Biggie, The Big E.

Last week it was the first time in thirty-three years that my brother Cam has not been on planet earth for his birthday. I knew it would be a hard day but I did not not know that every second of every minute of that entire day would burn my soul.

I was wild. I didn't want to be anywhere. Grief sends a person out of their mind.

The day before his birthday, I drove to the flat he killed himself in. I had to. Where else in the world could I possibly go to but Fitzgerald Street Newtown LITERALLY around the corner from Royal Prince Alfred Hospital where he could have gone to save his life. Where else?

Before I left the mountains and out of utter rage and spite I reefed off a HUGE branch from one of the blossom trees in the middle of the main street of Leura. It hadn't blossomed yet. It was just about to, but now it never will. That blossom will never blossom. I look forward to those blossom trees SO MUCH every year up here because spring, you guys!

But how dare those blossoms blossom. How dare they.

My huge unblossomed branch sat in my car for an hour while I wailed to my therapist and then I stopped off at the shop to buy some ugly masking tape and drove to my brothers flat, the last place he drew his last breaths. Nitrogen breaths.

I was driving down to Sydney, suddenly sick with the realisation that I was going to have a drink and use drugs today because how could I not? Oh my god. It felt so awful. I wanted the pain to just stop and I wanted to use the very best way I knew to get the pain away so I said over and over out loud in my car to a god I don't even believe anymore,

"Thy will, not mine, be done."

Over and over I said it not even believing it but please don't make me go back to that dark that calls my name every FUCKING day. Still having made the decision to use drugs, I may as well go to Cams flat anyway, give him his bouquet I so respectfully wrenched the same way he was so respectfully wrenched from this world for all of the myriad of reasons.

An unblossomed blossom taped to a post with a wooden heart where I wrote in permanent marker how I loved him, happy birthday, I miss you. How ugly is it? PERFECT.

New people live in his flat, now. A family - with a baby. I saw the onesies drying on the clothes rack on the balcony next to the BBQ and pretty, pretty lights they'd strung up. All things Cam would never, will never do. How that man lived so long with such deep sad I will never know. He gave it a go, he gave it a go.

I lurked like the weirdo lurker I was, not sure if I will ever go back.

One night he walked into that flat and he never walked out of it again. He got wheeled out in a body bag and they would've had to put the wheels up and carry it down the stairs then put the wheels back and put him in an ambulance. I wonder who was looking - I wonder who was watching, freaking right out right then, watching my brothers last journey outta town? If they mindlessly texted their friends "DUDE A DEAD BODY IS BEING CARRIED OUT INTO THE STREET. RIGHT NOW." They knew before I did. But they didn't know how much he loved king prawns and corned beef and how creative he was and that his favourite shows were Black Books and Big Bang Theory (CAM YOU NERD LOL.)

I sat with my back right up to his building and the sun was out it warmed me. And it felt so hard, exquisite, awful sad. Also peaceful. His portal where he left the world. It's sacred and scarred. I pulled some bark off the tree outside his flat in exchange for the unblossomed blossoms. Fair deal, nature.

I drove to the cop shop because I just wanted the original suicide letter addressed to me, it meant a lot. I stepped out of my car and looked down to this teeny piece of art, melded to the road.

"What we do now - echoes in Eternity." Yeah my Braveheart, I hear you I hear you a deaf man could hear you.

Walk into the police station and fair dinkum EVERY copper there has tatts and a beard. Every one I saw. The guy on duty on the desk - man he was nice. I asked if hopefully my brothers suicide note was there, it was addressed to me? Showed him my drivers license. Suddenly  I realised how badly I wanted his letter - I have a copy, but I really wanted the real deal. After a long wait he came back and told me no, it wan't there. (It'd been sent on to my family, completely fine but I just get so confused about what went where at the time.)

I cried so hard. The poor copper.

"Fucking hell! I just really wanted it!"

He was so lovely. So caring. Policemen are beautiful.

I took myself to Marys and ate the best burger in Sydney, served by a snippy idiot who blanched at my tears. Does he even think for one second I give a fuck about crying in an ubercool trendy burger joint? No. No fucks. As I was eating my burger I pictured taking Cam out for his birthday except it was just the one of us eating. Maybe he was there. I don't know. All I knew was, instead of going to the bottle shop or buying drugs I had subconsciously decided to buy a burger instead. It felt like the first burger I had ever eaten in my life, so clear. All the parts in me that want to kill me are no match for the unknown.

I took a piss in the toilet and LAUGHED at the penis graffiti. I love a good jizz picture.

As I drove over the Anzac Bridge I briefly turned to look at those glorious white sails on the Opera House .. and I said again out loud in my car to nobody in particular, "You are mine."

Then later as I drove to the beach house I was in such a rush to get there in time to watch the Bachelor that I turned my car too quickly off the freeway and ended up with one wheel over the embankment. I had to call emergency roadside assistance who came really quickly and towed me out and no damage was done to my car but I really SHOULDN'T drive when I'm emotional and as I'm sitting there, crying, waiting for the tow truck? The only thought I had in my head was, you know Eden, you really should have used drugs today.

And I laughed a black black laugh and I missed the Bachelor and got to the beach house distraught but hey - I didn't drink a bottle of scotch and shoot meth into my eyeballs and that has GOT to count for something.

The next day was Cams actual birthday holy hell. My tattoo was booked at 10am - Cam hated my tattoos! He'd hold my wrist tattoo unto his face "Know Thyself. Got it. Right. Thanks Eed." And completely take the piss and I'd tell him to get fucked and you guys, I never wanted to get another tattoo I'm too old for this shit.

But every 19th of September I'm still alive for, I'm going to do something for me and Cam. So I got a sentence out of his suicide note tattooed on my arm. Just four words. I can hardly look at them.

By the GORGEOUS Eddy-Lou Told her I'm going to be in pain today anyway so it may as well be on my terms. She was so touched. She did a beautiful job, in his exact handwriting and everything.

