Chapter 13 - Flanders

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Max was petrified with fear and could not move a muscle. He weakly called to me for help. The door was shut and I knew that Max would not move unless he could see his escape route. I knew that I had to open the door before he could help himself. I chose my moment, ran and opened it and screamed to Max to escape. He remained paralysed with fear and stood stock still. The Raven lunged for the kill.

I awoke sweating and very upset.

The dreams seemed to be a recognition at the subconscious level that he had died. Although I had consciously accepted he had died, there seemed to be a deeper need to come to terms with this reality.

The flashbacks and dreams were also accompanied by events which occurred unexpectedly and plunged me into emotional turmoil.

I turned on the television and saw films which Max and I had watched together in the Unit. He loved films that had visual gags like Naked Gun 2 1/2' which we watched many many times. While watching the Unit videos in the hospital he would roar at the jokes and then stop the tape and make me watch a gag again even though I had seen it so many times before. So many giggles, so many memories and so much pain.

A walk into town would unleash memories of the countless trips which Max and I had made together while he was in his wheelchair. I found it very difficult seeing boys of Max's age when I went into town. I watched what they were doing, how they fooled around, how they might be in some way like him. With that came the realisation that he would always be my eight year old son. What would he have been like if he'd survived? Seeing his school friends was difficult too. They moved on, got older, yet he was frozen in a memory time warp. What would he look like now?

The road to the hospital was the same road which I initially used when I returned to work. It triggered memories of the very urgent trips we made. There were two particular trips in which cars were stranded in the snow and strewn along the road. In both cases Max had a serious temperature and infection. He was immuno-suppressed and would not have survived long if we had become stranded. After he died, trips down this road brought flashbacks of those and other trips to the hospital. The memories became so painful that I changed my route to work to escape these constant reminders.

There were other incidents which occurred when I thought that the turmoil had started to come under control only to find myself yet again being unexpectedly thrown headlong into it again.

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