…burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In another moment, down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
I am sitting on the rocks, surrounded by water, slouched forward in a red T-shirt. I am barely smiling in any of the pictures we took that day. It had been a year since my dad died, and even now, I don’t know how these things pass. I put my hands down, feeling the cold water stream run between my fingers. Not the same river, not the same man, like Heraclitus said. I was 13 years old back then.
“Pack your bags,” Mum instructed us. I don’t remember being consulted about our holiday plans. At that age, I did what I was told; rebellion wasn’t an option because my mum had already been through too much. I was good in school and I followed the rules; I always thought that it was in my essence to behave this way, to be a ‘good girl’. Now I wonder if it was in fact, nurture and not nature, that compelled me to acquiesce and act that way. Is it natural for a kid to be so well behaved?
I had always been a careful child, watching my step, looking out for nails sticking out of floorboards, bugs between rocks. The world was an inhospitable environment; the womb had been my safest place. I expected the worst, but you can only plan for fears that you can predict, and I never thought I’d lose my dad. And just like that, I could see death everywhere.
Perhaps being young, I could never fully see or understand how scared my mum was; now I can’t imagine her being anything but. Two kids, no dad, left in debt, and she sheltered us from the knowledge that the life we had built was eroding like the rocks she was taking us to.
PETAR, ‘Parque Estadual Turístico do Alta Ribeira’, is about a six-hour drive from São Paulo. It’s an area known for its many caves, and the estate park is responsible for protecting them. That was our destination; she grabbed a map and we packed our bags. Why there? Why then? I don’t think she even knew it herself, fight-or-flight, perhaps. You could say that she did both simultaneously, to cope, to survive this invisible threat.
We put everything in the trunk of my mum’s 1998 Volkswagen Parati. That car had taken us everywhere, to school and back, holidays at the beach, and to my dad’s many doctor’s appointments when he got sick. The mileage on that car could tell the story of our lives. Now, it lives in our garage, locked behind the metal gate, the sun streaming through its slats. She hasn’t taken it out for a drive in years, and it sits there, watching life walk past it, like my dad did, from his chair.
Left and right, left and right. That was the movement of my father’s eyes before he died. He had Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a fatal type of motor neuron disease. For two years, we saw the disease progress, with him losing his power over movement and his ability to speak. When he was gone, we had to find a whole new way to live.
My mum made a makeshift bed on the backseat of the car for my brother and me to sleep in. Apples and bananas in a bag; she had always avoided unhealthy snacks. I’ve seen her peeling off chocolate cream fillings from biscuits – sugar was a rare treat. My dad ate well, he exercised, he didn’t smoke; it didn’t matter, I wanted to yell. Once I found a plate just with the chocolate she had scraped from the biscuits, and I cleaned it with my tongue. I needed to know what it felt like to break the rules at least once.
Concrete had been our natural habitat, and we left the grey skyscrapers of São Paulo for mountains filled with trees, a green blanket that covers most of our landscape. These areas have always fought for survival against deforestation, landslides, and humankind.
I grew up reading fairy tales and fables, listening to Brazilian folklore. On that 320-kilometer drive, it felt as if magic was around me, in the woods, in the trees that were surrounding us. It comforts me to think that when I’m gone, they will still be here.
We had company once we arrived, family friends ready to join us. My brother’s best friend and his parents. They had supported us through many ups and downs; still by our sides, then and now. We were taken to our rooms; my brother and I shared a bunk bed. Early start, we were told, and I have always hated waking up in the dark.
I lay in bed, stiff, trying to sleep, rigid like my dad in his coffin, in Vila Alpina, where they cremated him. I remember looking down at him, how unnatural it felt as he was taller than I. Then again, there were many atypical aspects to the situation we had found ourselves in. He looked small in death; his once larger figure had shrunk due to the lack of movement caused by the disease. My brother is taller than my dad ever was, but my dad never had the chance to look up at his son.
I tried to picture what we’d face the next day. An utter blank. I remember lying like that in bed, praying for my dad, for his life, and then his death. Hoping for a cure, hoping that his pain would end and in turn, so would ours. I was used to warm tears streaming down my face late at night, and for a long time, I seemed to want to avoid anyone witnessing the sadness that lived within me. In those early years, I thought pain was a private noun and not a shared experience.
On day one, we met our three guides. We wore helmets with lanterns on the front, it wasn’t the sort of attire I was used to. Everything was new, a movement and pace that I had to adjust to. Change.
We set out to Casa de Pedra; ‘house of rock’ is the name of the cave. I was quiet for most of the three-hour walk, processing things that needn’t be said. It felt freeing to be able to apply my constant fear to a place outside my head. I could easily explain my hesitancy at crossing rivers and climbing mountains, it was measurable in a way. I would rather have drowned in that cave than be crushed by the thoughts swimming inside my brain.
Casa de Pedra has the highest cave entrance in the world, 172 meters high. I looked up, measuring it with my eyes; I felt small, insignificant, and it was a refreshing feeling at the time. All these things that are bigger than me, bigger than my pain. They justified my being here and waking up day after day.
As we entered the cave, I said goodbye to the natural light, hoping to find it on the other side. That feeling felt familiar, but I couldn’t place it at the time.
Not long after we entered, our guides attached a rope to two different points and told us to hold onto it as we lowered ourselves down the rock face. Everything was humid, and I slipped. Nobody noticed it because it was so quick, and I grabbed the rope instantly. That moment lives with me still, and I replay it in my head from time to time; a split second and I could have died. By going on this journey, I was reaffirming my beliefs that the world was a dangerous place and that you can’t predict anything. But I was also discovering that I could survive it; I didn’t know I had it in me.
We stopped halfway through to eat the sandwiches that we had packed earlier in the day. I didn’t know what time it was, if I was hungry or not, I was fueled by the adrenaline running through my veins. We were told to turn off our flashlights, and we ate in the dark. What’s the colour of the afterlife?
My dad had many beliefs – too many, one might think. He was a spiritual man who could appreciate various religions and rituals. I don’t know if he was sure he’d return to us, as a plant or a bird; if he’d go to heaven or not, if there was a God. In the darkness that enveloped me, I could feel life and death cohabiting the same space. I still don’t know what to expect in the end, but I suspect that it’s something like what I experienced in that cave.
Despite feeling like I was on my own path, I felt secure by being in a group. My mum would look back from time to time, she’d made sure I was on the right route. She didn’t push me or tell me when to turn or what way was the right one, she has always given me that space to choose where to place my feet.
There were many moments when I thought about asking to turn back, to return to the beginning, my belief that I wouldn’t be able to do it, constant till the end. My head often tells me not to go that high, that I won’t reach it, that I’m not that strong, that I will fall. But then you arrive at a point where it’s easier to move forward; when you cross that threshold, that extra step indicates you should not regress or turn around. You find the strength within, and things become easier to reach.
By the end of that journey, I could finally breathe. I learned how to use my lungs at full capacity and how to ask for a rope to hold onto, so that I wouldn’t slip.
It was nighttime when we exited the cave, but all I could see was light.
