Turning back time.

Losing a friend is always difficult - losing a friend unexpectedly is shockingly difficult. It takes time to come to the realisation of loss because of that unexpectedness....at times, it seems you lose that person over and over again as the actuality, and finality, enters awareness.

At the gym, yesterday, the incongruity struck me eventually.....a slow jazz ballad rendition of Somewhere Over The Rainbow playing....? In among the Britney Spears, Kings of Leon, Killers, and John Butler Trio treats of beat and rhythm to pound away on the treadmill to? Or pump the iron with gusto to? The song did not fit the conditions - and so the realisation took some time to surface. Somewhere Over the Rainbow...? What.....? Something tickled at my subconscious...and suddenly I saw her in my head. Smiling, laughing with her imperfect teeth and bright smile, beautiful simply because of the uncensored nature of her Self. Mahinaarangi - who's favourite line "I'm a bagel short of a hangi" never got boring because she always said it with such great gusto and loving acceptance of who she was and where she came from. Mahina, who never forgot to sing that song at every single gig I saw her at. And oh, how she sang that song - and how she meant every single word of it. I tear up now at the thought, berate myself for not understanding how very special it was during the times I heard her sing it. Losing a friend suddenly does that to you.

Mahinaarangi, who's line from one of her poem's "I miss you without talking, I miss you without you even knowing" has become a sad refrain in my head but one which is poignant and beautiful for its pertinence and its origin.

Mahina - who died exactly a year to the day when that song started playing at the gym. All of the above ran through my head in that instant of realisation, and the flash of light that was her existence passed over and through me and then the song stopped and was replaced by something more upbeat, more appropriate to the conditions...... Synchronicity....I am hoping perhaps it was a message from her so that I will know she is okay, and that she forgives me for forgetting the anniversary until that moment.

I miss her presence in this world palpably, her loss hurts in a way that is indefinable and utterly unexpected to me. A candle of bright flame that burned so brightly, and burned out far far too soon, for all the wrong reasons. My anger still boils and bubbles - people do NOT die in A and E from an asthma attack for lack of treatment...not in this day and age!!!
But it seems they do, and she did. And the wrongness of it will never change the finality of the result. I remember her oldest sister saying, in response to my query as to whether there was anything I could do to help during their hospital vigil - one year ago I asked the question "what can I do to help?" Such a waste of time, that question, when one examines it, in spite of the fullness of the intention to do, really, just about anything you can to relieve the pain for them - if in fact there was anything that would do that. She said "yes......turn time back to one week ago, to when she was here and well and with us, back to before this happened...." And although she smiled as she said it - I sooo wanted to do that for them and for Mahina and, yes, for me because I was missing her even then. I still do. And I will leave this world wishing I could have turned back time for them.

Farewell my friend - haere, haere, haere ra.