My brother loved me. All of my adult life I've always used a little e, to start my name - eden. But he gave me a capital E like I was important or something. So from now on I'm going to write my name Eden. That big E? You know she's the type to sit up straight. She's got a strong backbone.

He loved me. He loved me. He loved me. He loved me.

Burnt By The Same Fire.

I can't tell you how I feel right now because it's too painful but I can show you what I did! I ate this caramel!

Who made such caramel? MEGAN SHE CAME TO STAY SHE DROVE DOWN FROM BRISBANE WITH HER FAMILY AND THEY ALL SURVIVED THE TRIP.

She and Disco Dan and their two girls stayed at the house Dave built, Snowgum. They had a ball. Rocco was in his element and had his first ever sleepover - as you can see the three of them were really shy around each other. Dave said hon, are you sure this sleepover is ok? You met these people over the internet?

 And I text Megan and asked if she was a serial killer and she said she was so it was all good.

We looked really glamourous before the Scenic Railway at Katoomba scared us half to death. Megan bought some "Made in China" koalas for her girls at the gift shop and I was all, check this out Dales! Smooth as baby skin!

We both gagged then ate surprisingly great churros at the cafe and talked about the intricacies, the horrors, the unknown factors when it comes to our brothers killing themselves. We spoke about it like we were speaking about the best way to remove grease from a shirt. That's how normal it is to us. I love Megan. With my heart and everything.

Wild Thing laid splayed at my feet and I fished an apple out of my handbag from which she took three delicate bites. No more.

I think I might start an entire blog called "Tourists from other countries who want their photos taken with white children." It. Was. Hilarious. Possibly the best part of the entire day was to see the utter delight from strangers over our three blonde sweeties.

Except by the end of the day, the kids were over it. And the Yellow Wiggle ... she began to STALK our children, grabbing them and styling them just so.

Megan smiling, but not on the inside.

Wild Thing had had ENOUGH by this stage and the most adorable thing ... Rocco grew quite protective of her. "NO MORE PHOTOS!"

The Yellow Wiggle could only look on, forlornly. Nobody fucks with Rocco OR his friends. 

Megan and Dan could only laugh at my lip balm hanging out of my handbag which I kept dropping, the tub was so big. I yelled to the street "OBJECTS ARE HARD!"

I told them I was much better online. Megan said we all were.

I put the kids in the other room and performed three poems for Megan and Dan, asking their advice on which ones I should do for the slam. I couldn't look them in the eye ... but man they gave me the best feedback. I feel more confident going in, now. If I don't blog for a bit lately it's only because I'm writing, deleting, editing, practicing my words for THIS. (But sometimes when I don't blog I have nothing to say because my heart can't convey the depth properly.)

I think Rocco fell a bit in love, too.

The morning they left, I took them for the best ricotta hotcakes in town.

 And then up to the Paragon where Wild Thing had to be carried out screaming by Dan. I held the door open for him, PISSING myself laughing. Parenting, man. Seriously.

And then they were gone.

I don't like saying goodbye to Megan. I need her and I don't like needing people or things, or anything.

"I don't like saying goodbye to you!"

So she turned to me, Miss Librarian all fancy, and said,

"Ok, fuck off then."

(YEAH MEGANS MUM SHE SWORE!)

And I laughed ALL the way down the street, planning a trip to Brisbane very very soon.

They're down in Sydney right now - they drove there VIA CANTERBURY which was so, so out of the way. But the Disco Dan, that beautiful man, is a huge doggies supporter.

When Megan text me from the carpark of Penrith Panthers I had to put the phone down, such was my laughter. SO BORING.

I can't convey to you how much this family needed a holiday. Dave told them to go to Mr Crackles in Oxford Street AND THEY DID!

This woman has been burnt by the same fire I have we're so disfigured together but MAN she's pretty!

TA- DA!

What Is Even A U2 UGH Get It Off My Phone I Pirate My Own Music Thanks

Last week the whole world woke up to the latest U2 album just HACKED into their phones I mean the gall.

How dare they! And what makes matters worse - for almost ten years it has been Bonos head used as the "Artists" icon on iTunes THE GALL.

"Gall" (noun) - bold and confident behaviour. 

Even down to the little tuft of hair at the back!

Who the actual hell do U2 think they are? Who died and made them Best Band of the Universe?

Here's where I went back to my OLD blog, pensively, wincing ... to fish out some photos for a post I was going to write. But the first paragraph of that old post brought me so undone that I can't write anything else. So here's what I wrote all those years ago, verbatim and  CRINGEWORTHY but, that's how I wrote it so there it stays while here I slay.

It's even more poignant and applicable today because when U2s latest album dropped my heart go boom.

::

A Most Incredible Adventure 26th September 2007

Once upon a time, a red-haired girl was having a dreadful childhood. When she turned 16, her stepfather of eleven years killed himself. This happened four years after her "real" father had died of his alcoholism. So, it's fair to say that family life at that time was dreadful. The love she had for her younger brother kept her going - never before had she felt so black. 

So, a friend from the local Catholic youth group (STOP LAUGHING) offered this girl a ticket to go and see a band that were playing at Sydney's Entertainment Centre. She went, not too excited. But glad to get out of the house and do something different. The band was called U2. The red-haired girl went with her friends, sat in the second back row ... and was absolutely blown away. Something happened - Grace, maybe. Her soul was filled to the brim of Power, Love, Faith. U2 have a world-wide reputation for touching their audience extremely intimately, and that night in 1989, this girl got given an outpouring of Hope injected into her soul. She will never forget it. Bono's voice cut through all the black, giving her a glimpse of light.

