I remember, whenever I looked out the window, I always saw falling ash. But it didn’t seem unusual then. Mum used to say, when the cane farmers burnt their fields, it was good for our garden, but you always had to get the sheets off the line when you saw it begin. The ash fell mostly between June and November, sometimes while we were at school, but mostly at twilight before dinner.
Looking back, it was a good town. It was quiet and safe and from our veranda we could see the wide chocolate river (as we called it) and field after field of lush green sugar cane all the way to the horizon. You could catch salt-water mud crabs in the mangroves not far from the house. It was a good childhood and we were told to consider ourselves lucky.
In such a town it seemed anything could happen. And it could happen especially to us because we were different – religious Christians. I had a strict pastor father and a quietly-spoken mother who was the compromising voice behind her man. We had a screening, six-foot high hibiscus plants that ran the full circumference of our property and I remember, as a child, thinking it shielded us from what was outside. According to my father, the town had lost its way, but in our house love ruled and growing up was safe. Nothing was going to touch us. Only time. Time got hold.
Father died, mother went to a home and my two sisters married and moved away. It was I who was left with the house and the falling cane ash. The screening hibiscus continued to protect me from everything out there. I could poke my head out only when I chose.
I got ordained, found a wife and remained in that old house. And I had a son – an only child. As he approached his teens things began to go badly wrong. He wasn’t walking straight like I had and gradually I saw his morals begin to slip. He made secular friends and fell into a bad crowd. Then, thirteen years ago, he was killed in a single vehicle road accident. I always had my doubts about the circumstances of that crash. I believe he was depressed at that time and I suspected his deliberate hand.
In the period that followed, of course, I grieved and was angry at God that my son had been taken from me. I guess I always will be. But I eventually accepted he was gone and that there was nothing I could do to prevent his loss.
Until three years ago.
I had not seen it coming, but looming retirement had a big effect on me. I discovered, nearing the end, I did not have the answers I had secretly yearned. Namely, what had happened in the secret world of my son’s thoughts? This was the start of a journey, which I later wished I had not embarked upon. I went out searching, befriended my son’s friends, and glimpsed his secret life.
I have now tried my hand at writing to express some of what was inside me. I am not a writer, so I don’t believe it reads like a polished work of fiction. But, in the end, I think I get there, and I feel a lot better now that I have written this book.
The author and his journey are hidden conveniently away behind a pseudonym and fictional main character, but the stories of the men are almost word for word what was told me by my son’s friends. The men are very real.
I remember, during my time with them, that I secretly judged their reactions and feelings, but then I later wondered if their journeys were really so different from anyone else’s. If people are all the same, and these stories are being repeated around the world, there should be a tear or two shed for us.
I am in a hospice now and these thoughts seem less important to me in these my final days. Most important is that I have finished this book and can go forward, in whatever direction Providence may choose, feeling a lot better than I otherwise would have.
My story begins sometime in the autumn of 1994 in my home town in coastal Queensland, a state in Australia. Perhaps it might be of some interest to you.