Standing on My Brother's Shoulders

by Tara J Lal

  I realize now that Adam grew with me over all these years. I held on to him so tightly, preserving him avidly in my heart. I built a story in my head of Adam my perfect brother. I placed him carefully upon a pedestal where I could protect and love him. I would carry him with me always and I would live for him. I would live his hopes for himself and for me. The story I built helped me cope.

  What would Adam’s hopes for me have been? He would have wanted me to be happy. He would have wanted me to go on with my life and move on from his death, to live a full, happy, adventurous life. It would have devastated him to think of me still living in pain from his death, still idolizing him.

  Little by little, I find that my actions seem no longer to be driven by fear but rather by a desire for wholeness, for trust in myself and the world about me, and freedom from the past. I find that I am much better these days at sitting outside myself and observing my actions, my thoughts, my feelings. I have learned to sit in the pain when it’s there, to observe it, identify it and acknowledge it, to respect it and let it be, until such time that it passes, just as a cloud passes across a mountain. It may hover for a while or it may pass swiftly through, for pain, like happiness and peace, is transient. Just as Adam said:

  Everything finds its place, just as the colour and the beauty do, so does the pain.

  I trust myself more and I forgive myself a little better for not being perfect, for not always being true to myself. I’m not perfect and my brother wasn’t perfect and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean I love him any the less or love myself any less. It just means I’m human; I’m still learning and I’m doing the best that I can. I stopped torturing myself in the way my brother had when he wrote: I have cried all my life because I wasn’t perfect and I couldn’t accept it …

  Maybe, just maybe, I am worthy of love with all my imperfections. I’m learning lessons that might allow me to make a difference to the lives of others. That’s all I could wish or hope for, for myself and for my brother, to know that, between us, we made a difference. Now, when I look into my heart I see a young woman standing openly in the middle of the room, half in darkness, half in light, turning calmly toward the sun.

  I used to think that when I achieved some milestone or some confrontation of fear, like going to India, writing letters to my mum and brother, going back to Oxford, having therapy or writing this book, that the grief would end, I’d be done. As if I could put a full stop on that part of my life so that I could begin the next. There is no end to grief: it is not linear, there is no finish line, no destination to be reached. There is no time frame. We navigate it, as we navigate our lives: some people come our way, some stay, others leave; jobs change, home changes, goals change.

  And, while I believe there is no end to grief, the same is true of healing, and with healing comes hope, self-discovery and clarity. Now, whenever a wave of grief sweeps over me, I look on it as an opportunity, a chance to peel back another layer so I may get closer to my true self, to what lies within, for the deeper the grief, the greater the opportunity for learning. The time had finally come to let Adam go, to hold the love but shed the burden, as Adam had done when he had chosen to end his life.

  Dear Adam,

  My gorgeous brother – I keep thinking of your words … ‘All my hopes lie with Tara.’

  I have been living by those words for so many years. I took the cup you offered me with open arms. It was a cup bursting and overflowing with the nectar of other people’s expectations. The cup gave me hope and purpose – a reason to live at a time when I could find no reason within myself. When I took that cup it meant I could live with you still in my heart, live your life for you, for to imagine that loss to myself and the world was simply too much to bear. I could make you proud and be the person you wanted to be as well as the person you wanted me to be.

  Slowly, Ad, ever so slowly I realize I am me and you are you. I am different to you. I have my own values, my own hopes, my own decisions, my own failings, my own misgivings and my own experiences – I have my own path.

  For so many years we have travelled that path together. I have carried you with me always – protecting you, loving you, defending you, cherishing you, trying so desperately to give you the life you couldn’t have – the life that you gave away. That was the dream that I had of you and me, so many years ago in India on that dusty path – you leaning on me, me buckling under the weight yet still clinging to you, the scream for help that would not come, the stifling suffocating weight of our aloneness.

  I feel it’s time now for me to ever so gently let you down off my shoulders to let you stand alone as you – as Adam the smart, beautiful, caring, compassionate soulful nineteen-year-old.