Now, this girl was itching to finish school and get the hell out of the hell that was home. She left her poor brother and didn't look back. Finally - she could start taking drugs and drinking EVERY NIGHT, just the way she wanted to. Now she could be happy! The highs were so high! She was funny, pretty, with the longest, reddest, most wild red hair you will ever see. She was also angry, bitter, dark, and melancholy. The lows didn't take long. The comedowns, regrets - she quickly grew out of control. Through all of these wild years, she always went to see U2 whenever they came to town. Scraped up enough money for every single tour (usually rent money - again, Becky Jean I am SO SORRY.) Always drunk and high - the four guys still reached her. She had all of their albums, knew all of the words. How did they manage to write songs especially for her? (Please, Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car, Stay Faraway So Close).

By now, the girl was living in a wasteland. Gaunt and empty and broken, she started doing the detox and rehab shuffle. Once, she got locked up in a psych ward for trying to kill herself. She knew she had problems - but what was the cause? The unforgiving start to her life, or the booze and drugs? She would drink and drink and drink. Only complete oblivion was comfort. She was a mess, a lost cause, a basket case. She was the person you would look at on the street and quickly avert your eyes from. But there was always the U2 songs - Bono would sing to her, lull her to sleep, give her hope.

Finally, after many, many years out in the wilderness, she knew she had do something. She entered rehab - for the last time. On that same day, U2 released an album full of amazingly hopeful songs of renewal, and grace. (All That You Can't Leave Behind). She ran to buy it before she went in to rehab (again!) and would listen to every track every night under the covers at bedtime, crying and praying. Her boyfriend of eight months promised he would wait for her. And he did. She hoped and wished for her poor head and heart to get better. Songs like Walk on and Grace helped her immeasurably.

Well, what happened when she got out of rehab? She accidentally fell pregnant! Everyone around her was aghast - EVERYONE - but, she knew, for the first time in her life, that she was ok. This will be ok, she would tell herself, as her belly swelled. But, she was worried. What if she was only staying clean while she was pregnant? What if - what if. Her stepson came to live with them too - suddenly, she had her own family. It was so important to stop thinking of herself and her own pain, and start taking care of others. She grew - spiritually, emotionally. She talked to like-minded people of her experiences. She became honest. She was so clean, so fragile. The baby came. She was saved by a power of a love she had only ever known from her brother, before. Holding him close, breathing his breath. Grace.

A U2 concert was announced! But then cancelled. The girl became a woman. Respected, loved. She started writing - she always wanted to be a writer when she grew up - not a junkie! Finally, U2 were definitely coming. She was having a particularly dreadful year - her marriage in a bit of strife. And all she could think about, was the ache in her soul for another baby. She hadn't felt such sadness for years.

It was the 11th November 2006. She got to the stadium at 6.30am. There were only a few people there. Feeling a bit self-conscious - she was a grown woman! A mother! She quickly made friends, and waited the whole day in the blazing heat to get as close to the Best Band in the World as possible. Finally, they opened the gates. She ran, and ran, and ran. FRONT OF THE STAGE!!! At the end of the catwalk!!! Giddy, and high, and excited - she waited.

Now, the start-up song came on, lights went down. Behind her, were 60,000 people. Never, ever, had she felt so elated, so triumphant, and so awestruck. And - not a drink or drug in sight!!! Bono walked on stage - walked, walked - when she realised that he was so close she could reach out and touch him, she cried and cried. Words cannot describe the concert that night. Every lyric, every song, every heartbeat. Every rotten thing that had happened, every miracle, every tear. It was all there and all accounted for. A celebration of life! Her soul was in a Rapture.

Halfway through the concert, Bono was walking slowly up to me. (Yes - this story is true and about me. Did you guess? Ha!) He stopped in front of me, knelt down, and gently took my hand. The crowd crushed me from behind. He was singing a song called "Love and Peace or Else". He stayed there, kneeling, looking deeply into my startled soul for about twenty seconds. It seemed like an eternity. We stared at each other. I was smiling (serenely, I got told later); thanking him with my eyes.

This was no accident. It was like my reward. I could feel Angels, whispering. The birth of my son was the most life-changing, love-giving moment. But that night was just ... indescribable. Powerful, affirming, intense ... it took me a whole lifetime to get there.

If Bono can stop a concert to kneel down and hold my hand ..... ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE, in this crazy, scary, amazing, mysterious world. Anything.

I feel so grateful and amazed for where I am at in my life right now. I can't believe it, truly. Tomorrow I will be 6 weeks pregnant. I'm still shocked that this has actually happened. I can be such a morbid thing. For many years I would wonder what stage of decomposition my fathers body was in as it lay in his coffin beneath the earth. I'm used to being negative about things - I want this pregnancy to work out so much, the thought of a miscarriage or a blighted ovum ... frankly, is scaring the hell outta me. So different when I had Tiger - I pissed on a stick and wondered what pram to buy!! Oh, how I'd love some of that sunny optimism now!!!

Whew - well done on making it through this whole post, thank you. It's dedicated to anyone who has overcome, or is still experiencing adversity in their lives. Infertility is a bit like drug addiction - hell to go through, can either make you or break you. Makes you a stronger, deeper, and less-judgemental person. Maybe infertility is worse - a drug addict can give up at any time. (Plus, at least you get high!!)

See the big manhand that Bono is about to grab? That. Is. My. Hand.

Jubilant. Tired. Ugly. SO CLOSE. 

The people behind me, wishing they were me.

I TOOK THIS PHOTO. And lots more, they're all in my old computer that broke I hope I can get them out one day. I ended up putting my camera away because it was so intimate. He was SO CLOSE that I just wanted to enjoy the experience as it happened. And oh boy, it happened.

(I touched his shoes, a few times. He wears lifts in them because he's so short. And he can't dance for SHIT. I just simply love him.) 

Me and my Beloved Tiger

::

Postscript: And now, eight years on, my Tiger is 12 and my Monkey is 6 and my baby brother will always be 33. He has taken his own life, taken it far away can never bring it back even if he wants to. And I burn, and burn, and burn. And on a day last week where I thought, I cannot do this, I cannot live another day, well, U2 dropped their latest album straight into my phone from the sky down and I am feasting on their words and sounds. Nourishment. I was starving. They are saving my life. Again. 

