| Remembering Jade
In loving memory of my clever,
| 
|
Friday, 20 March 2009
Happy 23rd birthday Jade. My loss is complete and everlasting. You've been gone for so long now,
but to me, you were here only yesterday...
Some more pictures of Jade, and some taken by her
Her babies
A recent discovery
Monobrow Jade
Grass and rotten melon
Home Movie 101, with J-Lo
Friday, 21 November 2008
On the anniversary of Jade's Last Goodbye, I feel compelled to revisit the early years of her
burning emotional pain. At the ages of 16 and 17 she wrote most of her
poetry, (see also here here
and here), and at 18 she wrote a suicide note in which she expressed the sentiment that her poetry
was her message to all who wished to understand her after she left this life behind.
Sunday, 21 September 2008
Jade, this time last year you had only two months to live. You were in the depths of the
greatest grief you had ever known and I was not able to understand your pain. After you died
I shared your pain like never before, but by then I couldn't help you. Perhaps a few days
have gone by during which I haven't shed a tear for you, but they must be very few. Lately
I've been remembering some of your good times. I remember you startling Harley as he walked
past us as we watched TV together, and when he jumped sideways and said "Meeeee-Owww!", you
were consumed by a fit of giggles and said
"That's the funniest shit ever!"
You were destined for great achievements and a wonderful life, but you were always very
receptive to suggestion, and after being told, repeatedly from about the age of 11, that
you would die in the street with a needle in your arm, what chance did you have? I watched
you develop a fascination with needles and then with opiates, none of which was a surprise.
The emotional damage done to you during those crucial early teen years, ensured that you
could not understand the cause of your dark side. We all hoped you would survive. You had
such a strong will to live, and you fought so hard that the battle sent you mad, and in
a moment of weakness you finally lost that fight. The ultimate battle for life and hope
which raged for over 5 years...
Here are some diary entries from late 2006 when Jade was in a drug rehabilitation program.
I have typed from the handwritten pages without attempting any grammatical corrections.
|
Violent Relaxation
Sine Wave Attacking Freedom De(-a)range(d)ment Strain Twisting Infection Cardiac Rhythm Rapid Alteration Turbulence Sandwich Quasilinear Submanifolds Electron Flow |
Self Evaluation
I've really struggled over the past week. I don't feel as though I'm fitting in here with the others. I miss my friends and animals back home, and I'm feeling like an immoral bitch about a few issues. I have a huge fear that, should I stick the programme out, by the time I get back everyone would have left. I can't handle being around people constantly, and I just want to go back to Toowoomba.
|
So depressed right now. I just want to
|
Rehab isn't going to fix anything. I just
|
I have spiders living in me - I feel them
|
5th November 2006
|
Turbulence Sandwich
Twisting Infection
Cardiac Rhythm
Violent Relaxation
Trapped inside this turbulence sandwich with no where to go and no-one to be. Stripped of any identity
which was mine, forced to live as someone else. She is nothing but the demonic reincarnation, no
matter how godly she claims to be. Divinity from a world far beyond that which we know, and my eyes
are forced to hear the screams of a land in chaos after their goddess was exiled for breeding a new
creation, a man risen to the status of a god, a god which betrayed his followers and unleashed death
and destruction upon all. Crowley battles against Crowley, Divinity lost as to how to rebuild this
broken land. The betrayer has continued to reign and the only chance of hope of salvaging innocent
lives is through the triumphant return of Lord Kiasanth and his army who will regain control and
open the way for the Goddess of life and protection to rule once more.
..... I feel it rising and boiling up within my body, killing every part of me, slowly, torturously.
I wish there was some kind of antidote to reverse the destruction this disease is causing. The
delayed viscous flow fools the body and brain, and then slams with the full effects of symptomatic
dis-ease, for which there may be relief, but never any cure. A whole mind-body disintegration has
occurred, attacking freedom and disengaging the dissociation and denial happening with the conference
in my cranium, murmuring with disquiet and dis-interest and disheartening affirmations of hate,
destruction, and the occasional good verse, which is soon slammed down with a reverberating BANG!
