Imaginary Letters

Maria Calo

Description

Maria Calo was thirty-three when her husband, Geoffrey, died tragically from a brain tumour.This memoir, Imaginary Letters, is literally that: a collection of more than fifty poignant, profound, heartfelt, often unbearably moving letters Maria wrote to Geoffrey after his death.Geoffrey can never read them... but you can. Imaginary Letters will change how you think about life, death and love. They remind us, forever, that true love never dies.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Memoir

Informations

• Publié par: The Conrad Press
• Date de parution: 20 février 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781912924691
• Langue: English

Extrait

Imaginary Letters
a memoir of love and loss


Imaginary Letters
Published by The Conrad Press in the United Kingdom 2018
Tel: [phone]
www.theconradpress.com
[e-mail]
ISBN 978-1-912924-69-1
Copyright © Maria Calo, 2019
The moral right of Maria Calo to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
Typesetting and Cover Design by:
Charlotte Mouncey, www.bookstyle.co.uk
The Conrad Press logo was designed by Maria Priestley.


Imaginary Letters
a memoir of love and loss
Maria Calo


Introduction
M y name is Maria Calo. I’m thirty-five. I was born in Romania.
In the year 2016, shortly after my husband’s Geoffrey Cusworth’s death, I began writing Imaginary Letters. The book is a memoir, and details a story of love and loss.
I met Geoffrey when I was twenty and in my first year at university. My chosen subject was psychology, though athletics -sprinting - remained my true love.
Two years before we met, due to personal circumstances, my sprinting career ended. I was deeply disappointed by this. At the time when we met, Geoffrey was recovering from his own tragedy: a dreadful lorry accident which claimed one life and nearly killed him too. We were both trying to rebuild our lives, when unexpectedly, one day, we got to know each other online through a mutual interest in a rock band.
It was a life-changing encounter.
We exchanged emails for about a year until he came to Bucharest to meet me.
I subsequently visited him in England, and we married soon after. We remained married for twelve years until his death disrupted our perfect universe.
One day, utterly out of the blue, I received a phone call.
It was from a nurse at a hospital in the English Midlands city of Nottingham, where we lived. Geoffrey had had a grand mal seizure, I was told. An MRI scan showed a tumour in his brain.
Brain cancer? How do you deal with it? What do you do?
I followed my instincts. My love for Geoffrey was a guiding light – the only source of inspiration when I fumbled through what often felt like a black-out.
Fate offered us two more years together since the diagnosis. We made the best of it, though the medical necessities were invasive. We re-found fun and laughter among surgery, wrenching chemo sessions and consultants with sinister news. Geoffrey and I remained as strong as ever, despite the end that became gradually more inevitable.
So Imaginary Letters is a story of loss, of separation. But it’s also a story of love and loyalty.
And loyalty, dear Reader, never dies.
Please note: For the sake of privacy, some details have been fictionalised.
On another tack, the italicised sentences represent my unflinching convictions.