And what the hell would you prefer as the iTunes Artists icon? Nikki Minajs Anaconda arse?

FURTHER READING: The Day I Actually Met Bono (where he thanked me for listening to his music. His humility, oh my goodness.)

FURTHER THOUGHTS: If a rock and roll band are going to be so big and so powerful, then lucky it's a rock and roll band who work tirelessly for humanitarian issues all over the globe. Thank literal God for the sheer brilliance and arrogance and swagger and surety contained in a man named Paul Hewson.

Because who else, Generation Bored-Done-This-Seen-That-So-Jaded? Who else ya got?

If you're having an awful day, watch this. If you're having a wonderful day, watch this. Cam if you got reception in the nether, watch this. That note Bono hits (you'll know the one I mean) .. that note? Is where I live, for you.

If you have a bucket list, put "Seeing U2 live" on the top. Something Happens at their concerts. Rocco keeps requesting I play Song for Someone over and over for him. GLADLY. The guys are in talks for their next tour ... I'm taking my whole family. Dave, Tim, Phoebe, Max, Rocco, and any respective girlfriends or boyfriends anybody who wants to come you wanna come? You should come.

If I see them sing live again, man. I'll just cry and cry and cry and cry.

What To Do When People Are Mean.

I don't know how many "haters" I have. I know I'm not everybodys cup of tea lord knows I'm not my own cup of tea most of the time. Mostly I get "lovers" who somewhere, somehow, connect with my words enough to leave exquisite words of their own here. When you write things onto a computer screen and publish them out onto the internet, you automatically open yourself up to public scrutiny. I know this. I'll get raked over the coals every once in a while for the stuff I do or say and usually, mostly I cop it. Sometimes I fight back, but mostly I just ignore hell - a lot of the time I AGREE!

What really helps me is to read out the hurtful things people say about me to my husband Dave. Oh his responses, I wish I could video them. And if my twelve-year old son Max hears the mean stuff people say about me he just laughs, tells me not to worry, tells me something so calm and reassuring and it ALWAYS makes me feel better .

Mostly, I don't care. It's taken years to not care - and I don't mean become as hard as the world we live in, I mean just let the mean words trickle off like a dog pissing on a lamp post. Fine, you've left your mark, I got it. Now the rain and sun will wash away that piss and I can start again. Just because I write on the internet does not make me some untouchable god who should not be disagreed with or even dissed. You can diss me, I can diss you, we all live under the same moon isn't life hard and weird?

But I woke up this morning to an awful email. It's already deleted. It's gone. I'm never reading it again by the end I was just skimming it and I've blocked that IP. (Of course when you block an IP the person can find other ways, but still.) I almost shared the email here in its entirety. An email is different from a blog comment, a tweet, or message left on a "hate" site. An email is PERSONAL and I took it very personally. I wanted to share it out of anger but I also wanted sympathy and the thing is, I already have enough sympathy. I am blessed enough and lucky enough to have friends and strangers alike cheering me on from the sidelines as I go through the horrific, awful emotions and motions of dealing with the death of my brother. Who took his own life. Suicide. Which was exactly what this email was about - my brothers suicide, and how I'm writing about it irresponsibly. (Along with some *spectacular* pointing out of my character flaws, mental health issues, having children and passing on the addiction gene, etc.)

I can cop everything except being accused of writing about suicide irresponsibly. Sure, I don't leave suicide hotline numbers at the bottom of each post. No, I never say "trigger warning" on my "suicide posts." LIFE SHOULD HAVE A TRIGGER WARNING. This world, man. This world is NO place for a child.

The writer of my mean email (and I say mine because I own it, the writer gave it to me like a gift) got exactly what they wanted. And it was a really well-written email. Not one spelling mistake. I was deeply hurt, horrified at my actions, spiralled down into self-doubt and panic and oh my god what have I done?

What have I done? Well, I'm writing my way through what my brother did. I'm documenting one persons process and grief and journey through the most, THE MOST painful period of my life. I do this for many reasons - I'm a personal blogger so this stuff just comes naturally to me now. I do it to purge. To explain. To help. To howl. To expunge my hideous feelings out there into the universe via this strange medium called "the internet."

I keep writing because I keep living and I keep living because I keep writing and I have spent the past eleven months of my life grappling with the darkest stuff in my life and I haven't had a drink or a drug once in that time. I have been honest and open in that time. I have a huge belief that the way we talk about suicide is all wrong, you guys. Because we don't talk about suicide. We're starting to. And that is GREAT. It won't help my brother but it will most definitely help other people. Suicide rates are going up. Why? Why? Cameron took his own life for a lot of different reasons until they all came together in a perfect storm in his heart and his head and his mind and his soul until he got calm, in the eye of his own cyclone and he left us, he left us all here falling onto the grassy ground. Dave may as well build me a wailing wall in the backyard. I am keening. Keen sounds like it's a fun word but it's not, it's not it's an awful word for a thing that you do when you want to die after somebody you love has died.

But I am not dead. I am not finished. I will continue to document this suicide fallout - well, possibly until my gnarled fingers can't type anymore Siri how old will I be when I stop wording?

I am unorthodox and I polarise people and I swear and I am a mouthy, obnoxious, arrogant, selfish, self-centred person AND I DOUBLE DIP AND DRINK THE JUICE STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOTTLE IN FRONT OF MY KIDS WHO LAUGH AND IT DRIVES MY HUSBAND CRAZY.

I will not be silenced on this I will not. Because I go up and down and around and sometimes I get clarity and think to myself, wow, my words can sometimes help people. And if my words about suicide can help people then that means Camerons suicide can help people and that means Cameron is helping people. To stay. To not do what he did. I get conundrumafied because why make somebody stay when they don't want to? And now I have perfect hindsight of Camerons perfect storm and here I am and there he is and that's all that's left of a beautiful man named Cam. I really know now, deep in my bones, how the people around him throughout his whole life could have helped him more, but also how hard I wished he knew how to help himself. Stigma. Stigma KILLS and blogpost by blogpost, maybe I'm chipping away a little bit at the stigma. Actually I know I am because many, many people have told me.