  It’s time for me to walk alone now, to carry less weight upon my shoulders, be free to breathe life and fresh air into my soul – to feel it run through me and walk my own path.

  Perhaps we can walk side by side on our parallel paths – each on our own mountain range, glancing at each other, waving, smiling, singing, dancing. I could blow you a kiss across the valley; it would meander softly in the wind toward you where it could come to settle gently on your cheek, carrying with it all the purity and tenderness of the love of a sister for her brother.

  Would that be okay, my gorgeous brother? Can we do that for each other? Can you help me shed the chains and cords of constant restraint so that I may embrace my freedom and my life with open arms and a lightness of being – so that I can be me?

  I love you, Adam. Let’s set that poisoned cup aside, let’s leave it behind, locked safely away beneath the ground where it can be of no harm to another soul. Then let’s start walking separately as our paths diverge, waving at each other, enjoying the beauty of our own journey, our own mountain range, our own paths. Yours may be shorter than mine, but it stands alone in its uniqueness. Your footprints remain and there are many for whom those footprints shed light and gave direction to their own path. Rest peacefully, dear brother, at the end of your path. I will be looking, glancing back at you from time to time, always admiring you, always loving you, always appreciating what I learned from you. May we both love and cherish our freedom, our uniqueness while always holding our love for each other and for life.

  Be free …

  Peace comes in inches – it comes in degrees and it comes in percentages, just like healing …

  I no longer see what life took from me – I see what it gave me.

  EPILOGUE

  Woollahra Fire Station, Sydney, 2012

  It’s Friday night and I’m in the mess room at the fire station. I’ve just cooked myself a beautiful salmon fillet. Yes, salmon again, although not fishcakes this time and I’ve only cooked for myself. The selfometer is creeping up.

  I’m just tucking into my first mouthful as the bells go.

  ‘Bugger,’ I mutter under my breath.

  I’m on the ladders tonight, though. The boys have been kind to me as it’s an extra shift I’m doing for someone else. The ladder truck doesn’t turn out to every job so it’s quieter than being on the pump. The bells are getting louder. I wait for the voice.

  ‘Automatic fire alarm, Ladders 11.’ I’m surprised: the ladders don’t usually turn out to automatic fire alarms.

  I stand up, swallowing my mouthful of food, looking wistfully at the perfect medium rare salmon fillet sitting on my plate.

  ‘That’s us,’ I hear Digby, also known as ‘Big Dog’, call out. He’s driving the ladders tonight. I’m the ‘offsider’, which means that if we get a job I’m in the basket at the top of the ladder.

  ‘It’s at the Maroubra Seals Club’, Digby shouts.

  I’m grabbing my turn-out pants and jacket, zipping up my boots. Lights and sirens on, we pull out of the station. We hear the radio call.

  ‘Red Red Red … Third Alarm …’

  ‘It’s going,’ says Digby calmly.

  A red message means it’s a priority. All other messages stop. Third alarm means they need more trucks. It’s a big job. Digby puts
his foot down a little harder on the accelerator.

  I wriggle into my safety harness, not an easy feat when you’re flying around corners at a rapid rate of knots. To this day Digby looks at me when we talk about it and shakes his head.

  ‘How the hell did you do that?’

  ‘Yoga,’ I smile and wink at him.

  Even from a few kilometres away we see the plumes of smoke and flame billowing into the night sky. We pull up on the corner of the building, fire trucks appearing from every direction. We are the first aerial appliance there. The fire’s on the roof of the building, a large multi-purpose club on the beach front. We start to set the truck up. They are having difficulty accessing the fire from inside the building.

  Digby and I work together. We know our roles. I run the hose up the ladder bank, get the monitor set up, grab my breathing apparatus and hook up my harness to the cage. Digby runs the hose from the hydrant, through the pump and into the ladders truck. I slip the hand-held radio transmitter into the pocket of my jacket.

  I turn to Digby and give the signal, pushing my foot on the rather unfortunately named ‘dead man’s’ pedal. I hear the engine rev and use the levers to elevate the ladder cage. I’m moving up, higher into the sky. I’m listening to the radio messages.

