock the right amount each time. I had missed that efficient practicality. Things made sense then. Could it be that even after six months the happiest moments of my life were in a hospital bed that other people made most of the decisions for me?

And before you wonder if I am completely mad I would like to define again the reality of those days. My son was alive back then still in my womb and his father was visiting me every day. After many years of hard work, I was assigned to one simple task. Stay in bed, try to be calm and do nothing. Breakfast at seven, lunch at twelve, dinner at five.

And still, that was too much. At nights I could secretly walk till the balcony and breath the free air. It was better than smoking that cold, dump air. The city lights were blinking and I would look at the direction of my boyfriend’s town trying to think of the smell of his flesh.

In these dark moments, I could only be entirely happy and sad at the same time in acceptance. When the obvious thing happened and we lost Aki, I could never be the same again. I was a woman that gave birth to a beautiful dead child. I could fill my time, I could crawl around the same tasks but nothing tasted the same anymore. I was like the taste buds of my soul had altered.

During the first few weeks, I still looked pregnant. People gave their sit on the bus. I had to starve myself off to get out of this madness. Every night I was sweating all the extra water that my body did not need anymore. My appetite was less I had to eat for one now. In the basement the pram awaited for a baby that never came, my pregnancy clothes were waving at me in the closet. People tried to talk to me. They gave me great advice, I could sit and write straight away a book including them all; “The book of all the great advice of people that haven’t seen a dead six-month fetus coming out of their body”.

I didn’t mind that I despised people that tried to ignore it, tried to behave like nothing’s the matter. You know the people that see that hundreds of people died in an explosion but that does not matter because it won’t happen to them. I could just have another child and be like them. But that did not feel right for my body, my already exhausted partner and my son Aki.

Aki was still among us. In the house, I could see the box that contained the now scattered ashes. In that wooden box, we kept the photographs of the dead child and all the ultrasound pictures from the first to the last.

Our son Aki.

I craved to go to the airport and embark on the flight Nº to Nowhere get lost among the clouds and breath one last time the free air from a crack on my window seat and forget my existence. Every night, I wanted to wake up in a new land, with new clothes, a credit card full of money, to change my name, rent a new flat and forget that I ever existed as a person before.

The rhythmic breathing of my partner brought me back to a reality that I loved someone, I had an atelier space, good friends, a new flat in two months, an overdraft bank account and a life that I actually liked a lot.

So I started to forget slowly till grief would sneak behind my back and appear at random moments destroying everything. I forgot what I was mourning about, I never wanted a child in the first place. I was depressed; a new hole had appeared in me that never existed before.

Six months later I am collecting leaves from the tree outside the hospital that we three stood outside its door for one last time dreaming of the future. Not this one but something warm and bright. I look around for something to hold on to it and all I ‘ve got is these three leaves from a Japanese maple tree.

Tree leaves from the Japanese maple tree outside Universitätspital, Zürich.

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