Jeez I wish I taught Cam how to fish instead of fishing all the fish for him. He'd sit on the riverbank, sad, and I would fish and fish and fish and my hands would be overbearing, overladen with fish that I'd bring back to him and he existed on my fish for a while, for some time. But it doesn't taste as good as when you eat a fish you catch yourself now does it. I keep getting a vision of me and Cam walking through life together and we talked so much about how tired we were. I was tired before he was even born. In a lot of ways, I was not a great role-model for him. Anyway so we're walking together on a path like in a movie and he just has to sit down next to a tree.

"You go on ahead without me, Eed."

And I'm all NO! I am not leaving you! Get up! You can keep going you can! But Dave and my children - all of my children, the ones from my womb and the ones not from my womb - they're all walking on ahead and I need to make a choice. I ran out of water for Cam and there's no fish and he tells me to keep going.

You know I kept going otherwise I wouldn't be writing this and you guys? Something EXTRAORDINARY has happened within the last week. Something so rich and incredible and miraculous. I was going to tell you today but it can wait. What I need to tell you today needs to be said today. And I'm purposely not writing any swearwords in this post so you can show anybody you want without offence.

You need to know that not everybody is going to like you no matter how hard you try. If you are all things to all people then you are nothing to nobody. And when you write or create or show or sing or dance or be or do or even just simply EXIST, then somebody will one day come along and take a gigantic poop on you. And it will smell and feel yucky and it will sting. But remember what happens when a bee stings you. You're left with the stinger and it hurts so you pull the stinger out and it's gone. But that bee? That bee DIES. That bee is designed to die when it stings. I bet that bee tries to sting someone real good, someone worthy of stinging. Imagine a bee accidentally stinging a boring middle-aged white balding dude in Bankstown who has done not one thing with his wild and precious life DANG IT I MEANT TO STING GANDHI THAT GUY IS SO FULL OF HIMSELF WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS.

Who does he think he is? Who do you think you are? Who do I think I am? How dare we be bold. How dare we be ourselves, tell the truth, laugh, be happy. When I showed my six year old son Jimmy Fallon and Will Ferrell doing Tight Pants I watched his face because I take great joy in watching my children laugh. First thing he said to me, deadpan:

"He's not even embarrassed mum."

And I was all, EXACTLY SWEETHEART THIS IS WHY YOU NEED TO SILLY THINGS AND NOT CARE DON'T EVER CARE WHAT PEOPLE THINK!

The word "troll" has been both misused and overused for years now, but sometimes (thankfully for me not a lot of the time) it is a very, very applicable word. These days, faceless and nameless trolls sit underneath the bridge of the information superhighway and they're cranky. They don't want you to pass. Don't stop. Keep going. They're not the boss of you and how very ironic that the email I received this morning in regards to me writing about suicide belongs to a particular form of trolling that, you know, can actually cause suicide.

So today I'm off to my GP again, to get the results of my ECG because my heart rate is double it should be. Because my anxiety is off the roof, it's like I'm back with my brother a year ago, walking next to him, silently watching him go through all of the motions and things he did in the lead-up to his death. Then I'm going to come home and meet Dave here because we're getting photographed for the newspaper. When people see the photo in the paper they won't know all of the things going on beneath my skin, inside me. We've all got our stuff.

Please watch this magnificent thing below. Show it to your friends, your family, but especially any children present in your life. They're going to need it. 

(Thank you Manda for sharing it on my Facebook wall today, you changed my whole morning!)




Conclusion: What do you do when people are mean? Don't be mean back. After the dog wee washes off and the stinger comes out, you can get back to being the very same thing that a few (only a few) people will hate you for being:

You. They will hate you for being you. So make sure you be the best, strongest, boldest you that only you can be. The biggest revenge is living well. Fuck those guys.

PS Sorry I did swear but it was just once and it was CALLED FOR. So - how do you deal with meanies?

PPS (There is a link in my sidebar to the Black Dog Institute.)

Spoken Word Will Take Over The World.

"Not many human beings left anymore plenty of human lingerings.
Instead of trying' to change others we can change ourselves
we can change our hearts
we been sold lies
Love is the most powerful weapon on the face of the earth
So yes, the world is coming to an end."


(Thank you to my soulsister Alexandra for sharing this with me.)

Every Breaking Wave

I got to a point where I thought I could never possibly write this. But I can. So I did.

Last night I dreamt all Cams possessions were for sale, in a sad shop. Family were there, backs turned. It's ok. I turned my back first. I have to survive.

Cam told me that he was just going to take two weeks off work but he and I both knew he was going to die. We were both sad. He was so tired. There's big things happening inside me this week, all of this hard griefwork is coming to a crescendo. I can see some new beginnings from here, which is great but hard and exciting and sad because I never want to let him go.

But I did, you know. I let him go. I loved him so much I let him go.

"You cannot save people, you can only love them." I think I'll always wish I could have done more, that last weekend he was alive in October.

Note to self: texts cannot save somebody.

Cam always said he wished he was alive in the bygone eras, when men were men.

Oh god just looking at those photos. He's so familiar. I know every trace of his face. He travelled. He lived. He loved. He laughed. He cried. He died. Being human is excruciating. I was eight years old and on a lunchtime detention when my grandmother came to school to tell me my baby brother Cameron had been born. Thirty-three years later I was reading with my son when I got the phone call to say my baby brother Cameron had died. I put myself on detention the day he died, but no more. I keep waiting for the grief to go but it's never going to go because my love for Cam can never go, Bono told me that just this week.

I would sit with Cam and he'd tell me the pain and the struggle and I would tell him it would be ok, that the only reason I came good is because I hooked up with Dave and had kids and one day you will do that, you will find reasons to stay! Then you will be trapped here!

