The most painful words a mother could hear.
Just as the knife pierced his heart, those words broke hers, and I am certain that she has felt, and continues to undergo more agony and pain than he ever did. He is the victim of the crime, but we are left to suffer, bearing the burden of the pain and perpetration.
I am never one to feel sorry for myself. Self-pity and wallowing never help you overcome the pain but this situation is, and will always remain, a chain around my heart. And every time I am overcome with sadness I think of his mother, the woman who brought him into this world, brought him up and watched him leave, standing there helplessly, as his casket was placed carefully deep into the ground.
“Hey cuz, you know my sister is in Lebanon, so here you are my sister. I love you like a sister and I will look after you like a sister.”
I wish I took him up on that. I wish I let him in a lot more. I wish I connected that Internet and phone line like I promised I would. I wish I were more patient with him. I wish he never met her. I wish his mother could see him again. I wish she could hold him. I wish he could be there for his sister on her wedding day. I wish his mother could feel that satisfying feeling when she fixed his favourite dish and he devoured it with delight once more. I wish he could walk in the room and make everyone smile. I wish he never met her. I wish he could dress up as Santa Clause again and hand out the gifts to his aunts, uncles and cousins. I wish he could have another motorcycle accident. I wish he could come over so mum can lecture him about settling down. I wish he could wish me Happy Birthday and then call me “twin” because we were born four days apart. I wish he could smash his newest BMW. I wish mum and I could have breakfast at his latest bachelor pad. I wish we were waiting for him because he was running late. I wish he never met her.
I wish he were still alive.
I do not know what happened on the night. Nobody ever will. And she is so diluted that through all her lies I doubt she remembers.
He did not deserve to die. And she did not deserve to be let off without consequence. I have heard her say that she and her family have suffered and since being acquitted is looking forward to moving on.
“There are no winners, and what happened happened, and we can move on from this from now.”
This is what she told the media upon her acquittal. She has that option. We do not. His family does not. His parents do not. His siblings do not. We will always be haunted by his death, his unjust death. He died in vein, without any justice. So, I think there is a winner here and it is she. The woman who killed him walks free. There are no consequences for her actions, just memories. Memories of him, memories of what she did, memories of her arrest, trial and all the accompanying tribulations. But she can write all these memories off as a bad experience, a hurdle in her life, and keep moving forward. We will never shake this off. Not ever. He will never come back – we cannot move on because he will never be undead.
I come from a big family. He had 17 other cousins, first cousins who were even closer to him than I was, so I do not know why I am so affected.
The most affected.
Is it because his mother lived at my house during his passing, funeral and trial, so I was directly faced with the effect that all of these events had on her? Or is it because I knew she would wait for us to leave so that she can cry loudly, yelling his name and talking to him for hours. My house became a place of sadness, the residence of gloom. Home is where the heart is, but what if all the hearts sheltered there are broken?
This experience feels like a dream…a nightmare. I will never awaken. Nor will anyone else. It has been two years - he could have been 35. What else could he have been? I wonder all the time. You cannot fight destiny. The sad thing is this was his fate. So wasteful.
And her destiny? Well so far being acquitted of murder charges and being a finalist for Miss Australia. I am excited to see what else is in store.
