Thursday 18 September, 0200HRS
I'd been in bed for about an hour and a half, no more. The pager went off, Tom read the message and said it was a car accident, was I going to go? Having been at training the evening prior, and realising how rusty I was as a firefighter, my confidence was a bit low, but I thought "An MVA [motor vehicle accident], I can do that", then decided that I probably wasn't in the right headspace for an MVA, after all. I've never had an issue with attending MVA's; my first ever run in a fire truck was to an MVA.
In the morning, with the radio alarm blaring, we heard the news on the radio - a man dead, two in critical condition. Fast forward to 3 o'clock in the afternoon when I received a phone call from my good friend, Brian. He seemed bewildered and I soon knew why. He was telling me something and I was hearing it and wishing the words and reality behind them would be swallowed up to be unsaid and undone. "It was Heath, and Jeff was the passenger". I called Tom to tell him, and I could tell the news had shaken him up a little, even though he's not prone to such 'frailties' ordinarily.
Not Heath, not Jeff. Ok, so not anyone would be better, but God, not Heath - so final, so hideous. And of course, there's the innocent man in the car. To be frank, I want him to live - he's just not someone I know personally, and it's still for Heath I mourn and Jeff I pray for. I want Jeff and this other man to pull through, but keep thinking of Jeff's quintessential smiling face, always happy to see me and have a chat and talk about music.
Jeff woke up after having surgery on his very broken leg and has miraculously escaped an acquired brain injury. He can go and buy a tatts ticket now, he'd be sure to win. He was not wearing a helmet or bike gear. He will be ok, physically. He will be engulfed in sorrow, too. I wish I could do something to remove what he will feel as it really sinks in that he survived against the odds and Heath lost his life. And that one life still hangs in the balance.
I'm still trying to figure out how and why I am as affected by this as I am. Is it because I'm a firefighter and was nearly at the scene of the demise of a friend? Because without Heath, there would be no Tom and I, no Boy, possibly no Black Pepper? Is it because I had a hero-worshipping crush on Heath when I first started to frequent Rubys with Brian and Katerina, because of his mind-numbing prowess on guitar and with THAT voice? Because I know he has a little girl who will have to sort through the current 'chinese whispers' game circulating about the circumstances of her well-loved and well-known daddy's demise? Is it because this prodigious musician won't be a part of fostering local talent, and can't be told that he is a critical figure in the rebirth of Belgrave, and key to developing Belgrave into a significant musical hub? How about the memories his Open Stage holds, for being my last stop before settling down to family life - a symbol of some of the best good times I can honestly say I've had?
Of course, it's all of the above, each of those and in varying degrees. I'm feeling shattered because of it all. And that's considering that I only knew him from music and from Belgrave. It's not like I knew his parents' names, or even knew if he and his girlfriend were still together. And boy, did it catch me by surprise to find myself with rivers of tears streaking my face on Friday night. Poor Tom, he doesn't deal with sentimentality very well. Just as well we were watching a train documentary, he could just engross himself in it, whilst I managed to stare at the screen and not manage to catch what country to South Orient Express was even in. I've been assured that finding myself in a trough is quite normal when experiencing grief. I suppose it is grief. I guess I feel a bit fraudulent calling it grief, because if someone asks I can't say, "yes, we were close".
It's definitely not hindsight speaking when I say that I had been hatching plans to return to Rubys to watch Heath play and catch up with Jeff. I probably wanted to relive old times, and get some more inspiration for my impending return to playing music, with Brett. I had a hankering and now it can't ever be satisfied. Recollection of dancing for hours near the stage, drifting into a reverie to the delicious renditions of Sugar Man, Norwegian Wood and Hallelujah that only Heath could generate. I wish that weren't true, so that I could revisit those sensations and memories, but maybe those recollections are meant to be locked in the past and I need to move on. Who knows. I'm struggling to make sense of it all, trying to extract meaning from this melancholy. One day it might be a song, or one of many songs about loss, significance, legacy.
I wish I could access all the thoughts that are circulating in my head and articulate them, so that I can sort through it and put it in some kind of order. Then I keep thinking that if this is the state of my mind, and my reactions, there is a great trail of wreckage here in the hills that Heath has left.
Heath should have left this world far later, but if the forces that be needed him right away, then he has left with his music, the memory of his soul and his community spirit as a testament to his existence.
For now, my energies are better spent thanking providence for sparing Jeff. And appreciating what I have, who I love, who I know and the people with whom I have great relationships. And what mercy that Jeff was spared.
Heath, wherever you inhabit now, you are one of the posts that support the floor of my life. Without your initiative, passion, sense of community, extraordinary and inimitable musical prowess, encouragement and vision for musicians (at either end of ability and all those in between), my life as I know it would not exist, and I would never have known the father of my exquisite child, would not have realised my fantasies of gifting my voice to grateful audiences, and just wouldn't have known such salubrious evenings as those spent enjoying all that Heath King had to offer. I hope you know now how much you meant to so many people; how many people mourn for you, and desperately wish that this new reality were an impossible, horrific nightmare from which morning could save us. 'Letting go' seems like a remote goal. For now, those who are feeling your loss will allow the emotions and thoughts to wash through us, until we're ready to let them wash past us. Please, please, go in peace.