I thought because I'd overcome certain stuff that he would too. I knew he was in pain but I thought he would be burnt and then come out the other side and grow and learn and get strong, regardless of his abandonment and struggle and that brain that wanted to kill him. How many times did I tell him to open his heart, wait for the joy and the magic? But what do I know.

"Cam I used to live in brothels! You can get through hard shit!" But not everybody makes it through, Eden, dummy. How do you come to terms with a suicide without agreeing with the suicide? I loved Cam so much I let him go. I let him go. I loved a person hard for thirty-three years straight from his birth to his death. I can honour him by continuing to live on regardless of the pain and if reincarnation exists? I want to be reincarnated as Camerons mother, consider this a request form, Universe.

And now I have to let him go again, for any chance of me to make it through this period alive I have to let him go and when I let him go I get to take him with me, see? Sea? I woke up with U2s new lyrics in my head:

"Like every broken wave on the shore
This is as far as I could reach."

It was as far as he could reach. I got an email from a woman called Danielle who's been reading me for years to say she'd just realised her partner J was an old boyfriend of mine in the eighties. True! And she had a Cam story for me, told me that if it were her brother, she'd love to know any story no matter how small. Oh Danielle was so right! She wrote:

"The story about Cameron is a just a quick, cute story about a little boy who watched Rocky III with J and at the end when Rocky and Mr T have a fight, Rocky beats Mr T. J told me little Cameron burst into tears and was so upset because no one is supposed to beat Mr T!"

The last time I saw Cam I was like, "Hey do you remember how much you LOVED Mr T?" He couldn't remember! I was all, dude that guy was your HERO. It's so important to have heroes. After reading Danielles email I pictured Cam crumpled on the floor, devastated that Mr T got beat. Why is that so different to me crumpled on the floor, devastated that Cam got beat? His little four-year old heart just as broken as mine, now.

We all gotst to die someday, of something. Pain is pain is pain, to all of us. None of us get through life unscathed. I'm learning - with a therapist who I adore - exactly why I am so annihilated. Why these "strong feelings" are so devastating. If I'd grown up in an intact family with enough love, and then my brother had died in a car accident, I'd be grieving differently. But this is the way that I am grieving and it needs to be grieved like this for any chance for me to keep living. Every single day of my life I have woken up in panic and fear. Every day. My Cam leaving has broken me but Buddy Wakefield says that hearts don't break if they did he'd have confetti by now. Buddy says hearts bruise and get better.

Cam did not and could not stay around for his heart to get better. But I can. The other day, just when I was on the brink, three HUGE things happened all in one day, boom. Bang. That's how the world works and I was all, FUCK you Universe for making me stay again! I have never been so faithless. It has been terrifying.

So there's me yesterday, after filming a video down in Sydney after waking up not thinking I could get through another day. There's me, grieving out loud, balancing all my blog posts so they're not all dark and that's been hard when everything has been so dark. Cam let his light go out, goodnight my Cam and I hope you sleep tight and visit me from the underworld if the underworld exists and I let you go, remember? I told you on the phone I let you go but only because it was the thing you wanted so badly and you knew I loved you so much, you knew.

So there's Cam somewhere in Ireland I wish I knew where, writing his name in a spot that no other motherfucker can ever write it in just like Anis says. Cam was here, motherfuckers.

I'm still here. I'm forming a new life with and without my brother and I need tidbits, pieces of him, little precious stories to patchwork my sails so they soar, see. It's a see-saw he was seen, he was sore.

So, beautiful reader of this thing called a "blog" - yeah you right now. I see you just as much as you see me I feel your secrets as much as I openly tell you mine I know you're there I can hear you breathing. Some of you might even be reading these words in ten years time just after somebody you love has died maybe suicided and I want you to know that it gets better. Then it gets worse. Then it gets different. Keep moving. Keep moving - to the shops, to the kettle, to the couch, to Africa.

The world wants you to listen to this because god knows you've got shit going on in your own life that could do with some soothing balm. And not balm that costs twenty dollars sign up buy this. Balm as in words and experiences and feelings and remember what it is to just be human. That's it. That's all it's ever been.



Cam, we were never tragedies. We were emergencies, motherfucker. I'm here in griefland and thank you for the lessons. Step into this. I'm rebooting myself now just like that. You're not my troubles anymore but I'll always be the big sister so I'm still the boss - you can be Braveheart and I'll be Greenheart because man my heart just exploded the other day when I realised some things about your death and all this greenery just grew from the burnt trees. I'm about to have a fantastic time. Come with me, dead brother. I said I'd do it for the both of us and I am a woman of my word. Especially when it comes to you, always when it comes to you I was older but you always came first. Thank you for teaching me what it feels to love. Don't ever stop teaching me. I cried to my therapist last week "I should have needed him more!" 

I need you. I need you to help me finish my life triumphantly. Triumph. Now there's a fucking word.

Just A Nice, Friendly Game Of "Guess Who?" Or As We Like to Call It, Sexist Racial Profiling.

My son BEGGED me to buy him a game of Guess Who. At thirty bucks, it wasn't cheap. But when he came home with TWO merit awards in two consecutive weeks, a reward was definitely in order. This guy tries so hard at everything he does! He obviously got that from his dad, I'm a completely half-arsed kind of person. My very first sponsor in recovery told me that if a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing badly. I love my recovery people.

So we played Guess Who. I remember way back in the eighties when it first came back and I'd play it with Cam, it was one of his favourites. However, after about the seventeenth game with my son, I noticed something.

Harmless and cute, huh? NOT REALLY. Because when you actually play the game and look at all of the different people, check out the "diversity."

There are just five women, out of twenty-four people. Two of those women have crazy hats on, two have glasses, with just Megan left being discreet. Because quickly, both Rocco and I realised that to win the game, you choose a character as discreet as possible. Invisible - somebody who you wouldn't give a second glance too, walking down the street.

There are five people of colour in the game - no Asian people, no Indian people, no Arabic or other various ethnicities I can think of. And it is so, so disconcerting when you're sitting down with your kid and he says,

"Mum are you black?"