from THE OTHER HALF which threatens to overtake any semblance I, myself may or may not have, with
reality teetering on the edges of total chaos and complacency, falling on neither side of the line,
but floating in the land of non-existence, of living only to fulfil whatever it is I have to do the
complete opposite of. Wisdom is a curse only the ignorant wish for, never seeing how it is the key
to self destruction and all manner of the re-incarnation of evil herself, robbing the lifeless by
breathing the foul stench of the world through the paper thin walls of the brain into the blood
stream. Bloodletting won't succeed in the outpouring of the tainted juice of life, the very thing
that will keep us breathing and beating, but never truly existing. Her long fingernails scratch
my eyeballs from behind, leaving spider web cracks in the windows to the soul, exposing all for the
universe, in all its entirety to see, with no protection, just raw vulnerability of the truth yet
to come, but that falls on broken ears with no chance of transplantation or repair, without the
mercy of the artist of chemistry who has the power to mix up bizarre concoctions with no promise
that it will help, whatever that may be. Instead, we may find ourselves being dragged into the
frozen fire of our greatest fears, with no desire to escape. Rather, we wallow in the flaming
solar plexus, waiting and waiting, but never sure of what it is we are waiting for to begin with,
never knowing what medicine we need, never understanding that there is no point except to sit with
ourselves and pray that she never arrives. We pray, but they will never be answered, and hence the
cycle of rapid alteration.
Cardiac rhythms beat with an inconsistency; two patterns equalling nothing but the internal chaos
of a puzzle piece not filling the gap. We depend on this irregular regularity - a symbiotic relation-
ship would not otherwise work. A parasite is a parasite, but in a strange deluded way, is a necessary
part of who I am and the way I live, and I am part of the parasite, which would make it not a parasitic
relationship, but rather one of mutual symbiosis. The disjointed methods of communication between the
two make perfect sense - it could not be any clearer if you scrubbed it clean with the tainted blood of
those cursed with the inability to survive in this world, or any others beyond the realm most creatures
can understand. They conspire, and lie, and play mind games with no intention of learning the truth,
which is fine, because they are not welcome in the world where the opposite of black is not always white;
that simplistic thinking will bring forth the downfall of all mankind, and so be it, because I will be
safe and sound with those who aim to destroy me, yet set me free.
Violent relaxation - it appears to be a contradictory phrase, but it is neither contradiction nor confusion.
When the body relaxes, the mind does not have to follow suite, and vice-versa; take dreams, for example -
the body does not have any real functions to perform, rather, it gets on with repairing the pieces of
our anatomy. Old cells are removed and flushed through, new ones get pulled off the conveyer belt, packed
and shipped to various places - Our heart keeps beating, our lungs can continue replenishing our blood
with fresh oxygen, our muscles can contract and stretch the way they were designed to, all because of the
constant replacement of the old with the new. The mind, however, does not have its roles so tightly defined.
There is huge room for movement. After, or perhaps throughout, the controlled actions and messages which
keep us alive and functioning without us really needing to put any conscious effort in for these processes,
there are millions of thoughts and signals occurring. While we may consciously be thinking, there are many
more voices, opinions, ideas and messages being drowned out, simply because we are not hearing them. Our
focus in on what we can control, so the unconscious flows past our awareness, unacknowledged. It's an
entirely separate entity, which after so long being ignored, will muscle its way through the levels of
awareness. It will at first inch through slowly, then gain momentum and intensity and velocity under pressure,
exploding through the surface, leaving utter chaos with no chance of immediate relief. The inner workings are
completely shattered, shards of glass further injuring the fine threads managing to hang on for dear life.
A viscous green mould begins sprouting forth tendrils, leeching and grabbing every molecule. Rationalisation,
respect, and everything else. A new breed of destruction has mutated, and scientists have no hope of keeping
up with this evolving creature of delusion. No one medicine will cure all, for the death crawl afflicts each
individual the same. It has one main effect which is universal - violent relaxation.
Jade wrote this in ALLCAPS. I don't know why, and unfortunately we can't ask her now...
SINE WAVE
SINE WAVES PENETRATE MY BONES, CAUSING SHIFTS IN DYNAMICS AND CROSSING THE BORDERS BETWEEN REALITY AND ALTERNATIVE
REALITIES WHICH ARE UNSEEN BY THE NAKED EYE. THE ELECTRON FLOW PAUSES ABRUPTLY, FORCING THE WHOLE BODY INTO
INTENSE SHOCK. FOR A FEW MOMENTS EVERYTHING IS IN A STATE OF LIMBO, BEFORE CHANGING GEARS AND SHUNTING FORTH
IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION. ARTICULATIONS BETWEEN VARIOUS PARTS BECOME BLURRED AND DISTORTED, AND SEVERE
CONFUSION SETS IN. THERE IS NO HOPE, OXYGEN HAS BEEN CUT OFF AND THE SOUL IS DYING A SLOW DEATH. DISINTERESTED
INSECTS FEED OFF THE DECAY, AND A DROP OF BLOOD FALLS ONTO A MIRROR, SHATTERING IT WITH THE ENERGY AND VELOCITY
OF A BULLET. SEVEN YEARS OF BAD LUCK TO FOLLOW BUT WHAT IT MATTER? IT CAN'T GET ANY WORSE THAN THIS.
