Wave Sonali Deraniyagala Quotes

I will kill myself soon. But until then how do l tame my pain?

I am in the unthinkable situation that people cannot bear to contemplate.

Their promise, my children's possibilities, still linger in our home.

I would plead into the darkness, where are they, bring them back

I must stop remembering... The more I remember, the greater my agony. These thoughts stuttered in my mind... I must be more watchful, I told myself. I must shut them out. I couldn't always keep this up.

Seven years on, and their absence has expanded. Just as our life would have in this time, it has swelled.

I will kill myself soon. But until then, how do I tame my pain?

And as the wind gusted against those windows, I saw how, in an instant, I lost my shelter. This truth had hardly escaped me until then, far from it, but the clarity of that moment was overwhelming. And I am still shaking. They would indeed be aghast to see the mess I am now. This is not me, this is now who I was with them.

the reality of being here eludes me, I can’t focus, I am dazed. And I want to stay this way. If I have too much clarity, I will be undone, I fear.

My boys. I don't have them to hold. What do I do with my arms?

I was dizzy in that room. I felt faint with disbelief. I held on to the seat of my chair to stay upright. I knew what was going on, but I couldn’t absorb any of it.

How hideous, that there should be a pecking order in my grief.

I was terrified that tomorrow the truth would start.

Occasionally an insensitive relative might walk away if I mention my anguish, and I reel from the humiliation of my pain being outlandish, not palatable to others.

The more I remember, the greater my agony.

I must stop remembering. I must keep them in a faraway place. The more I remember, the greater the agony.

Somehow on this boat I can rest with disbelief about what happened, and with the impossible truth of my loss, which I have to compress often and misshape, just so I can bear it -so I can cook or teach our floss my teeth.

Broken and bewildered, my brother had the house cleared and packed away, painted and polished, all in the first month or two after the wave. For him, that was the practical thing to do, to impose order on the unfathomable, perhaps.

The more I remember, the more inconsolable I will be, I've told myself. But now increasingly I don't tussle with my memories. I want to remember. I want to know. Perhaps I can better tolerate being inconsolable now. Perhaps I suspect that remembering won't make me any more inconsolable. Or less.

Maybe it is not so overwhelming after all, to dissolve the divide between now and then.

Their voices have doubled in strength now, not faded with time. Their chatter plays with my thoughts no end. And I am sustained by this, it gives me spark.

Is this truth too potent for me to hold? If I keep it close, will I tumble? At times, I don't know.

And I cringe to be bereft in a way that cannot be imagined, even though I do wonder how impossible this really is.

Why do I have to be the fucking ghost?

I hadn't shed a tear all day, and I wasn't going to. Not with all these people here, not now.

In a few hours it will be light. It will be tomorrow. I don't want it to be tomorrow. I was terrified that tomorrow, the truth would start.

But here in my home, I will be destroyed by getting too close to the life I lost.

I stun myself each time I retell the truth to myself, let alone to someone else. So I am evasive in order to spare myself.

He'd say, "Don't be scared, Vik. It's good when it's all really black. You can see your dreams better.

On days like this, birthdays, the anniversary of the wave, I want to be alone. Alone, I am close to them, I slip back into our life, or they slip into mine, undisturbed.

I trip up constantly, between this life and that.

But I have learned that I can only recover myself when I keep them near. If I distance myself from them, and their absence, I am fractured. I am left feeling I’ve blundered into a stranger’s life.

I steer clear of telling. I can't come out with it. The outlandish truth of me. How can I reveal this to someone innocent and unsuspecting? With those who know my story I talk freely about us.... But with others I keep it hidden, the truth. I keep it under wraps because I don't want to shock or make anyone distressed. But it's not like me to be cagey in my interactions.... But now I try to keep a distance from those who are innocent of my reality. At best I am vague. I feel deceitful at times. But I can't just drop it on someone, I feel--it's too horrifying, too huge. It's not that I should be honest with everyone, the white lies I tell strangers I don't mind. But there are those I see time and again, have drinks with, share jokes, and even they don't know. They see my cheery side. And I kick myself for being a fraud.... I can see, though, that my secrecy does me no favors. It probably makes worse my sense of being outlandish. It confirms to me that it might be abhorrent, my story, or that few can relate to it.

Thank you most of all to Mark Epstein, my extraordinary therapist. This book would not exist without his guidance and persuasion. With him I was safe, to try to grasp the unfathomable, and to dare to remember.

And everywhere, on bare ground and between cracks in the floors, tiny pink and white flowers that flourish along the seashore forced their way up. Mini mal, or graveyard flowers, they are called. I resented this renewal. How dare you heal.