1
N ew beginnings are always difficult.
I guess human nature is designed to sense the hardship of sudden change but it can also adapt to newness, as I’ve recently discovered.
What shall I infer from this, sweetheart? That writing these imaginary letters to you is a mere way of dealing with my bereavement? Or perhaps I’m just embracing my predicament. Is keeping my head above the water level a simple tactic to fight the cruel fate?
You know me, Geoffrey. I’m nothing if I don’t question everything. You always thought I was a powerhouse of creative ideas. To some extent I believed you, since your honesty knew how to tickle my over-inflated vanity. In truth, at this sensitive time, I don’t feel remotely like a powerhouse; nor do I detect a shred of creativity igniting my mind. Right now I sense emptiness and sheer vacuum, but also a berserk desire to feel close to you again. To hold onto, even for a second, the sentiment of being whole. I feel the need to recreate a false sense of normality.
Are there other solutions to combat such an adverse and fractured mind-set? The problem is that this state of spirit is mine and mine alone. It is my duty to help myself until self-composure will resurface.
It’s hard to envisage that fortune is my friend, so I won’t waste time contemplating it. It may be wiser to invest my resourceful energy in manufacturing this virtual environment – this dual time dimension, where perhaps we could feel tightly wired; like we used to.
It’s sad, isn’t it? To think that one day, dust specks and leftovers will replace everything good and become the norm. Your recent death has welcomed this change, this new order to which I’m still struggling to adapt.
As I mentioned earlier new beginnings are difficult, and I can only hope your experience is more humane than mine. Did I say more humane? Please excuse my naivety. I haven’t forgotten you’re no longer here. No, it’s not that at all. My limitation is at fault and so is my deficiency of vision, each time I contemplate your whereabouts. I think by now you should know differently. As for me, I remain bound to this materialism and pretty much nothing else.
Sometimes I wonder where you are, or whether you are at all; what you are doing, how you feel and what is the nature of your thoughts. Then, I suddenly shudder. I wake up from my dreaming sessions to realise that if indeed you are, in any form you could be, you are maybe far, far away. And my life continues here, in my dimension where willingly or not, I’m exhorted to rummage through my emotional debris until I find something I can cling onto; providing chance is on my side.
In my crises I try to fix myself. I have a method: I endeavour to disconnect from you – from us, but of course it doesn’t mean that the time tunnel we’ve created is fruitless. Not in the least. For now, we can rely on it.
I guess it’s the predicament of those who remain behind. They must joggle possibility and normality in a crazy attempt to save what’s left to be salvaged. Intense emotion can channel contradictory feelings and in those moments, it seems like everything is indeed possible and normal.
It’s a bit like your kingdom, if I imagine it right; but it also feels like everything is permitted and excusable. Even temporary insanity. Even the berserk wish to leave everything behind just so I can meet you again for a slight second.
Rest assured I haven’t lost my wit. I am aware that deep down resignation shadows desire and insanity. And I’m certain that now we’ve both learnt to accept it, although it wasn’t easy.
So here we are, Geoffrey. Yet again we are forced to apply one of our old theories about life and existence: making the best of the worst. It sounds effortless, doesn’t it? Is there really the best of the worst? I don’t know and quite frankly I’m afraid to find out.
One thing I know though. The time vortex works. It’s good enough for now and I couldn’t care less about anything else. As for later… It may be wise to wait patiently rather than make hasty presumptions. Seize the moment, live for the day despite the fact that my attempts to closure you will remain elusive and virtual; a bit like your world.
Nevertheless, the words I’m laying down on paper have unleashed a force which keeps on pushing me towards you. I won’t lie. I do like it and want to explore it further. That’s how things work here, my sweet, if you remember. What feels good will be pursued.
This is our time – that’s the great thing about it. We can do whatever we wish. I for one, would like to compose these daily letters and send them out to you, though I know there’s a very good chance my efforts will remain fruitless.
I will assume this task anyway, since it’s the only possible way to maintain our connection. In the bottom of my heart I know you are fine and despite this certainty, my words will do their best to keep us together.


2
T he power of the word seems limitless, as does my conviction that wiring us is the right thing to do. I won’t mislead you. It has an ambivalent effect on me. Whilst the pain is less hurtful and somehow acceptable, I have to tame the withdrawal symptoms once I pause the writing session.
There’s no need for concern. I can manage the process. It justifies the ongoing desire to lose myself in this task, which to my relief keeps me distant from reality and its subsequent effects.
But it’s true to say that reality, as cold and cruel as it may be, is responsible for my firm decision: I want to find a way to diminish the anguish and the strong sense of loss which cannot be undone.
It’s been exactly two months since we’ve lost the physical connection.
I’ve tried to live my life as normally as possible, and to some extent my effort was rewarded. I say to some extent because my endeavour to reunite us shows me that normality was either limited or failed in its attempts; not that I mind it. Trust me, I don’t. In fact, it helps me realise that courage isn’t manufactured overnight. As with everything else, here, in this time dimension, it is a slow process.
Like I said, my wish to restore my life as smoothly as possible has actually guided me in the right direction. A true human can’t act as cowardly as one’s fate. ‘Why?’ you may want to ask me. I don’t know. My gut feeling warns me that serious repercussions will follow. If I’m not mistaken, these very thoughts I’m sending out to you are exactly that.
You see, my lovely, I tried my hardest to expel you from the conscience. This was the initial method to deal with my loss – to make you and everything else forgotten. And no, I wasn’t playing a tactical game with life.
Self-imposed oblivion seemed natural at first, but the power of ‘us’ has brought me here; the place where the grotesque reality meets the beauty of fantasy. And it feels equally good and bad. How can it not do? To think that blissful thoughts and wishes stem from sinister reality.
For now I have to accept things as they are and select the g