Where YOU Were

Have you ever played a game of reminiscence to ascertain your whereabouts at the exact time you learnt of the death of someone famous? Isn’t it amazing how you can recall details so minute in nature? How old you were. The degree of heat from the sunlight on your back. The people with you. The way your mood changed as you digested the news. It may have even moved you to a state of unhappiness as though something precious to you had been taken away.

                                  Bae bae lille lam
                                    Hor du moe ull
                                 Ja ja kjoese barm
                                Jeg har kroppen full

It was a hot summer’s day at the local pool when John Lennon died. 

The mother of one of my friends leaned out of her car window, sunglasses hiding her tears.  All she could say was “Somebody shot John Lennon”.

A white transistor radio brought me an education in the Beatles (not to mention a lot of static via the AM band).  Although I knew who he was, it seemed too fantastic a tale for my 13-year-old mind to absorb and digest.

John Lennon and his music mean much to me, however back then he was little more than a distant and impersonal figure.  At that moment I was too young to feel anything real in terms of emotions.  The burning sensation of my naked feet on volcanic bitumen saw to that.

I was 30 years old when Princess Diana died in the early hours of a chilly Irish September morning.

We awoke to the sound of thundering rain. The weather matched the mood of the relationship I was in at the time. It died that weekend too.

Jeremy, the hostel manager, appeared before me at the top of a stairwell.  He was such a wag we just didn’t dare believe him.  Yet there was no twinkle in his eye to match the hint of the joke we felt we’d been set up with. 

We strolled through the streets of Cork that Sunday morning coming upon a bar that had every television set tuned to the news of the day.  We fell into a trance at the incredulous scenes on the screen.

She really was dead.

Diana was a brave person but I never considered her any kind of personal role model.  The whole affair just struck me as a waste.  She lived every little girl’s dream to become a princess.  The dream became a nightmare.  That was the tragedy of it and that was the emotion I felt.

I was asleep in Queenstown, New Zealand when two landmark towers were struck by planes and fell to the ground.

It was a perfect time to be on holidays.  Each day, bright sunny weather followed the brisk evenings and frosty morning air.

Fate again had placed me in a hostel however this time I was alone.  My companions had ‘gone bush’ to practice the ancient Kiwi art of ‘tramping’.

I decided to see a movie starring Robert De Niro.  The ticket-seller made comments of a very cryptic nature that I could not grasp the meaning of.

I spent the whole day wandering and wondering just what the hell he was on about. I checked papers for headlines.  There was nothing to corroborate his story.  Then around 4PM I glimpsed a television set and I again fell into a trance that now transfixed the whole world.

The people involved weren’t famous but in death they became so due to their silent part in a tragic event.  The man who passed the news to me noted that they didn’t even get their 15 minutes of fame.  I would venture they won far more time than that. 

I felt affected.  I felt sad.  I felt sick.

Monika was not famous. 

I cannot tell you where I was on the day she died.  I cannot recall anything significant about it nor what I was doing. 

I didn’t find out for about 24 hours.

I was at work. Not a normal place to be on a Sunday morning but there I was trimming, cutting and polishing my resume.  I was preparing for yet another career transition that was only days away.

She had been living with bowel cancer only a short time.  The news came from the person I least expected and least wanted to hear it from.

I was the last on the list.

My brain had no such trouble digesting the news, unlike that of Lennon, the princess and the towers.  I couldn’t subdue my intense, raw and unadulterated anger.

In my life, I have willingly sought solace in my own company many times but this day it chose me. 

The loneliness was palpable.  It was ugly.  And I have never ever felt anything like it.

Knowing my focus was shot for the day I searched for a venue where I could be lost in the company of strangers or at least be distracted by them.  So I ended up at a pub in Glebe, an inner suburb of Sydney.

This time there was no television screen before me so my mind spun countless replays of her.  Replays of us.  No reporters spoke absentmindedly into microphones waiting to interview me.   No news deadlines awaited my thoughts.

Worse still there was no company. 

No loving arms waiting and ready to console me.  No one to kiss away my tears.  No one to share her memory with.  No one to talk of times that were and share times that could ever be.

Greeting me was a barmaid and a beer tap, each completely oblivious to the reason behind my patronage that afternoon.

The pub was full with an impressive swell of people.  So in the best of Irish traditions I turned the whole affair into a one-man wake and steeled myself to make the announcement. 

“Begging your pardon ladies and gentlemen may I have your attention please?  It is my unwanted honour to request that you join me in a toast to the passing of someone once very close to me.

She did not enjoy the fame of John Lennon nor Lady Diana.  She was in New York once but not when the towers fell. 

Like the musician, she was a performer.

Like the princess, she wanted to be one and to be treated like one.

And like both musician and princess she had an urgent zest for life that touched many.  Like the men and women in the towers she was an ordinary person full of faults and achievements living her life accordingly.

She loved life.

To life. 

To Monika”.

I never rose from my stool.  Somehow it just seemed a bit too over the top.  Monika would have enjoyed it though.  She was always thrilled to be the centre of attention in whatever form it came.

I was too young to go to John Lennon’s funeral.  I spent a cold, wet day on the Irish West Coast inspecting The Cliff’s of Mohr as two young princes bid their mother goodbye.  Luckily I did not know anyone in New York but my thoughts were with those whose lives washed through that whirlpool of fate.

I did not bid Monika farewell either.

The pain was too great.  The circumstances were too complicated.  I knew her too well.  I knew her too little.  She meant too much.

                                   SØmdagsklar til far
                                Og sØmdagsklar til luor

Forever - sometimes willingly, sometimes not - I will remember her.   Each day I let a little more of her leave me.  With her she takes a little more of the loneliness I felt that day.  It comforts me as if to say that I will never be alone like that ever again.

Live. Love. Learn. 

Three words to sum up three ways of being. 

When I think of Monika, I realise that I understand the meaning of all three.

Or at least I think that’s what I am supposed to tell myself.

                     Og to par strØmpes til
                             Bite liten bror

(norweigian good-night song)


By Sean McIntyre
Based in Melbourne, Australia, Sean has been an active participant in the city's thriving arts scene since 1998. As well as acting, performing and singing in theatre, Sean has produced and written original songs, short stories, screenplays and pieces for the theatre.

His plays have been performed worldwide and in 2005 he was a finalist for Short and Sweet International Play Festival, the world's largest 10 Minute play festival.

Sean has written for various Australian publications as well as being a ghostwriter for ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad – Success Stories’ from Robert Kiyosaki’s highly successful Wealth Management Series.

More about Sean here