Cherise

I know that you do it because you don't have the emotional attachment that I do. I know it's easier that way. But it doesn't mean that it's easy.

Thank you for always taking her calls.
Thank you for responding to her SMS's.
Thank you for buying groceries and supplies.
Thank you for buying her airtime.
Thank you for talking to Lynette, and Moshe, and the doctors.
Thank you for paying the bills.
Thank you for sorting out Medihelp and the Pharmacy.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for visiting.
Thank for you storing everything in your garage.
Thank you for delivering and unpacking.
Thank you for your spreadsheet.
Thank you Simon.

Thank you for taking care of my mom. I can't wait for you to come play.

One Year On

I arrived in Toronto one year ago today. I remember speaking to people that had emigrated and they warned me that it would not easy. I was told to be patient, that my sense of values and morals in the South African context would take time to change and adapt to a more liberal Canadian one, that it could take up to three or four years for me to settle down and feel at home. How wrong they were!

I have always wanted to live in Canada. Something drew me here. Every time I came to visit I felt like this was home, not South Africa. I felt like I belonged here. My friends got tired of me saying that I was going to live in Canada. Nobody believed that I would actually do it. But I did, and boy does it feel good.

September was a rush and it felt like any other business trip. Thank god for Lisa who gave me her apartment in the very plush Yorkville. I arrived in style. A week later I was off to Russia and India on business. Before I left a dog bit me.

Keith and the dogs arrived in October and so did the first snow. The dogs loved it. We spent the next few weeks searching for a home and it was a crazy time. At first we were so disappointed in what we could afford but then we started seeing places that we liked and so the negotiations began. After looking at 64 houses, and losing two we finally had an offer accepted on Ontario Street in Cabbagetown. Little did we know how much that decision would affect our lives.

We moved in November and it was so good to have all our things from South Africa in their rightful place in our home. It gave us the stability we needed. We felt at home. We met our neighbours that day and within days they invited us to spend Christmas with them.

Doreen came to visit in December and we spent New Years together. I got my drivers license even though it was snowing like crazy that day. The three-month reality that I had been warned about hit and I realized that I was not in South Africa anymore and I missed my friends. I started to romanticize South Africa yet I knew that I didn’t want to go back. I was not in any way unhappy; I was lonely. Of course I had Keith and the dogs, but I am a social guy and I need people around me. Working from home wasn’t helping.

In January I flew to New York to surprise my niece and I reconnected with an old friend from South Africa. We carried on settling into our home and life, and Keith started renovating our house. We started meeting the people on the street and started going out. We were slowly making friends.

February brought heartbreak with news of the death of my sister. Within hours of hearing I was on a plane back to South Africa. My friends rallied around me and the week spent in Johannesburg is a blur. I didn’t have to lift a finger and for that I am eternally grateful. The love and friendship I experienced from people all over the world made me realize how lucky I am. Being in Johannesburg was awful and I couldn’t wait to come home.

March brought the promise of Spring but the cold lingered. It was a long month yet the winter had not been that bad. We had actually enjoyed it.

April was STILL cold! I started running.

Neil and Olga arrived in May. What a treat to have them come and spend time with us. Neil shopped, and shopped, and then shopped a little more. He also did some shopping. We explored, we ate, and we rode our bikes. Neil shopped.

June and July were beautiful months; warm days and nights that seemed to go on forever. We started sitting out on the front porch in the afternoons drinking wine and eating cheese and neighbours would join us. It became a regular thing and people would stop and talk to us and some even asked what they had to do to join the club. Would it be the same had we have bought on another street? I visited Germany and Holland. I fell in love with Amsterdam. I visited Merle, Sid and the twins in Vancouver.

We went back to South Africa in August. This time it was partly for work and partly for fun. We surprised our friends and family and it was so wonderful being with them. It was like we never left; yet it didn’t feel like home anymore. There is no doubt that we will never go back. I saw Nicki in San Francisco. It was so good to connect.

It’s September now. It gets dark earlier and there is a chill in the morning air. We have an amazing circle of friends here; some that feel like we have known them forever. I marvel at the thought that if we had never come here, we would never have met them. And that would just be tragic.

We are happy. We are content. Keith and my relationship has only strengthened. We just celebrated 5 years together. We are free and safe. We walk our dogs through the neighbourhood and in the parks. We ride bikes and take the subway.

I just read this to Keith. He told me to wrap it up. Im done.

Dear Baruch

You will probably never read this but that’s ok because while it’s directed at you, it’s not for you. You changed your Facebook status from ‘married’ to ‘single’ barely hours after she died so I cant expect you to ‘get it’. This letter is for me; it’s for my sister.

I don’t doubt for a second that you loved her. I am grateful that she found love, marriage and happiness with you because many people rejected her for being so fat. That’s the truth. Your relationship was certainly passionate; I remember hearing you screaming at each other when you would fight and I remember you crying when she was in hospital. You lead a simple life together, you were never able to give her everything she wanted, and often your lack of ambition or ability to sustain your employment frustrated her but she loved you. I wish you had supported her more in her attempts to control her health. Suddenly you are exercising and eating well, why didn’t you do it when she was trying so hard?

I am not angry with you. I am not angry that you lied and I am not angry that I had to find out about your engagement via Facebook. Your actions don’t surprise me but they disappoint me yet I realize that it is my own expectation that you have failed and who am I to place those expectations on you? There is no point in you mourning forever, my mother is a prime example of what a mess that can be and I have no right to stand in your way of a future, a wife and children. I wonder if you have ever thought how things would be if the circumstances were reversed? How would your family feel if it were you that died and if my sister got engaged 5 months after your death? Would your friends congratulate her? Would it matter if she were planning a wedding when your grave lay bare without even a tombstone? It matters to me.

Do you ever think that if you had died, you would have left her penniless? Does your fiance know that I furnished your home; does she know where all the money you have now, more than you ever had before, came from? Did that money buy her engagement ring? Do your parents remember that they refused to help you when you were stranded in Israel? I brought you home, I put a roof over your head for almost 4 years, and I paid off your car. I did it willingly; I did it for my sister who I loved more than you will ever know. I did it because I had the means. I would do it again. Will you remember?

As I write this, and read through it, and edit it, I realize how little it matters. It’s been eating me up inside but it really doesn’t matter, does it? What matters is that she is gone; some say she is in a better place, others say it was her time. I don’t know. What I know is that everything I have written above doesn’t really matter.

I miss her every day.

I dream about her every night. There is an empty hole inside me that doesn’t want to go away and I’m not sure it ever will. It goes wherever I go. I would give anything to have her back as selfish as that may be. I hope that she is in a better place. I hope that death is not the end. I hope she hears me when I talk to her. I hope she feels me when I cry. There was nothing left unsaid, but there is still so much I have to say.

I miss her every day.