WHAT KIND OF A QUESTION IS THAT YOU CAN'T SAY THAT?

"Um, yes."

And when the other person knows you have chosen a person of colour, or a female, or a person with glasses - snap snap snap go down all of the other players and you're just left there hanging with your balls swaying gently in the breeze, with all your identifying characteristics. So the next time you play? You choose somebody nice and beige. See Matt up there? If you choose Matt, you're likely to win. Matt wins the game because he's an older white man who is most likely a banker or a politician. Matt's probably a millionaire. Matt would never get shot at by the police if he's already down on the ground with his hands in the air, he'd most likely never be date-raped if he had a few drinks. I sincerely doubt that Matt has ever mopped the kitchen floors of a fast-food outlet.

I hate Guess Who, but I keep playing it because my kid loves it. But he got so used to the both of us picking invisible, hard-to-guess characters that I'd start picking people like Sarah just to fuck him up.

Or as I like to call her, Oprah Winfrey. When I picked her, Rocco did not even guess for a second who I was because how could a woman of colour win the whole game?

There were a few uncomfortable conversations, because when Rocco asked if I was black after I'd chosen Tyler, I didn't know what to say.

Tyler looks Mexican and my first thought was, "Man I bet Tyler could make a mean burrito." And then my brain said "DON'T BE RACIST" and I was all, "I'm NOT I just like Mexican food! Shit am I a racist? Jesus Eden, Tyler could be a banker too." And he could, people of all walks of life can achieve things. I was confused, wrestling with myself, and hungry.

Again Rocco asked if I was black so I said yes but in the end he flipped me down because he didn't classify Tyler as being black but I did so we had to have an official agreeance upon who was black and who wasn't.

Am I supposed to teach my kid to say "coloured" instead of "black?" Just the word "black" seems insulting, derogatory, and really triggers my white white guilt. In 1977 I was five years old and spent a year living and going to school in Fiji. There were only a few white kids in my class. I was so white that the other kids would call me "pinky."

So. This game. Do not even get me started on Chris. Chris looks like a drug dealer who wears dirty jeans and still lives with his mum. This game turns me into a judgemental monster.

Rocco asked if I had a moustache and I said yes but it turns out that Chris does NOT have a moustache so I won the game and Rocco was so mad and I said mate, if you can't play this game properly you can go to your bedroom. And he was seething, told me to look closer so I did - and Chris does not actually have a moustache, it's just the shadow of his nose.

THIS GAME IS NOT HOW I REMEMBERED.

But we keep playing, and Max plays too sometimes so we had to clue him in on who was black, who was white, who was in-between and that Chris does NOT have a moustache.

I snapped the first photo up the top of this post quickly before school this morning, told Rocco I needed to take a photo of him pretending to play the game because I wanted to write about it today.

"Why do you want to write about it mum?"

"Because it makes me cranky."

"WHY DOES GUESS WHO MAKE YOU CRANKY?"

"Because there's hardly any girls on there sweetheart. And not many ... different people. You know how when we go to Sydney, the streets are full of different people? I think the game should be more like that."

Rocco counted up the girls, and realised consciously how few there were. He said that he liked different people. I said I liked different people too, I told him that a lot of people have a good life by standing out.

"You don't always have to blend in."

He nodded sagely, eating Nutella straight from the jar.

Each Suicide A Suicide Bomber.

There are people all around the world, every day, quietly taking their own lives. It's their final option, the forever decision. Whether they do it because of pain, anger, futility, depression, financial troubles, relationship issues .... they do it. They do it every day. Count up the number of suicides in one day and multiply that number by a thousand. I reckon one suicide would deeply affect about a thousand people. I've a firm belief that the people ending their own lives do not, can not know how deeply and awfully their final action will resonate, hurt, annihilate the people who love them. They are all suicide bombers, strapping on invisible backpacks of nails and bullets and shrapnel and when they jump off that cliff or breathe in that gas or tie that noose .... the backpack explodes, showering the people who love them with a pain etched forever into their hearts. Our hearts. My heart.

My brothers suicide has left me disfigured forever. I am currently experiencing the worst, most awful feelings of a deep loss and pain so profoundly impacting I do not even have the words to describe. Every day since October 15 2013, I have woken up in the morning, bleary eyed "No not another day something bad has happened BAM. Your brother is dead." And then my psyche barks, "SCALPEL."

And I perform Camerons autopsy to find the cause of death, over and over and over again. And over. And over. I don't even get paid for this shit. Grieving is all-encompassing. It is exhausting. And I am tired. So are my sons and husband. We are tired from this. My brain will not stop its futile search and rescue operation.

"He should have gotten help he never got help why didn't he get help? The help probably wouldn't have done much anyway why couldn't he just have kept going? I kept going? Why do I keep going? There is no point in keeping going. Life is meaningless. He should have kept living anyway nothing means anything Cam where are you?"

And my Cam is nowhere to be found. My Cam is gone. I was standing very close to him when he departed so I've been hit pretty badly. I was complicit in his death, see. He begged me on the phone, a few weeks before he died. I have talked him away from death so many times in our lives, so many times. I would tell him how suicidal I was too. And I was, am. I'm all suicidy and I can't wash it off. He made me promise that if he did it, I was to fight anyone who tried to hold a funeral for him. And he did it so I made sure there was no funeral. But now, I need your funeral, brother. And it's too late. And I wished I had done more, told you I needed you more, fixed you more.

It's really, really hard to fix somebody when you're a bit too broken yourself.

I feel like I aided and abetted his suicide, because I understood so well why he would want to go. He struggled with this whole "life" business, so hard. It's a hard life, I look at my children and I just think oh you guys, I'm so sorry I brought you into such a crappy world. They have no idea how hideous and intense and awful the world can make a person feel. No idea.