Maybe it is not so overwhelming after all, to dissolve the divide between now and then. In those months and months after the wave, I could hardly bear to hear the names of my children’s friends. And when I began to see them again, I was afraid of being reminded of how my boys would be, of knowing what they are missing. I see my children’s friends often now. They are bubbling over when we meet, I enjoy their sparkle. And they make my boys real, so they are not beyond my field of vision, as they were in those first years.

By knowing them again, by gathering threads of our life, I am much less fractured. I am also less confused. I don’t constantly ask, Was I their mother? How can so much of my life not even seem like mine? I can recover myself better when I dare let in their light.

I must stop remembering. I must keep them in a faraway place. The more I remember, the greater my agony. These thoughts stuttered in my mind. So I stopped talking about them, I wouldn't mouth my boys' names, I shoved away stories of them. Let them, let our life, become as unreal as that wave.

I’d never heard shrieking like this before. So wild, wretched, it frightened me, rattled the wall I was holding on to. This noise was crackling into the numbness in my head. It was blasting the smallest stir of hope in my heart. It was telling me that what had happened was unthinkable, but I didn’t want this confirmed. Not by wailing strangers, I did not.

I think I also don't confess because I am still so unbelieving of what happened. I am still aghast. I stun myself each time I retell the truth to myself, let alone to someone else. So I am evasive in order to spare myself...I can see though that my secrecy does me no favors. It probably makes worse my sense of being outlandish. It confirms to me that it might be abhorrent, my story, or that few can relate to it.

These blue whales are unreal and baffling, yet surrounded by them I settle awhile. Somehow on this boat I can rest with my disbelief about what happened, and with the impossible truth of my loss, which I have to compress often and misshape, just so I can bear it—so I can cook or teach or floss my teeth. Maybe the majesty of these creatures loosens my heart so I can hold it whole. Or have I been put in a trance by these otherworldly blue whales?

I was held for a few moments in the coherence and safety of the life we had, when so much seemed predictable.

I wanted to escape the madness of the hospital, I wanted to get away from everyone at Mette’s house, but couldn’t I somehow stay suspended in my confusion? I want to sit in the back of this moving van forever. In a few hours it will be light. It will be tomorrow. I don’t want it to be tomorrow. I was terrified that tomorrow the truth would start.

These five years I’ve been so fearful of details. The more I remember, the more inconsolable I will be, I’ve told myself. But now increasingly I don’t tussle with my memories. I want to remember. I want to know. Perhaps I can better tolerate being inconsolable now. Perhaps I suspect that remembering won’t make me any more inconsolable. Or less.

I am here because they are gone? That was when their absence, as well as their realness, was wavering and suspect. It’s different now. I know it is true that they are not here. An unfathomable truth, but maybe I am more accustomed to it.

More and more now I keep my balance while staring into us. And I welcome this, a small triumph, it lights me up.

Seven years on, and their absence has expanded. Just as our life would have in this time, it has swelled. So this is a new sadness, I think. For I want them as they would be now. I want to be in our life. Seven years on, it is distilled, my loss. For I am not whirling anymore, I am no longer cradled by shock.

I suspect that I can only stay steady as I traverse this world that’s empty of my family when I admit the reality of them, and me. For I am without them, as much as I am on my own. And when I hold back this truth, I am cut loose, adrift, hazy about my identity. Who am I now?

They had become muffled and distant then anyway. This happened in those first days after the wave. I couldn't find their faces, they quivered as in a heat haze. Even in my stupor I knew that details of them were dropping away from me crumbs. Still, whenever they emerged, I panicked.

This is very different from those early months after the wave, when all I heard was a sudden whisper, some snatches of sound. Their voices have doubled in strength now, not faded with time. Their chatter plays with my thoughts no end. And I am sustained by this, it gives me spark.

I never did find Crazy Cow. I stopped searching the day I found the shirt Vik wore on our last evening, Christmas night. It was a lime-green cotton shirt. I remembered him fussing that he didn't want to wear it, it had long sleeves, which he didn't like. Steve rolled up the sleeves for him. "There, that looks smart." When I found the shirt, it was under a spiky busy, half-buried in sand. I pulled it out, not knowing what this piece of tattered yellowing fabric was. I dusted off the sand. Those parts of the shirt that had not been bleached by salt water and sun were still bright green. One of the sleeves was still rolled up.

And the three silly boys would fall about laughing. Now I sit in this garden in New York, and I hear them, jubilant, gleeful, on our lawn.

I am immersed in another reality.

I can't die. For them, I have to stay alive.

But I don't want to die, our life is good, I thought. I don't want it to be over, we have much more to do, so much.

Yet I silently and hopelessly murmured, there might, might just be the smallest chance.

Let them, let our life, become as unreal as that wave.

Such a puny life. Starved of their loveliness, I feel shrunken. Diminished and faded, without their sustenance, their beauty, their smiles.

All that they were missing, I desperately shut out. I was terrified of everything because everything was from that life. Anything that excited them, I wanted destroyed.