The darkest moment

I wake up hot and bothered. I found out that my grandmother has died  three hours ago and I am in Cambodia.

This is my darkest moment.

I make no effort to open my eyelids. They are sealed with dried teardrops. I am angry.

I keep my eyes shut. I think about my grandmother: My hands are exactly the same shape as hers: an exact replica. Even the way I raise my left eyebrow is exactly the same. I think about her life and all she has been through.  I have talked about the crimes that nations commit against themselves and I have been challenged and troubled by accounts of history here. But my family, my grandmother, my father experienced the cruel civil war in the Greek mountains not long after Second World War. I can see my grandmother hanging from her leg, a thick rope holding her upside down beneath the walnut tree in the middle of the yard at the mountain house. Hanging desperately there for days, the rope cutting deeply into her calf and healing into her flesh; being questioned as to the whereabouts of my grand father.  I used to play on that same yard in the summers. She used to sit there, watch me and laugh whilst crochetting, ousting bad memories from my secure and happy playground. When at peace, she even sat them down to dinner around her table under the same walnut tree where they questioned her, those same people. They were family after all, that’s what civil war does to families. In the same yard she had said good bye to my ten year old father hiding behind the outdoor oven pushing him away into a forest to save his life. I hid from my brother behind that same outdoor oven when we played hide and seek. The  outdoor oven where we used baked non yeast bread and spread the butter she freshly churned on warm slices before taking a greedy bite.

I keep my eyes shut.

I see her walking down the cobbled street leading to her house, young, beautiful and proud with her long brown wavy hair (exactly like mine) falling on her shoulders: stubbornly walking away from her young husband because he is late for dinner and she was worried about him. They are young lovers and trouble has not started.

I see him handing her a bunch of field flowers telling her he’s late because he had to pick these up for her, grubbing her in his arms (the cheeky chap he was).  

I see her love, laugh, cry holding her dying newborn in her arms, whilst breastfeeding its surviving twin.

I see my father lost in the mountain forest: a boy crying alone thinking he will never see his family again. I imagine their reunion.

I see my father resting a hand on his father shoulder when all their modest fortune is gone, embezzled by a cunning relative. I see him carry  a saddle bag up the mountains , working to help the family.

I think about how he lodged with monks to go to school after disaster hit the family. Waking up at 4 every morning to chant with them, prepare their breakfast, and go to school, return to cook for them and collapse into sleep. Happy, loving and caring. Never bitter, always proud independent and empowered. No complaints, no major handouts or external assistance. 

This is the wonderful family I come from, with their humanity their faults but the strongest record of dignity , selflessness and self empowerment I have ever encountered. I am sure that there are many similar stories in Greece, here and all over the world but this is my father’s.  And I have not even started on my mother’s family tale: one of uprooting , refugees, poverty, Balkan wars and farmers battling the elements and the prejudice of their new homeland.

There are different continents, cultures, nations and historical events; but war, pain, torture, humanity, family, community, love , emotions and dignity are universal. And the knowledge and acknowledgement of your family’s roots, your countries historical contradictions and political turmoil can make you perceptive to experiences of other nations. I am not the naïve and ignorant descendent of people who have lived in luxury and comfort all their lives or who erased the past (not that I have anything against comfort, peace and indulgence. I am privileged and my child if I ever have one might be too).

I am not ignorant:  so today I am irrationally angry for the moments that I have been treated or viewed as an ignorant ‘rich’ westerner.  I don’t want to be understanding and insightful right now. I am irrationally angry at  people who have allowed themselves to be conditioned and reliant on handouts,  people that have not had the pride that my family had. Maybe it’s unfair because the conditions might have been better socially even at harsh times in Greece than they are for example here. But I told you this is my darkest moment, I will not apologise for its rawness and contradiction.

Eyes shut, on the eve of my departure, after the loss of my grandmother, I am haunted by my own demons and I am second guessing my presence here. My dad’s community did fine without anyone coming over to teach them or help them, did they not? Or maybe they did not because none of us is still there…They had no income making opportunities if they stayed at their village.

A moment of anger at myself for being here giving to people I don’t really know, helping myself grow and gather experiences has exploded and I am facing up to it.  I should be by my father, holding his hand, being his daughter, returning all the love and care that he has given me all these years. Being there for him at the moment he has lost his mother.

His voice three hours earlier was soothing. He knows my guilt, he has lived away from his parents , he does not mind . I know he does not.  And he had never felt sorry for himself or bitter at his lack of wealth when he was young. My dad sure misses me but he does not mind that I cannot be there now. But I am deep in darkness and, right now, I mind. I am angry at myself. For not being able to give love and support to my father right now.