It's been a while since I've shown my face here. Well not exactly my face but you know what I mean. This lock-down has had its effect on me. No, I am not under the illusion that my lock-down time has been worse than anyone else's. I am pretty sure there are people who are really suffering right now. Me, not so much.
I've been looking in on my friends here on Hive, and the other people I follow, and almost every day I thought: 'I should write something.' But every day, I didn't. I should have been building my project (@localize-it). But most of the days I haven't. I've been talking to people who will hopefully be working with me, and I have even made some contacts to expand our horizons but that's pretty much it.
I've let myself get pulled deep into the undergrounds of Facebook hell where every day, and all day, the subject seems to be 'Covid-19' and lately 'BLM' and demonstriots, uhm demonstrations. Not that these subjects don't mean anything to me, they absolutely do, but it's all been too much of it for me. I won't go into that much deeper than that because I don't feel like getting into discussions with people here today but I will say this: I feel exhausted, shocked, and worn down by the sheer stupidity of some. Then there are the age-old discussions of race, racism, democrats bad, democrats good, the Trump-camp, the other camp, WHO, Fauci, Gates, etc. etc. And it got to me. I'm not even American! I have very strong opinions and feelings about everything. I have even predicted some of it. But I still won't get into that right now. I'd much rather talk of all the other things I've been up to lately. I'll get to the other subjects eventually. Or not.
The Loss
On May 13th my friend Olivia passed away. She didn't just pass away, she took her own life. Her twin sister had some photo collage up on her Facebook wall, and at first I thought: how nice to see those smiling faces, times two (because they look exactly alike). The collage said: 'have a great day', so it must have been something that was made some time ago because it wasn't until I I read her twin's words above the collage, when the awful truth hit me.
It didn't hit me. It was like someone, someone strong, smashed a sledge hammer right in my face, and then on my head, and my face again... I've had this feeling before, less than two years ago. It was worse then because it was a child that was very dear to our family. But you never really get used to these things I guess.
I commented, telling the sister of my feelings of sympathy for her and the family. Words that don't mean much to someone like that at that moment. It doesn't bring back their loved one.
I even asked the dumb question 'what happened?' but I already knew. I didn't have to dig deep into my brain or search the depths of my heart. I knew.
It wasn't because she was so suicidal, she wasn't. At least never when I saw her in the past.
It wasn't because of her ongoing struggle to stay away from drugs, the wrong people, the wrong time... None of that. I know her struggle was real but it wasn't how I knew.
I don't think I can ever explain how. I just did.
I closed myself off from others after this. I spoke to only a few. Even our mutual friend, I called her to tell her. Was supposed to call her back...I never did. It hit me, and kept hitting me over and over. There was nothing to talk about with anyone. So I kept silent. Until now.
When I met Olivia, she had just moved to the rural mid-west of Ireland from Dublin with her husband and young son. She was overcoming a heroin addiction, and suffered from bi-polar disorder. We met at a parenting course, which turned out to be mostly rubbish but I guess the outcome - meeting a new friend - was still pretty good. Two friends even, as I had met my other friend, Tonya, around the same time and doing this course together brought us closer together.
Olivia was always on the go. Even if she wasn't. I highly doubted the 'bi-polar' diagnosis at times but this was maybe because whenever I saw her, she was her uppity-uppity-up self. I've seen her low moments too but never full on because I didn't live with her. She wouldn't really see people in those moments, and if we were at her house, she'd take some sleeping aids, and go to bed. She was taking methadone in the first few months after we met, and one day she just stopped taking that. I applauded her for that. I think I was the only one. She didn't want to exchange one drug for another for the rest of her life. She promised she would never go back 'there' because she didn't want it. She never did go back.
I admired her strength and determination to make her life better. And that of her son(s). She had raised her eldest son while she was a struggling 'functioning' junkie, and she didn't want to go the same route with her youngest son.
But even though I thought that the diagnosis was wrong, I knew of her struggles. She had told me quite early on about her childhood. Their childhood, her identical twin sister included. It was a story that could have easily qualified as the scenario of a movie. It made me humble to listen to her because I had always thought that I had had problems growing up. Compared to her story though, my life had been easy!
We could spend hours talking. It was mainly she talking, and me listening. She wasn't the best listener, her mind shattered and easily distracted. However, sometimes she surprised me with how much she remembered...
Until Olivia was 7 years old, she and her sister believed that their aunt was their mother, and their mother their aunt. Up until then, they had been raised by their aunt and grandmother. On a visit with their aunt (who was their mother), the latter blurted out that she was in fact their mother. She was drunk, and probably had no idea what she was doing but the damage had been done. Their mother had moved away from Dublin, and even had more children later on, so how do you explain to someone like that, that there was nothing wrong with them but with their mother? The girls went on with their lives, only to be sexually abused by an uncle...
Later, her sister drank and Olivia met her birth father with whom she shared her first experience with heroin. For most others, it would have ended right there, if not before that. Not for Olivia. She overcame her addiction, and tried to make a new, better life for herself and her family. And for a long time she managed to do just that.
Memories
There has never been any other person that made me laugh like Olivia did. We laughed until we cried. There was nothing fake about her. What you saw was what you got. She would give her last food to you if you were hungry. I don't think I've met many more selfless than her. This is the honest truth and not just something I say because she died. She was all that and more.
