Tenth of April 2023, around nine o'clock

 (started 17.04.2023, finished 13.05)

THEY WILL MAKE ME OUT OF MARBLE

They will make me out of marble

And I won't be alive

They will make me out of marble

Pouring tears over me.

I will be made of marble

But I will not hide my pride,

Everyone wants marble

Instead of a living body

To embrace with a sunny glow.

And every day 

They will pass by me,

Next to that sleeping 

soulless rock,

They will point the finger at me

And they will wait to hear a voice,

They will forget that the marble doesn't have one,

It was as if I had fallen asleep.

That's not a nap!

I'm gone,

I am now a marble rock

Which is preparing for a lifeless journey.

I will live if you get hugged by

Marble with both its hands.

11.03.1980 at 9:40 p.m

(Živorad Ristić, translated from Serbian, "Zbirka pesama 3")

   I usually write stories and blog when certain emotions accumulate in me or I am obsessed with a specific topic related to society or my personal experience, many times I stopped myself from writing so that I would not be boring with one and the same topics. This time I wanted to write something, but I didn't feel like it. I don't feel like writing right now either, but I might manage to write something, I apologize in advance if I get lost in some parts or if the quality of the writing is not satisfactory.

 Last time I wrote that my father has been seriously ill since the truck accident, which turned out to be fatal for him over time. As he was not given medical attention immediately after the accident, and he had to repair the truck afterwards and unload the heaviest figures in our offer, his problems with hernia and internal organs worsened and we barely kept him alive from August 2022 until now. What matters is that the other truck driver was whining about the tire (and most likely he was the one who was driving fast), and the fact that my parents were injured and that our truck was damaged is not important; when we pay €400 to some fool for another accident that we did not cause, then there is a misdemeanor court, even though that car had only part of the light damaged  (and those who caused the collision ran away and no one punished them), while when we could get compensation for my parents' injuries and the destroyed cabin, then everything is forgotten. Although I insisted that they get a medical certificate immediately after they returned from that trip, my parents missed that important step because they thought that everything would be fixed again and that we would move on, but after that it was all over. Shortly after we started making the next tour and tried to repair the damage to the truck with the little money earned, my father's condition worsened so much that the symptoms have only switched since August - we cure one thing, another problem appears. My mother and I went to the seasonal jobs to collect money for a doctor exam, he refused to go and check the condition of his internal organs, primarily his kidneys, because it seemed from the symptoms that they were starting to fail. For a while, he was a little better with penicillin-based tablets, and from the beginning of March he walked more and more weakly until he completely lost the strength in his legs, he could no longer even go to toilet  outside the room. He was just sitting hunched over on the couch by the fire, he was eating less and less, he had wounds with fluid coming out on his legs that couldn't heal (probably gout), he had been hallucinating for the last few months. Usually during the night he would move around and fall down, so my mother and I would have to lift him up onto the couch, at one point he reached the door and fell down in the middle of the night, I could hardly help him up because I don't have the strength myself. For months we woke up almost every night, and during the day we had to do housework to maintain the household (she went to get wood for fire), and we also looked after him. That last night he didn't move and didn't get up, mother thought it was good and that he was getting better, but I told her it was a bad sign, especially since he couldn't even talk anymore and refused food and water. It turned out that I was right, I told her that we should call the hospital, even against his will, because his condition was extremely bad, even if that would lead us into bigger depts (we had no money, we also got a warning for electricity earlier that month). We don't have surgery departments here, but they take patients to a hospital 50 km away and he certainly wouldn't be able to withstand that, and besides, they charge a lot even for staying in the hospital when someone doesn't have a medical card, we couldn't afford to pay for potential surgeries. Around nine o'clock in the morning I noticed that he stopped breathing, then I realized that he had passed away and informed my mother, who was outside. Although we expected that this could also happen (that's why we've been checking on him often while he's sleeping for years, especially these months), it wasn't all the same when we realized that it actually happened. Since we have animals in the house, the dog made me even more nervous when we panicked, so I had to worry more about what I was going to do with him (and later with other dog and cats) than with myself and my emotions, because of those animals and their needs I often forget my basic needs, I'm often nervous about them. Instead of crying, I listened to the dog whining day and night because we put him in the storage room until everything was over, I couldn't wait for the funeral to be over so that I wouldn't have to listen to him anymore because he also broke my nerves that day, just like the cats that caused a problem the morning before my father died so I had to worry about those idiots instead of being around my father a little longer. Even Fluffy, the dog outside, couldn't stay still and almost suffocated with some ropes in the greenhouse where I temporarily took him, because of all the problems with them I didn't have time to think about more important things (and it's like that almost every day, instead of they calm me down, they make my condition worse from early in the morning until bedtime).

