More importantly though, I eyed Room 231 from the South Wing as it exposed its exterior surface daily; its brown doors, the old wooden bench outside, and the brown, metal railings that stretched along the edge of the balcony, which enclosed around the other sterile rooms. The sad memory of my grandmother’s suffering in that room before her eventual death still lingered, orbiting around in horrible perfection. It was as if my bacterial heart has deliberately failed to decay my memories of her, but only leaving behind insoluble residues of sorrow and regret, which was eating me slowly whenever I saw that room. It was because of her death that I had noticed that my people’s flag was absent on the roof because before the incident I did not have a care in the world about my culture. I remembered that night when I was up there, when I was last with her. It was impossible to forget it.
* * *
The barren room was illuminated with the hospital lights and it had a smell of disinfectant, but I had been tainted with anguish as the smell of grief dominated. My sunken mouth was trembling. My heart was as lonely as an abandoned tomb. My body felt like a plant that was foreign to its soil and could not blossom elsewhere. I was supposed to bid my last farewell to my grandmother, but in fear of not finding the right words to share with her, I sealed my lips. I reminded myself that she only had hours of life remaining in her, but fear imprisoned my heart to do so. All I did was frown upon the sour sight of human frailty. In disbelief, I shamefully walked outside onto the open balcony to cool my knotted emotions in the night’s chilly ambience. I leaned on the brown, metal railing. My throat was tightening and became volatile and warm tears of love and frustration streamed from my eyes like an unstable fountain. “I wept for you grandmother”, I reassured myself in a hoarse tone, which stirred within my soul depths of unexpected sweetness.
I glimpsed up into the forever-black sky that extended out beyond the invisible horizon of the dusty plains of Kooratjoonga to an indefinite distance. “If only we all lived to an infinite span like the skies”, I yearned silently for an impossible hope. I glanced down at the front playground of the neighbouring school, and I imagined the unripe kids clothed in their blue and white uniforms, running and screaming around full of life with their friends in the playground. I believed it was quite heartbreaking in a way, because they will grow and live in this physical world of life and death that has the capacity to completely disconnect a flawless friendship. It felt as if all I had now was this cold piece of reality that I had found; people lose loved ones, which was piercing my heart like sharp arrows intermittently. It was just one piece that was part of my puzzled life.
“Yadgalah!”, I bawled in unhurried crescendo into the night sky, like a fresh outburst. My voice was weak and fragile, as if its trailing echoes would evaporate. ‘Yadgalah’ meant friend, which was my grandmother’s totem, and she always wanted me to call her that, to remind us that we were part of the Dreaming, as the Watjala people. I had dishonourably forgotten what it had meant and that we were part of the Watjala people. I wanted to cry out her name again, but a sense of shame retrained me. Instead I turned around and eyed the old, silver handle on the brown, wooden door of the room. I knew that if I walked through that door again, I would suffer with my grandmother. As difficult as it was, I walked slowly towards the door, grasped tightly onto the icicle-cold lever, and steadily pulled it downwards, which produced an unwelcoming, atonal squeal. With anticipation, I slowly walked back into the room.
* * *
Months after her death, the regret of not saying “good-bye” to my grandmother still stained onto my heart, and it would remain with me permanently. It was undefinable uneasiness. Some details of the night escaped me, but the regret remained. I have walked past that balcony an infinite amount of times and it teased me every time. This place had become foreign to me. She was not up there anymore. It was all unconnected. The only thing that made sense to me was that I now believed she was sharing harmony with the Land, nature and the Dreaming, forever. The snatching hands of death stole my grandmother from me, as if she was another stolen generation, but I accepted it because everyone’s life is momentary. Even though it was my day of mourning, I have enough life in me to atleast be progressive and proud of my natural origins. With the loss of my grandmother, my spirituality had come back to me in such a mysterious and remarkable way that no human being would be able to define.