  ‘Intense heat, risk of roof collapse.’

  I know they need water from above. I can see the fire clearly now, in the back corner of the building. If I put water on to it while firefighters are inside I could kill them as the weight of the water can cause an already-fragile roof to cave in.

  I look down at the ground beneath me. I see reams of hose, like a plate of spaghetti. Firefighters working away like ants. I’m waiting for water.

  Finally, through the Darth Vader-like sound of my own breath in my mask, I hear the call.

  ‘All firefighters clear. Get the aerial to work.’

  ‘Water on,’ comes the voice across the radio.

  ‘Water on,’ I confirm as I manoeuvre the cage of the ladder truck into position, feeling the water pressure build like a worm burrowing through its cave.

  Eventually the water blasts from the monitor, sending a jet stream out toward the burning building. I’m perched high in the sky, alone at the top of the ladder. The wind is gusty, enveloping me in smoke when it swirls unexpectedly. I’m breathing compressed air through the breathing apparatus on my back. The flames rage angrily, throwing embers into the night sky. I blast the jet of water, changing the spray, adjusting for the wind. Slowly the flames subside, almost whimpering as they succumb to the incessant torrent of water. Calm prevails. The smoke clears.

  POSTSCRIPT

  The peculiar thing about writing a book about your life is that for the reader your story ends where the book finishes, but for the writer life continues to evolve. My journey to finding growth after suicide was perhaps still in its infancy in 2011 when the bulk of the story you have just read was written. What I didn’t realize at that time was how the process of writing this book would transform my life, both personally and professionally.

  My life has since flourished across almost every dimension despite the inevitable challenges that weave their way into all of our lives. I no longer want to rid myself of my wounds. They guide me. They are a part of me and the darkness in them makes the colours in the tapestry of my life, brighter, more vibrant, more beautiful.

  My cherished aunt Margaret passed away in 2016 at the age of eighty-four. Whilst, of course, her death triggered grief and sadness, it was also beautiful in many ways. I was, fortuitously, with her and her three children when she died, peacefully, at home. Her passing enabled me to experience death as you would hope it could be. I was able to do for her and for myself what I had been unable to do for my brother or my mother, in being able to say goodbye in the way that I wanted and acknowledge the love that we shared and what we meant to each other.

  My father, as I write this, is now eighty-nine and living in a care home in North London. When asking him what makes life worth living for him, he says ‘Being able to see my grandchildren, read books and watch DVDs’. At the time of writing he is still able to do all those things. Thank you to Atul Gawande and his book Being Mortal for prompting me to ask my father this question. Every time I leave my Dad after visiting the UK, I’m acutely aware that it might be the last time and I always tell him I love him.

  My relationship with my sister is better than ever, thanks largely to this book. The process of writing it enabled me to understand and have empathy for Jo in a way that I couldn’t have had I not written it, and I think the same is true for her when she read it. I feel a depth of love and respect for her that I didn’t know I could experience. We now look forward to seeing and spending time with each other. My love for my niece and nephew, Marli and Asa, continues to grow and expand as I watch them mature and change. They are a huge light in my life even though they live on the opposite side of the world.

  Soon after the first edition of this book went to press, I found pages and pages more of my brother’s tragically beautiful writing, which spoke with raw honesty of his spiral into mental turmoil and extreme psychological pain. It feels intuitively that his words need to be read. It has been said that suicide is an attempt to solve the problem of extreme psychological pain, and Adam’s words bring this simple statement to life. I don’t know when or how, but one day inspiration will come to me as to how to get his writing out into the wider world in a way that might help reduce the collective burden of psychological pain that feeds one of the most devastating public health problems in the modern world.