This is from a "Scatter Book" Jade kept while she was living in a little flat in Cecil St
Toowoomba, in early 2007.
Saturday, 5th May, 2007
Its all I ever seem to do! Waiting for others, waiting for myself, waiting for change,
This lifestyle is one big contradiction - or perhaps many - I'm addicted to it and
Funny how the universe can through a spanner in the works. Nothing ever goes 100% to plan.
Waiting, Waiting...
waiting for the will to do it, waiting for *Something* to happen. Fuck knows
what it is though.
don't want to leave, but at the same time, I absolutely despise the never-ending
circle of what I've become. I was never meant to turn out like this. Hospital,
drugs, rehab... They were never to be part of the equation.
Such is life though.
The following is from a journal Jade began in early 2003, when she was living in
a HomeStay house, run by Catholic Welfare, with three other teen girls.
11 February, 2003, Today I feel: Sad
Every time something looks as though it's going to get better, everything screws up again. I am really
09 March, 2003, Today I feel: Other: everything
My frustration with Rosie has nearly reached exploding point. Her attitude is the worse part. However,
18 March, 2003, Today I feel: Mad
I don't know what exactly Rosie's problem is, but I just wish she'd leave me alone. I have absolutely no
Same Day
I can't believe I've written a page already. Chris & I are getting closer, but we're just keeping it
It's my 17th birthday on thursday, and Rick & Deb are holding a party for me. The thought's nice, but
22 March, 2003, Today I feel: Other: confused
I want to be re-baptised, but I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do. It's so hard to know. My
24 March, 2003, Today I feel: So-So
It's too early to tell at the moment. I was really suicidal yesterday afternoon, so I'll have to
4:05PM
Well, I had an interesting day, and not in a good way. I spoke to Kerri, and vented on her something
30 March, 2003, Today I feel: So-So
I can be :) Meg and I got along really well over the weekend, which I think we're both really
31 March, 2003, Today I feel: Sad
Had school, exams, whatever, came home, forgot about my appointment with Yvonne again. That's
22 April, 2003, Today I feel: Happy
Paul is comming to see me before the holidays are finished.
14 May, 2003, Today I feel: Other: Like Shit
Everything around my parents has surfaced again, and I'm not handling it too well. Kerri has been
Shane and Maria are leaving tomorrow, so I'm a bit bummed about that too.
02 June, 2003, Today I feel: Other: Concerned
I seem to have gone backwards, again. It's 12:26AM, and I'm wide awake with the prowls. These days,
8th April, 2007
Wow! Four years since I last wrote in this journal. Just goes to show how much of a crappy journal
struggling to fit in here, and at church, and lately I've been fighting the urge to self-harm everyday.
Sometimes, I just want to die, things have been that shitful.
my new church (AOG) is fantastic. The people, especially Linda, are some of the most beautiful ones
you could ever meet. At the moment, my arm is just a complete mess. I'm worried about what Maria,
Shane, Laura & Kerri are going to say when they see it.
patience left for her. I think I screwed up my tourism exam this morning. I just had no idea. My
friends at school, Amy, Toni, Jessie and Kate are really fantastic... and the best thing is that we
all appreciate poetry (especially the kind we all write about).
at a friendship level for now, which is fine by me.
I hate parties!
birthday was so special. Everyone tried so hard to make it one that I would enjoy. So there
we go. I'm a big 17 year old now. Lucky me :) Chris and I went out yesterday to just hang out.
Then his car shit itself just down the road from my house. This pen's about to do the same.
Rosie and I are still having problems, but I'm just trying to ignore her.
chat to Kerri about that today. I punched a wall, so my hand is a bit sore.
chronic. I feel so bad about that now. Still struggling with not hurting myself... not good.
Hopefully I'll make it through relatively unscathed.
pleased about. She was fantastic last night after youth: I was feeling really down because of
the lesson, and Meg made sure I was feeling OK about things again before she let me go to bed.
Anyway, I'm off to start the English assignment that is due tomorrow. Luckily I'm writing
about something I believe in very passionately, so that (hopefully) will make it a bit easier
to do.
basically it... Might write again later if I have anything to write about.
so fantastic... I don't know what I'd do without her support.
my sleep is filled with images of death and torture... I don't know what to do anymore.
writer I really am, although I already know that. Anyway, its Easter Sunday, I'm bored, so
thought I'd make a random kind of entry. It'll probably be four years before I write in here
again! LOL!
