The wise and experienced words of my legend that is my Dad plagued my mind today.  “You will go to hell and back.”

 

My hell was at the bottom of the ocean. I don’t really remember much about it.  I think I was in shock, numb and my mind now protecting me from myself.

 

“One day you will wake up knowing the way out. And then because you are a Brooks, you will come out of the shit smelling like roses.”

 

I know I am no longer in my hell, having chosen my path out, but I am not yet sure I smell of roses as I still have hellish days.  April is littered with trigger dates and memories; memories that now seem false; memories that now make sense; memories that have a stream of questions linked to them; memories that I try to understand but can’t; memories that bring back the tears I haven’t shed for a long time.

 

It could be because I am tired and still in pain. That would be the simple excuse for my obsession, the ‘leak’ in my constant concentration to block out the memories and triggers. But I know it is because I am back home, deeply saddened by the fact I no longer like it here, surrounded by falsehoods, smoke and mirrors, reminders that I was just a puppet in someone else’s play, someone else controlling my strings, lurching me one way or another if I got to close to the truth.

 

I hate myself for being so ignorant. For playing the fool, so ignorantly beautifully, complete with moments in the flow of joy.

 

While I have numbed myself to my recent hell, he too has frozen out the past. When a new piece of the puzzle lands, as I try to find where it fits, he has closed the book and moved on – can’t remember or won’t remember. Yet his past is my present. My living mind ‘hell’ trying to work it out with only part of the story.

 

No amount of small concentrated moments, small jobs, sunny walks and laughs with the boys have helped me escape today.

 

I live for the day, like my Dad, when I refer to my hellish experience, I can say “I don’t really remember, it was over 50 years ago.” And that new memories, happy times will have eclipsed the darkness, filled my mind so there is no corner or recess to hold any part of it;  with all the unplaced pieces forgotten, dusty, lost, insignificant and no longer important.  That will be heaven.  Not hell.