 This was followed by the duties of calling a coroner, obtaining a death certificate, a casket (through social security, at least that's what we got from them), a funeral, and holding the "first Saturday" (going to the grave the first Saturday after death). Since no one came to bathe, shave and dress him, mother and I had to hurry to fix him up at least a little bit, because of the rush we didn't have time to straighten his legs before his body became stiff, so the coffin was barely closed, that's why we didn't open the coffin on the funeral. I wish that all of this had been more worthy of such a man as he was, that we could have at least given him a dignified burial when he had already been suffering for months, that he would not have gone unshaven and hunched over, dressed hastily and not clean enough, we were alone and couldn't do it better on our own. It is important that everyone knew that "it could have been this way or that way", and some of my father's "friends" who had not even visited him since he was sick, started babbling that someone should call the police for us; feel free to do it, that police knew where our house was only when they had to punish my father, they all contributed to the fact that we don't have money for the hospital, so let them come freely - I DID NOT KILLED MY FATHER, but I gave up my life and my needs to be by his side until the end, even when it was unbearable, I would have given my life without a second thought to be placed in the grave instead of him. If his kidney failed he would get my kidney, I would kill myself in such a way that they could also transplant my heart since it was also weak (that's why he didn't even want to risk going to a hernia operation). One doctor who spoke to my mother said that it was probably the hernia that caused the gangrene after the kidney problems, at that time he was already hallucinating so it was hard to tell where exactly it hurts and how much, he was talking about other things and we were already tired because we slept intermittently for months, it was difficult for us to process the information in our heads (it's not any better now either, we got lost after everything that happened). Our priority was that he should not get gangrene from the wounds on his legs, we live in difficult conditions without water and that is why we concentrated on these not getting infected, but we could not know the state of the internal organs, that is why I convinced him on several occasions that he should go to check at least to know what to treat. I don't blame him for not going to the doctor then, because I don't want anyone to take me to the doctor under any conditions either (unless I go on my own), so I'm not in a position to say anything, although I think in July ( after the accident) they should have taken a certificate of injuries - instead we were afraid that WE wouldn't get the notification that we have to pay for the damn tire, my father still accepted that it was his fault even though they barely survived (if he didn't slowly lower the truck into the ditch, truck would fall over and they would probably die). In forty years of driving he had no traffic accidents, he was  conscientious driver, and then he suffered because of other people's mistakes, first financially (because of all the debts last year we had to pay that €400 urgently, which made my father even more upset, police took him into custody and they didn't want to let him go to the house to bring the money or to call my mother to bring it) and then physically, so much so that it led to his death.

 His death doesn't sadden me so much as it makes me resentful for everything, so much struggle and suffering during his life only to die in poverty and illness, just nineteen days before the well-deserved retirement he was so looking forward to - he didn't get it. I am outraged by all those who further swindled him, both in public institutions and for work, he tried to earn for a living by selling concrete figures very cheaply, driving them to the other side of the country only to be rejected by some of those customers because they gave up the purchase or changed their mind and wanted a different kind of pot, so my father stood for hours in the center of a village like a beggar waiting for someone to buy those figures so he wouldn't bring them back home. He would often return at least a few figures home and often give it even cheaper just to have money left to make more figures and to buy fuel, so the last money from the house is invested to drive away to the "certain" buyer again, with renewed anxiety about whether he will earn anything. He was afraid to change the principle of work because we could at least buy food and repay the debts and he didn't know what else to do, but his health was completely damaged like this. If we add frequent walks to the nearby town in the winter (we don't start the truck in the winter), where he would walk ten kilometers to go and come back because he hoped that the institutions would do something about our case, then it is obvious that his organism was very exhausted even before the accident, he was constantly doing something. I worked with him in order to ease it at least a bit, I told him many times to rest because he would work for hours without stopping, it seems that he based his value on how much he did because he was exploited for work since he was a child (and among them the most by his sadistic father, who also kicked him in the kidneys, so my father suffered the consequences all his life). My father was killed in a way, but not by my side, he was psychologically abused for two decades by institutions and people who wanted to benefit. Maybe that's why this hurts me so much - people in his native village knew him as Žila, in institutions as Živorad, in my hometown as Žika, customers as Žika Betonjerac, but only I knew him as my father, as a dad who was the idol of my childhood and my favorite person who looked after me in my early childhood, until all of them slowly took him away from me, changed him and finally destroyed him. That's why I forgave him, because I know that he didn't intentionally neglect me when I most needed to have an adult by my side, they all pulled him to their side while they could use him, and then they forgot about him. At the end of his life he was happy every time someone came to visit, and only four people came in a few months (if we don't count the spy who told my so-called "uncle" everything, and then gossiped about that someone should call the police for us, as he gossiped his other friends too - I will never let such spies in our place again, that's the bottom of the bottom), we are also grateful to those who brought some food because that also made my father happy, my heart breaks when I remember how he was happy as a child when food supplies were replenished. I prepared meals for my father as best I could, he had a good appetite until near the end of March and I was trying to restore his muscle mass as he lost more and more weight. For a while, we couldn't even afford rice, so I somehow managed to prepare the strongest and tastiest dishes for him so that he could eat, I knew he was done if he lost his appetite. Slowly his appetite decreased, he could not even sit down at the table, but ate on the bed and hunched down, more and more food was left on the plate until on the penultimate day he could not even eat anything. Now we are "sharing food" (native custom) for his soul, with the fact that from the beginning I am against preparing a lot of food and giving it to a larger group of people because we don't have much money ourselves, but my mother would rather spend all her hard-earned money than to "get embarrassed in front of people". I already wrote what I think about that pagan custom when I wrote about my funeral, I can "hang it on the cat's tail" (aka forget about it, Serbian sayings) because here everyone care "that they don't get embarrassed in front of people", so I have no doubt that they will also share meat and fish for my soul, although even now in my life I strictly do not use the meat and other parts of any animal as food. Of course, when I die no one will respect my wishes, as I tried to respect my father's as much as possible, especially since he knew to change plans quickly, but I based everything on our conversations on the subject (he was close to death several times due to a hernia and some other problems, and I was known to be prone to self-harm, so from time to time we talked about the topic of death without holding back).