Her sense of humor was raw and direct. Her heart was the same.
The best, and funniest, memory I have of her was our road-trip to Dublin together. Ironically, it was for her cousin's funeral. We were at her house when she told me, and she asked me if I would come with her. She didn't want to go with her husband, and she didn't want to go alone. So I agreed to go.
The drive up there was a trip from hell, with Olivia driving like a bat from hell. As soon as we got there, I took the keys from her and announced that I would be driving back. There was NO way, I would endure the same on our way back (with my youngest, who was still a baby, in the back of the car). It's a shame the circumstances weren't any better but I got to meet the whole family there, and all their friends, and it was quite something, even for an Irish funeral. After the funeral, and the 'after' in the pub, Olivia dragged us across the city to meet one of her friends, and later to Darndale to meet her cousin. If you've never heard of Darndale before, now would be the time to Google it because it will give you an impression of it. There used to be a series on TV about it. None of it are lies. If anything, it's worse.
At one moment, I got paranoid and was sure they'd steal our car, or the tyres at least, and I made Olivia come with me to drive off into safety. What a trip! But at the same time, I have never laughed as hard and as much as that day, and every time we brought it up in a conversation...
There was always one huge factor in Olivia's life that got to me. Her husband and her relationship with him. One was as bad as the other. The arguments they could have about nothing, or something, it was unreal. I agreed and disagreed with both of them, and neither of them. They were both manipulative when it came to it, and both could say the meanest things. However, there was something about him that made my skin crawl. It was the mere fact that he saw the man as the boss in the house, and the woman as his servant, and that it was what their son saw each and every day that made me distance myself from them for a while. I wasn't the only one who told her that their relationship wasn't a healthy one, and that he was bad news, but she kept it going! Most of her friends had told her, in her face, that they were damaging their son this way.
I know that she heard us, she even acknowledged it but there was something stopping her from taking the steps to end it. I have an idea of what it was but I just never knew for sure.
Then, all of a sudden, around Christmas 2018, Olivia turned her life around completely and kicked her husband out of the house. I thought it was the most courageous thing for her to do. At the same time I was doing a happy dance that she finally did this. She was working as a care assistant, a job she loved. They made arrangements to co-parent, and it seemed to work out well. The last time I saw her was in October 2019. She had a new boyfriend, seemed happy with life, and herself. We had moved a little more than two years before that but I still managed to go see her sometimes.
I had some strange conversations with her on the phone after that, and one ended with me hanging up on her because she seemed irrational, and she said some crazy things. She apologized for it later, and we spoke to each other a few times after that. Maybe I should have seen it coming. I don't know. I am not sure about anything really. The Olivia I saw back in October was one full of life. We even spoke about going into business together. I had tried to explain cryptocurrency to her for a while, and she wanted to know more. She wanted to live her life, make money, and have fun. Those were literally her words.
Nothing could have prepared me for the news I got. There have been feelings of guilt. Absolutely. Maybe I will always carry those. I should have seen it. I should have called more often. If only...If. If. If. But it doesn't make any difference now. She is gone. The world in which she lived, and left her mark, was not for her. Part of me understands completely. The other part doesn't at all.
Within the first two days of hearing of her passing, I struggled with all of the emotions that come up in these things. Anger. I needed something or someone to blame. Sadness. Never hearing her crazy laugh, or her crazy talk anymore. My first thoughts were that it was the lock-down that got to her. It made me even more angry. Since the whole thing had begun, I had only heard of one person I knew dying of Covid-19, and now Olivia of the direct result of the lock-down. She was a social butterfly who liked to have people in her house or she'd run around visiting others. She had just resigned from her job a month before we were on complete lock-down. It could have been a factor.
Later, I heard from her sister that she had been very depressed. That she had tried to get her the help she needed but it wasn't enough. The phone sessions with a counselor weren't enough. The isolation during the lock-down, and the fact that there was no one who could, or would, talk to her in person, face-to-face, made things worse. Depression is a horrible thing to have to go through. But having to go it alone, without support, is devastating. Olivia, partly due to her Irish upbringing, and partly because of her low self-esteem, suffered in silence...
I've had sleepless nights about her final moments. The last things she did before she did what she felt she had to do. No one there to tell her she was worth to live a good life. I know her sons were her life and joy. She was so proud of them both. I never thought she would do anything like this and leave them behind. But she did. And it's the harsh reality we all will have to live with. I can't even imagine how it feels to them. I saw them both, and her twin two days after she died. What can I say? Life will never be the same for them. It will never be the same for me. And it will never be the same for anyone who has ever spent a minute of their time with Olivia.
The loss?
It's obvious. It's her life lost, when maybe it could have been prevented.
It's the friend I lost. The family who lost an amazing woman, mother, aunt, sister.
I will never forget. The feelings over the loss of a friend who made so many people laugh, and made me laugh until it hurt.
The gain?
An amazing friend, a deeper understanding about different lives.
I will never forget. The crazy things we've shared. The brutal honesty, but also the love and friendship that we shared.
I know it wasn't her world for long but man, what an impact she left on me, and others.
I will never forget...
Thank you for reading!
