to the clerk at reception, whose jolly mood was completely out of tune with my anxiety. ‘Is she alive or dead?’
‘Please fill out the admission form,’ he said.
With an unsteady hand I completed the details. I couldn’t remember my phone number.
We were asked to sit in the waiting room with lots of other people. Through the haze, I sensed a messy confusion as hospital staff, patients and the public came and went. I approached the desk.
‘How long do we have to wait?’
‘The doctor will talk to you.’
Another endless wait.
Angela arrived, flowing with tears and questions. I hugged her. ‘I can tell you nothing. They won’t even tell me if Mum’s alive or dead.’
Out of the murky bedlam of admission a social worker appeared with the completed form. She beckoned and took us into an adjoining room. As she led us from the bustle to a quiet place, I was shaking. I knew what we would be told, although from her cheerful manner, hope filled my heart. Perhaps Maris was alive but injured.
We found ourselves in a comfortable room with wide sofas and tea making gear in the corner. A place for receiving bad news? Again we waited forever. I wanted Stephen to be present and prayed he was on his way. Through my haze I sensed the room filling with people, social workers and nurses, and a young doctor. She spoke in a quiet, matter-of-fact manner.
‘An ambulance was called to the Chatswood Chase Car Park where a woman was found on the pavement, apparently from a fall. The paramedics tried to revive her but brought her to the hospital where she was pronounced dead. I believe she is your wife.’
Ours tears were uncontrollable. The emotion roared out of us, hit the walls shrieking and rocked around the room. Stephen arrived. The family was complete. Shaking with helpless grief, we hugged each other and wept, unified in our pain. I felt an enormous comfort as we gave each other unconditional support. We were always a close family but in that crowded room, bonds were cemented that will last forever.
‘Her body is in the next room,’ the doctor said. ‘Would you like to see her?’
By now, I was exhausted and had quietened down. ‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I want to remember mum as I knew her,’ said Stephen through his tears. Tim and Jacinta agreed. But Angela wanted to see her.
‘You might find disturbing the tube the paramedics inserted down your wife’s throat in their efforts to revive her. She doesn’t look pretty.’
I went in first. What I saw will never vanish in the mists of memory.
My beloved Maris, my cherished sweetheart, on a table, naked except for her wedding ring, but covered by a sheet with arms exposed.
I would like to say she looked peaceful in death, but I could see the grim lines of pain around her mouth, traces of the anguish that drove her to this place. The tube did not disturb me. What did upset me was her left eye half open and, although I guess they had cleaned her up, her beautiful dark hair was messy and the way her eye was turned told me she had suffered a severe blow to the head and incurred extensive internal damage.
I thought I had exhausted my tears but I wept again as grief once more took control. I took her cold hand and spoke.
I can’t remember what I said. A jumble of words. I was saying good-bye, I think. While the tears and emotion poured out of me like a torrent and flooded the room, a social worker continued to sit in the corner, hands folded, eyes downcast, noticing everything.
A sharp pain gripped my chest. Doctors would say my body was reacting to shock, but I now know what the poets mean by a broken heart. I could not believe I had lost my Maris, the light of my life. I could not grasp I was no longer one of a couple.
I was alone.
Chapter 4
A young police woman, Catherine, appeared and asked some questions. Through my tears and running nose I blurted out the story of the last few days. I was surprised how logical and fluent I was. I seemed in control, as if I had detached myself from reality. I’m sure the calm that possessed me was shock as if someone had injected me with an anaesthetic or given me a pain killer.
Members of the hospital staff were present, although I wasn’t sure what their roles were, whether they were performing some function or there out of curiosity to know something of the beautiful woman who had arrived dead on their doorstep. They made supportive comments on what a strong, united family we were. I suppose we were. None of us raved or fired blame at whoever was in the way like some mad gunman shooting at random.
‘Could I see Maris again?’ I asked.
The social worker led me back into the room. I placed the pansy that Rick had brought from the house in Maris’ hand. She loved her pansies. Even in the bad times, she managed, like a glimmer of hope somehow, to care for those little plants.
‘I want her to take a tiny part of her garden with her to the Coroner’s Court,’ I said to the social worker. ‘Could I keep her wedding ring?’
A nurse removed it. ‘You might like the cross and chain she was wearing.’
The chain was broken but the cross was intact. As I write this, my hand traces the outline of that cross beneath my shirt.
* * *
I made two decisions as Tim drove me home. The first was that I would bury Maris at the Frenchs Forest Bushland Cemetery. Reducing my beloved Maris to ashes in cremation insulted the sacredness of her memory. I couldn’t bear the thought of her ashes in an urn gathering dust on an empty shelf. I wanted her to be in a special place, a place I could visit and sit in communion with her in the years to come.
The other decision was to tell the world. I had no sense of shame that Maris had died of suicide. For years, suicide was spoken of in whispers. A stigma is still attached to taking one’s life. Some families are reluctant to speak about their loved one, or use euphemisms such as dying ‘in tragic circumstances’.
I was outraged. I wanted the world to know that an insidious disease had driven my beautiful Maris to this tragic ending. She had lost confidence, hope and the will to live. I wanted everyone to know of the toll depression inflicts. The demons of despair had ensnared the mind of a peaceful, gentle woman, robbed her of peace and replaced any joy with a daily anguish which nothing, nothing could alleviate.
Inside I was crying but the logical part of my mind kept on working. I guessed I slipped into automatic. There were people to tell. I rang the family — my sister Maria and brother Tom. They made me repeat everything as if the news was too shocking to take in at one go. I left a message on Father Brendan’s answering machine. The children were on the phone, too. The terrible news spread rapidly.
For a while I was numb where the anguish had roared before. But then an awful battle began to rage beneath. A new sensation emerged. At first it was in the background like the roar of a distant football crowd or a roll of far-away thunder. It grew in intensity until the noise erupted in a new torment. It was my own voice in accusation, a whisper at first, but eventually screaming.
‘Why didn’t you listen when Maris needed to go to hospital? Why didn’t you stop her when she took her car keys? Why didn’t you stay with her if you knew she was suicidal?’
Over and over these accusations raged, causing havoc like an army running amok. I was overwhelmed. Guilt was undoing me. In desperation I tried to set up barriers and suppress the questions but they refused to be vanquished and kept breaking the ramparts and bursting into my thinking. If I wasn’t questioning, I was scourging myself.
‘I failed you, Maris. If I’d been more vigilant, you’d still be here, instead of in the Coroner’s freezer. I’ve killed you by my own neglect.’
Which was worse, guilt or grief? I’m not sure. Take one serving of regret mixed with a heavy dose of guilt and you get the bleakest cocktail