Oh my dear Jade, I've been without you for 6 months now and I'm still consumed by the tragedy
of your life, and of losing you. It's a pity that neither of us believes in an after-life. I know
I'm only talking to myself here, but it helps my sanity.
I found this picture recently, when I was looking through the pile of computer data you left behind.
It was taken one month after your 21st birthday, during a clubhouse bus trip, I guess. You were
playing dress-up somewhere and obviously having fun :-)
Friday, 28 March 2008
I'm preparing for my first winter without you.
I know its going to be long and cold. I love you Jade.
I miss you with all my heart and soul.
Thursday, 20 March 2008
Dear Jade. You were driven by forces beyond your understanding, and certainly beyond your control.
You tried to make me understand what you needed to survive, but I couldn’t understand.
I have failed you, and I am trying to live with that failure. You haunt me every day,
and in my dreams at night. You had to pass away before I could appreciate how much
I loved you. You were a very special person Jade, and I wish with every part of my
being, that you could have had a better life. Your life could have been so good, and
you could have helped so many people, had you been allowed to blossom into the medical
professional which you very much wanted to be. Happy birthday my friend.
We who loved you, shall always remember you.
"There is no sound more agonising than the breaking of a human spirit,
and there is no sound sweeter than the pulse of it's recovery.
Human sorrow shows the strength of the love for what has been lost,
and human hope the feeling for the life still waiting to be touched."
Tuesday, 26 February, 2008
I’ve cried so many tears for you Jade, but it doesn’t help. My guilt, regret
and loneliness are eating at me from the inside. You are the only daughter I
will ever have. I still love you, even though I know that I will never hear
your sweet voice again. I will never have the pleasure of you smiling at me.
We’ll never go shopping together again, never visit the scented garden in Laurel
Bank Park… Oh how you loved that garden, and how I loved being there with you.
Do you remember when we ate mulberries from the tree in the car park?
You had such vivid memories of primary school, Jade, and I even have your stuffed bear
with hand written messages from your teachers and classmates on it, from the last
day of school. You could remember dreams you had before you went to school.
Dreams from when you were four years old. You had the best hearing and sense of
smell of anyone I’ve ever known. Your ability to recognize patters was amazing.
I admired all these things and I also felt that they all added to the tragedy.
You could have been magnificent my friend, but you were never allowed to grow :-(
You were such a daddy’s girl Jade, so intelligent and eager to please.
You wanted to be loved and appreciated, but your fate was sealed.
When you were 17, in 2003, and came to live with me, we bonded so well for a while.
We used to get up early and watch “Sunrise” on channel 7 TV together, almost
every morning. You stuck so close to me in those distant happy days.
You’d sit on my bed with your laptop PC and tell me about your conversations
with the girls in the USA. You were a very sensitive girl. I remember you
crying after listening closely to the lyrics of “Puff The Magic Dragon”.
You were so devastated by the breakdown of your family. I remember us sharing
your angst about you not being able to see your sister. I’d lived alone for so
long Jade, that I needed some space. The more I pushed you away, the sicker you
became. Nothing short of the shock of your death was enough to bring me out of
my state of “inhumanity”, so that I could understand what you really needed.
I could have saved you Jade. I had so many chances, but I never understood until
after your death. I can never forgive myself for failing you, my friend. NEVER…
Friday, 22 February 2008
Here's a red rose for you Jade, like you asked for. Its been 3 months now,
and I'm coping with your loss a little better, but I don't think its ever
going to be easy. In a month from now you would have been 22, but
this way you get to stay 21 for ever. I still miss you every day :-(
Everything has been so fucked up I was convinced that my New Year's
Fri, Nov 9, 2007
"Been rough lately, looking after a friend who is dying from cancer.
It's so hard, especially after losing someone to death not all that
long ago. Accommodation has been rocky too, things not working out at all.
resolution was to not be here by then - the only thing that stops me
from killing myself is how many people I'll leave behind with all that
hurt and pain I had - it doesn't get rid of it, just passes it down
the chain."
Jade said that her 17th year was her best,
so this first set are from August to October 2003
She had just adopted a kitten from the RSPCA. His name is Harley
and she loved him more than anything else in her life, right till the end.
Jade loved animals so much that
she wouldn't let me reverse out of the driveway on a rainy day until
she had carefully removed all the snails and placed them gently
in the garden.
Despite what's suggested by this picture, she never was
much of a drinker, although on this night she was having a go :-)
14th November 2003 at 9PM. Funny glasses always cracked her up!