  With the launch of my book, I realized the need to improve my public speaking skills, which – as it does for many – filled me with fear. Bear in mind that I was the little girl who hid behind my mother’s skirt whenever confronted with meeting someone who I didn’t know. I enrolled in a public speaking bootcamp and discovered, to my surprise, how empowered I felt when I spoke and that I seemed to be able to connect with people. I am now a volunteer speaker for the mental health charity Beyond Blue, sharing my own story to raise awareness around suicide and mental health. I continue to speak on larger platforms, integrating my personal experiences with my research. I dream of doing a TED talk one day as a way to get my message out to the wider world and effect change.

  Professionally, I am still a full-time firefighter at Fire and Rescue NSW. I have, however, expanded my horizons in the mental health field in both voluntary and professional capacities. I joined the peer support team at Fire and Rescue NSW in 2012 as a way to support firefighters impacted by trauma. In 2014, I graduated to the role of manager of the Fire and Rescue psychological wellbeing programme which, amongst many other things, opened the door to working with researchers on programmes to build resilience in firefighters and improve their mental health outcomes. In 2016, I became a qualified Mental Health First Aid instructor, teaching people to better understand, seek help and have conversations around mental illness. All of this significantly built my knowledge and understanding of mental ill health and suicide and drove me to want to know more. An unsuccessful application for a Churchill Fellowship in 2017 lead serendipitously to a meeting with my now PhD supervisor, Professor Myfanwy Maple, who encouraged me not to waste all my work thus far and opened my eyes to qualitative research. In so doing, she sparked a passion in me to discover new knowledge in the field of suicide research through hearing people’s stories and the richness of their experience. I am currently two years into my PhD which focuses on the impact of suicide on firefighters. I feel as if my research is the convergence of all my life experience thus far. It is my unique part in making a difference in the world. I am currently working on partnerships with various organizations to build programmes and resources to support emergency service workers impacted by suicide. I am indebted to Australian Rotary Health and Rotary Clubs of NSW for granting me a scholarship to pursue my research, and to my wonderful team of supervisors at the University of New England – Professor Myfanwy Maple, Dr Warren Bartik and Dr S
arah Wayland.

  Personally, after so many years of struggling to be the person that I wanted to be, I am so relieved and grateful to be able to say that I am finally the person I want to be. I realize that personal growth never ends: it’s a lifelong commitment to becoming the best that I can be. The challenges of life continue, but I have an innate sense that I am able to cope with what life throws at me. It may involve inner conflict, dreaded confrontations with anger and a struggle with difficult emotions, but I’ll be ok. I no longer look at life through the lens of fear and anxiety. I look at it through the lens of possibility and compassion.

  Many people ask if I have found love. I continue intermittently to see a therapist to help me to be the best person that I can be and to support me through the process of learning to love well, something that the legacy of my childhood made it very difficult for me to do. I have been in a relationship for several years now. We live in different cities and we have faced many struggles. In all honesty, we are struggling now and I’ve battled with how to write this in a way that is honest and true to myself whilst also respectful of my partner. I don’t know whether we will remain together, but I do know that I will always be grateful for the relationship we have. Before I met him, I didn’t know that love was a skill that I could practice and get better at. I didn’t know that confrontation was as much a manifestation of love as warm acceptance, or that love was a commitment to learn to struggle well together in addressing life’s challenges. Together we continue to learn the skill of loving. He has, in many ways, taught me how to love and I will forever cherish that enduring gift, for I do believe that love is, in so many ways, the essence of life.

  After retiring from competitive sport in 2013 and undergoing two hamstring re-attachment surgeries in 2014 and 2015, from which I had numerous setbacks in my recovery, I returned to compete in the 2018 and 2019 seasons of surf boat rowing. They turned out to be the most successful seasons of my entire athletic career despite my age. My team and I won gold at the NSW state titles, represented NSW and I finished my career by winning my only national medal, claiming a silver medal at the Australian surf lifesaving titles in 2019 at the age of forty-eight. But by far the most meaningful achievement has been winning my first and only Australian Surf Life Saving Representative Cap at the age of forty-seven. Cap number 460. To me, representing my adopted country symbolizes winning the lifelong struggle to make peace with myself. It is the reward for the depth and extent of the work that I did (and continue to do) on myself psychologically even more so than physically. In short, I am enough, win or lose.