Many thanks … very encouraging. Daffodil Day in New Zealand is a day for remembering cancer victims. Daughter and my partner both died of cancer with 7 months of each other, then my younger brother just a few years later. It is good to read that I am able to hold someone’s interest and the suggestions are useful. I have much to say but want it to be meaningful not only to me. I do realise this stuff is not on everyone’s choice of reading menu.
Journal, Diary, & Blogging / DEMOLITION (Analysis)
DEMOLITION
Thursday 28/8/08
Tomorrow is Daffodil Day in New Zealand.
Grief is a bittersweet journey of twists and turns throughout the years rather than a state of being that has an end to it in some sort of ‘closure’.
Today I walked past the old Christchurch Women’s Hospital as I have many times before on my way to and from work. Today was different. Today they have begun to tear down the empty building. It has stood empty for so long and yet I had had no warning that one day it might become reduced to mixed piles of steel and smashed concrete.
My heart lurched unexpectedly and continued to ache as the back wing came into view. The upper ward rooms were on their way to the ground, ragged concrete gouged out by machines now sitting at rest, the rumbling sound of their motors mingling with traffic noise on Colombo Street. I blinked back tears.
In 1999, I had stood in one of those rooms, watching my 23 year old daughter recover from a hysterectomy. A recovery that was a short term reality, as in seven months … she would be gone. This was just the first of many more hospital visits as my precious daughter began her journey with the illness that would claim her life.
The crumbled balcony at the end of the building once supported members of her family … fiancé, brothers, grandparents, nieces and nephew, and me, ... standing around, strained and confused. It was there I also first met members of Rochelle’s birth family. She had courageously introduced herself to them just a few years before. Two families united in this way we haven’t chosen.
These men today, working in their hard hats, directing their machinery to smash this huge maze of rooms … do they wonder what happened here … who died here … who was born here … who cried here?
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effervescentpsyche reviewed Version 1 -
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I really liked this piece it was very sad…could definitely feel your sadness. I wondered what did happen there. So sorry about your daughter, I hate life…because there’s always death there is no escaping it.
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felixzeak reviewed Version 1 -
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This piece is great, mainly because it gives you a solid mental Image,of the men in the construction site. your word choice is amazing “Keep posting!”
shadowedxrain reviewed Version 1 -
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This piece really touched me and very much spoke to me. I know you said it’s a work-in-progress, but structure aside…you really have something here. Whether or not the story is real, you have a very legitimate connection to the subject and the person in question. The choice of setting and subject is captivating, and your use of imagery definitely serves to hold the reader’s attention.
As for mechanics, I would suggest more usage of periods here and there to break up sentences…it seems too thrown-together at the moment. I would also suggest a line breakage in between paragraphs to help the reader follow along more easily.
Just as a question, what is the significance of Daffodil day in general, but also to the story? I didn’t see a connection.
Very, very good work.
Lin reviewed Version 1 -
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I remember the building. I lived in Christchurch briefly as a child & again when I trained as a teacher. Buildings are full of memories & you will remember how it was long after is have gone.
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