26 March, 2004. Jade with her 18th Birthday present and her sparkly head piece from
the Toowoomba show. She called the computer "FLASH" and used it for chatting so much that
she soon wore all the paint off the hand rests near the keyboard. I think she pawned it for
drug money early to mid 2007.
This last image was taken on 25 August 2007, during a trip to a nearby zoo
with a group of friends. I felt quite optimistic about her future at this
time, and I think she did too. She was 21 years old.
Here is some Video with sound
(5MB in Apple Quicktime format) which Jade took
with her mobile phone on 13/Feb/2007, of herself joking with some friends. Its a nice memory :-)
I found this Poem in one of her
old school notebooks. It shows that she was aware of her distorted self image.
She later lost this awareness, and could only see her negative view of the world.
When Jade was 21, she won a competition with this piece of
Creative Writing
which to the best of my knowledge, she wrote in May 2005, just after turning 19.
(19/Feb/2008 Google has caught her out. The original is
Here. Archived Here)
Jade left home a few months after her 16th birthday and was accepted into a
religeous family, who's daughter made her this bracelet.
Bead Art was one of Jade's interests since childhood. Here is a piece of her work.
Rocks and crystals were also a life long interest. She insisted I buy this one for her
when we visited Gem Fest in 2004. Its a beauty :-)
Tests at the hospital revealed that Jade had some brain damage which prevented her
from thinking in 3 dimensions. She could tell if a person in the distance was
walking toward or away from her only by which way they were facing.
Here's an except from an email she wrote, (5/Dec/2006) where she explains her condition.
"With regards to the seizures, they are not the full on tonic/clonic (grand mal) ones,
or complex partial seizures which also involve loss of consciousness. I have simple
partial seizures, which means they occur in one part of the brain (as opposed to grand
mals which are the whole brain), and I don't lose consciousness. There is always a
possibility that I could have a secondary generalised seizure, stemming from my
usual ones, but because I'm on medication to control them, it's less likely to happen.
Mine manifest as visual/perceptual distrubances, or olfactory hallucinations
(smelling things that aren't there), getting extremely sick which sometimes leads to
fainting, but that isn't a direct thing from the seizure itself. My biggest triggers
are flashing lights, so strobe lights are out of the question, and also driving down
a street where I can see the light flickering through the leaves of a tree, static
on a TV, and certain sound frequencies, like really, deep, base sounds, and extremely
high pitches, but that's less common for me than bass sounds. The seizures and
other neurological symptoms I suffer from (I don't see in 3D, for instance, so I
have no spatial perception whatsoever) are most likely caused from head trauma
when I was young - had complications during birth, and up until I was about 4, I
used to bang my head until I passed out. I don't look like I have aquired brain
injury, I mean, I'm quite capable of nearly anything, which is why no-one realised
I had any problems until last year. I'm on the waiting list to see a neurologist,
but there's a huge wait, and since my case isn't exactly life threatening, I got
bumped down the line. We have this place a few hours away called Infinity... it's a
walk-through light and sound special effects tourist attraction.. BIG MISTAKE!
I hardly made it out standing.. almost an hour of strobe lights and all the sounds
which set me off certainly had their toll on me and i was a mess. Took me weeks to
recover fully, and that was while I was on my medication. My doctor said I was lucky
I was on it, because I would have been a lot worse if I hadn't been."
The problem also showed itself in her drawings. She never progressed past 2 dimensions
although she did make an effort in this drawing, which she called “Cubicle Vapours”.
Jade was interested in Maori culture and tatoos. Whenever she
doodled, it was in a distinctive style. These are from early 2007.
Some drawing she made with Microsoft Paint in 2003.
These frantic words
scribbled
and a few blood stained pages
some wrinkled with dried tears
If I died tonight
this is all I would leave behind
*
You don’t see me
You never look
You don’t even give me the chance to show you
You don’t hear me
You never try to hear
You don’t give me the chance to speak
I take my knife
I cut my arms
I bleed to death in fear.
Alone.
Only then do you see me
Hear my desperate cries for help
Then you walk away.
Again.
*
Standing on the roof in the chill of night
Looking to the sky for answers already known
Cursing my life and all the pain
Folding into myself, drowning the sorrow
Burning with pain of a hundred scars that never heal
Crying tears of glass on a face of stone
A soul awash in pain searching for peace
A heart longing for the love that’s so far
Staring into hands of warmth with no one to hold
Speaking words never heard by the ears of mortals
Screaming to the heavens
This is what it is to truly be alone
(c) 2003 Jade Tutt
