Love really is greater than death

It’s pretty difficult watching someone that you care for dealing with something incredibly difficult; Pmonster heard today that two of his friends were killed in the Pamir plane crash just oustside of Kabul in Afghanistan. I’d received an email in the morning via the hash house harriers network and had mentioned it in passing to PM – one of those things, one never knows quite what to believe as there is so much scare mongering and exaggeration. Later in the day we were sat in an internet café sorting out our visa application forms when he took a phone call, immediately it was obvious that there was something deeply wrong, everything about his tone of voice, his body language; this was not going to be good news that he was receiving. And indeed it wasn’t, the caller a good friend of PM’s based out in Kabul was calling to say that several Brits were on the plane and two were very good friends. At the time PM said “Well, that’s life”, but I could see him gritting his teeth. It was too soon to see the true reaction, he was here with me in London, he felt it but he didn’t feel it. We carried on with what we had to do, he, with a brave face, saying nothing very much, feeling for the wife, the parents of the friends who had died. How can it not affect you?

We headed for home, he to call the wife of one of the guys to offer his sympathy, to ask if there was anything that he could do. Once home, I think it started to percolate. We went for a run, to try and see something beautiful to off set the unfairness of it all. He wasn’t saying very much about it.

Back home and I worried for him, didn’t want to leave him alone whilst I went out but I knew he needed time to speak to other friends, to tell those that didn’t know, to experience his feelings and to be there for others. To do something, anything in the face of loss, to be making some kind of contribution instead of sitting there helpless to change the circumstance. CC was an old, old friend and colleague, DT a younger man but still a close friend. PM had shown me a picture of DT with the cat from one of the bars, said how much he loved them, a big, macho security guy who loved cats. And CC, I’d heard so much about him, one of the three musketeers, a pal, a colleague, a most dear friend, with so many shared experiences and the hope that there would be many more to come. It was hurting PM a lot and there was nothing that I could say or do to make it different.

PM had said. “It’s all part of the game”, wincing inside at the same time. He’d seen people killed, had lost friends before, gotten used to the idea that this was something that you signed up for somewhere along the line. Here, out of the blue, a confluence of unexpected shit, a few weeks ago CC was best man at JB’s wedding, now CC was dead. The plane crash was nothing to do with terrorist activity; the Taliban didn’t blow the plane out of the sky. The weather, the terrain and a split moment’s decision to go despite being told that the weather was bad led to a momentous shift. Nothing in life is for sure, nothing that you see today will always be here tomorrow. All of these people come to Afghanistan of their own volition, they come knowing that they may pay with their lives, the black humour is rife, a good way to keep the apprehension low, to keep calm and carry on. Perhaps no one ever expects it to be them, perhaps not their immediate friends either, it always some poor unknown person, a local national, a third country national. We count those that matter to us. We say that we are prepared for the loss whatever that may be but is it ever possible to be so? To be so prepared is that at polar opposites to the decision to be there in the first place, that somehow, it will never be me or anyone close to me. What is it that gives us that sense, and how is it that it feels so bloody raw to have to face the reality of loss. We are all there in the plane in those last few moments, terrified and alone, angry and helpless. We are there with those people, experiencing their last time on earth, sharing their fear, there with our friend or our loved one. Who wouldn’t want to take it all away and make the outcome different?

The weather was so bad that it was impossible for anyone to get out there and find the plane and passengers. Later in afternoon the American air force were able to fly close and to confirm using thermal imaging equipment that there was no one alive in the vicinity. This additional information obliterated any last vestige of hope of having escaped fate no matter how ridiculous or slim the chance; miracles do happen. But as the hours passed the absence grows steeper and it’s just a case of dealing with that drowning sensation, the disbelief countered by the knowledge; the two fighting it out – harsh reality winning in the end.

These people are hardened to war, to injury, death and loss but humanity reigns supreme and the love between brothers in arms has a strength all of its own.

The practicalities; the repatriation, who will accompany the body, the funerals, dominate the conversation. Several times I hear PM say, “No I’m not joking mate, I’m serious”, no one can quite believe. He takes it upon himself to let people know, he knows how precious information is; however much people don’t want to know this news they will need to know. He does that work though it must hurt enormously to say those words, to write them, with each iteration, scoring the reality deeper into him. I think he is brave and generous, the energy of his soul is working for his friends who are gone now.

Coming home from dinner I met PM back home, hugged him after he’d downed eight pints of guiness in various pubs , before starting in on the vodka back home, I didn’t blame him, how else do you work your way through losing two of your very good friends. Numb is probably a pretty good way to be.

I heard him talking long in to the night, talking to people in the United States as they woke up and heard the news. “DT, he’d only come for a week, just to fill in for someone else, he’d given up all the security work, wasn’t in Afghanistan full time anymore”. “CC wasn’t even supposed to be on that flight, he’d decided to go up to Kunduz just to get something finished. Later, in the quiet, I heard PM crying in the other room, mournful sobs that asked why is it this way?

I couldn’t sleep, found it difficult to just switch off and leave him out there alone. But I didn’t know these people and in truth I didn’t know what it felt like. I knew that he needed space to mourn alone, to think, contemplate and come to terms. At 2.45am he looked in on me and I got up to comfort him, to be with him. But he didn’t need that, he needed alone time. I got back into bed and recorded here my thoughts on the day. Let him grieve undistracted, without having to worry about how he looked in mine or anyone else’s eyes. Death is a strange and complete entity. In plain sight of death we contemplate our own mortality and that sensation of loss that is so fucking unfair.