I have a feeling of a tidal wave forming, of a richer and more substantial dialogue on suicide. Which is great! But too late, for my brother. I see a video of beautifully groomed celebrities talking about how we must just hold on I want to reach through my screen and muss up their hair, swear at them a bit. Unless you have personal experience of suicide, you do not get to speak for me. I've been called "the suicide expert" by somebody online being nasty, who didn't mean it in a nice way. I happen to agree with you, motherfucker. I AM a suicide expert!

Last week I told my therapist that the only, ONLY times I have felt any semblance of feeling ok about my brother not being in the world anymore is when I'm driving in my car next to some railway tracks and there's a coal train travelling in the same direction as me. When it happened, man. I just exhaled for the first time since that awful Tuesday last year and for 0.04 of a second I was ok with my brothers death. It's happened a few times since, and I've felt that same teeny, tiny smidge of peace.

Once it happened with Max next to me in the car so I asked him to take a photo and he didn't even ask why. We are kindreds. 

There are trees that exist in the Scottish highlands that are balanced precariously on the edges of cliffs and all they need is a few drops, a few centimetres of water each year to survive. Gimme a smidgen of hope and I can make it last for weeks, months, years. I read recently that "strong storms make oak trees dig their roots in further."

The thing that confuses me the most is that I am alive and my brother is dead and we were both so similar. He wrote in his suicide note to me: "Eden, you're the strongest one out of all of us!"

I highly disagree, it's just - maybe I dug my roots in further? Cam told me in the last year of his life that he'd like to build his own house one day and now I think what an utter tragedy it is that he can never build his own house. He didn't know how to lay the foundations. He tried. But nobody taught him properly, he couldn't teach himself he was so arrogant, stubborn and now dead. Will never realise his potential.

My therapist and I could not quite work out why I feel a sliver of peace when I drive in the same direction as a coal train. Maybe it's because I used to read a big purple hardcover book by Richard Scarry called "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go" to my brother so often when he was little that the cover almost wore off. Everybody was always so BUSY, in that book. They had places to go, people to see. They had PURPOSE. And Goldbug would be hiding on every page and before I even turned the page my little brother, my little blonde-haired delightful guy who I now see in my children .... he'd sit there waiting with his finger pointed, ready to find Goldbug before I did.

I always let him find Goldbug first. I always gave him the prawns from my fried rice. I always listened to him, always tried to make him feel worthwhile and valued and important and beautiful and clever because it was all true. It was all true.

Buddy Wakefield says that the moon does not have to be full for us to love it. Cam, you did not have to be whole for us to love you. You didn't have to be anything other than who you were. You didn't like who you were. I wish you knew you were enough. I wish you kept going - for YOU, not for me or for anybody else. I wish you weren't in so much pain. I wish I wasn't in so much pain. I understand why you left. I hope that when you spoke to me on those last phone calls, my understanding and empathy of where you were and how you felt - bro I hope it gave you comfort. But god help me I wish you knew how much I didn't want you to go. I'm so sorry my Bam-Bam. I fucked up. I would've done it all differently I DEMAND a do-over you would still be alive and be able to grow and evolve and know that you are enough and worth enough, to stay.

So, to all of the suicidal people who are reading this right now, I'm sorry but I cannot save you. My success rate in saving people is pretty bad. If it's any consolation I have felt suicidal on and off for my entire life and I still stay, still stay. And I know how hard it is and I'm with you in spirit.

I'm going to wash my face and walk outside and read a piece out that I wrote just last week, when the grief became so much I couldn't get out of bed. I read it out to my therapist that same day, and for once, he couldn't look at me and he couldn't speak and it's usually the other way around. This goes out to all of my grievers today on this World Suicide Prevention Day. What is suicide, what is suicide prevention? I think it all boils down to how hard it is to be a human in the world, and how much better we feel when we can connect with something, somebody - anything. This searingly honest piece on the suicide of Robin Williams is just extraordinary. THIS is what we need to hear, to read.

So here is my thing that I'll read out exactly how I wrote it, didn't even edit one word, the ink just streamed from my pen and the words fell just so and this is not for any poetry competition. (Stop being so fucking competitive WORLD.) I didn't even use ink! I used my computer but that's magic for you, magic that my brother never believed in and now I'm not so sure myself anymore but I'm still here and that's just gotta mean something.

This is for you, whoever you are, and whoever might need to see it. Please excuse me reading it out from the page - I don't have the energy to memorise it right now. I'm sitting in the exact same place my brother sat for four hours on fathers day last year and we talked and talked and talked and he left and the next time I saw him was in the morgue, all spongey. I miss my confidante. I can't be who I was with him to anybody else in the whole world. I miss how he made me feel. I miss who he could have been. Most of all I just miss who he was.


::

PS A beautiful woman called Joy (what a name!) emailed me last week about THIS - a gathering at the Sydney Opera House tomorrow for all those who have been touched and bereaved by suicide. And it's held out in the open - with people walking past! OUT IN THE OPEN NOT HIDDEN. I can't go. It'll take me two hours to drive down, seventy bucks to park my car, the grieve grieve cry and you know what's on tomorrow night? A school disco for my six-year old son. He's never been to a school disco yet, missed it last year because I was too broken to take him because grief steals so much! So I won't be there tomorrow, I'll be watching my son go nuts at the school disco instead. Tomorrow is too close to home to honour my brother in public. Maybe next year I'll go.

PPS A NEW U2 TRACK JUST GOT RELEASED ON ITUNES AND I'M GOING TO LISTEN TO IT RIGHT NOW BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW BONO WROTE IT JUST FOR ME

PPPS In summation, it's hard and selfish to want people to stay in the world "for us" when they are in so much pain and death is often the most obvious choice but suicide should not be the only option. We need grassroots shit to happen. We need community. We need entire shifts in how we view "mental health." New words. New beginnings, to make up for the awful endings. We need kid-friendly music festivals and cupcakes and real. The world news more real and I will kick more real into it if it's the last thing I ever do.

PPPPS Kicking more real into the world will, indeed, be the last thing I ever do.