Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
My nephew Alex is eight years old and has been living most of his life with a severe case of portal vein stenosis and other forms of chronic liver disease. He has been in and out of hospital and between the repairing and removal of portal vein shunts, and removal of parts of his liver that no longer work he’s had almost 20 operations in just over four years. He had a partial transplant in 2010 and it was looking great until October 2012 when the first signs of rejection had set in. He’s now been slated for a complete transplant and it is just a waiting game. He asks me questions about everything, from veganism to particle physics, poetry and the meaning of life and looked at me when I answer them with an expression of “ don’t fuck this up grown up, I’ll know if you’re lying to me”. One day he asked me:
“where do you think we go when we die”? It was something I’d been told he may ask, but wasn’t prepared for. So I said to him : “well, maybe we don’t go anywhere, maybe our body goes to sleep but the bits of us that makes us who we are stick around and live on in other ways”.
“So you mean, like a ghost or something,”? He replied. When I nodded he said, after thinking a minute.
“Well, I want to live on as Batman, that guy was pretty cool.”
What he doesn’t understand is that to me, he is more superhero than any comic book character you’re ever likely to find. The closest we’ve ever come to losing him is just before Christmas when he contracted a severe bout of pneumonia and ended up needing to be intubated for a while. I told him that he didn’t need to fight if it was getting too much for him, because even the bravest superhero knows when it’s time to give up. He made it through that time and is now steadily getting better but it’s still just a waiting game. He is a sponge for stories, for information about people, and the more outrageous the better. When he was unable to go outside his favourite thing for us to do was sit and look out the window that looked directly out onto the street. For almost a month that window was his only form of being able to see the sky , the sun, or the trees, although winter in Royal Park doesn’t offer much in foliage. He’d point people out going past in the street and listen to me make up stories about them. He’d offer small details, but was generally content to let me tell the story.
“What about that one”? He pointed out a family of three people hurriedly getting on a tram.
“Shh.. “ I replied, “you can’t tell anyone, but they came to Australia as part of the Witness Protection Program to escape Mexican Drug Lords”
“Annndd,, how about that one”? He pointed out an old man with a walking stick walking in the direction of the Hospital.
“ That one is visiting his new baby grandson down the street, he’s never had a Grandkid before, and can’t wait to meet him”
“Does he have a wife”?
“Nope, it’s just him, that’s why his little baby grandson is so important. “
“Annnd how about that one, she’s kinda pretty”. He pointed out a dark haired brown eyed girl on the street below carrying a bunch of flowers.
“She’s on her way to a secret meeting with her boyfriend, she’s not meant to love him but she does, very much”
Alex looked confused, but pushing his tiny glasses back up his nose he said :
“I don’t understand… Isn’t everyone meant to love each other”? Before I could give him an answer he was asleep in my arms and I’d gently put him back to bed and go back to writing my book of stories about a time travelling boy named Tim, who meets a magical eight year old girl named Sarah and they go back and forward to different places amassing rag tag army of kids that no one loves but ultimately change the world. Because that’s the thing, Alex has irrevocably changed my world. He’s opened me up to love, play and affection. Sometimes it just downright terrifies me that he seems to have this unshakeable faith in me that I am not entirely sure I deserve. When we’re older we fret about rent, our jobs, school fees, or how we’re going to pay the next bill, but with Alex it’s just one big dose of right now. So that’s my commitment, to be the person he already sees me as and never stop asking questions.