  If I live long enough for my brain to figure out what happened, I'll probably miss intellectually sarcastic conversations with him where we discussed a wide range of topics; from psychology, politics, sociology, talking about work, about his and my past and events, about people, about art and music... We planned what we were doing and how we would spend the money, and I easily agreed with him about meals because he wasn't demanding, he liked a lot of vegetarian dishes I'm preparing. It will be difficult to function without his knowledge of repairing electronics, his experience in making even complicated figures, knowledge of machines and tools, knowledge of administration, without his communicativeness, without his driving experience, considering that neither mother nor I have a driver's license. As a child I wanted to be taught to drive, but the law changed and they raised the prices so much that I couldn't afford to take the driving test (now I'm no longer able to drive due to head problems, so there's nothing out of my test); if he recovered, we would get any kind of car to have any transportation, because it means a lot to us that we don't have to beg anyone every time we need a ride to a more distant place. All three of us planned to move out during the year and we agreed on where would suit us and how to do it, that was our last hope that things would get better and that we would finally find some peace, we couldn't make it. My mother and I discussed whether it would be wise to return back where we were born to be closer to the family on her side, but it would require a lot of energy and money, we would not be able to buy anything with the money from this house and it would be a big risk without a favorable outcome, besides, I don't want to return to that municipality which mostly brings bad memories and hard feelings. Since life is almost over for both of us, there's no point in going anywhere, we'll finish some more important things and then whatever happens to us, there's no chance that everything will be fine in the end because we know what awaits us - one of us will die next (she is older, but that doesn't mean anything in this case because of my health/mental state), the other one will have to finish everything about the funeral, and then who knows how they will bury the other one. As far as the estate is concerned, I will have to sort it out, but I also publicly announce that I am not leaving anything to my father's "brother" and his family, he caused enough problems for my father during his lifetime, so he has no right to ask for anything; maybe he took a tractor from his wife's sister even though the her son begged him not to do it, and maybe he intended to take a room from that same boy through inheritance as if a fool didn't have a whole house in our village, and maybe he wanted to pretend that he had a sister (instead of brother i.e. my father) in order to take the entire inheritance from my grandmother's estate, excluding the two children of the younger uncle as heirs, maybe he was constantly arguing and swearing at my father even though he is the one who occupied our yard (while forgetting that he RENT the field next to us and that he is NOT having any border with us, he bragged everywhere that it was his yard, just as he bragged about our yard when we were not there) - maybe he thinks that only his opinion is respected, but that DAUGHTER (emphasized because he emphasized in court that my father has a daughter, someone should explain to the man that since the Middle Ages in which he lives, the law has changed, and today female children are also equal heirs) will not allow the estate to belong to him and his household. The second father's brother family will not be left without a house (if we manage to come to an agreement, we would take the fields that we can sell, it would mean a lot to get a water or finish the roof), so I don't need to leave anything to them either because grandma's property (plus with their) isn't small area, they would have a house and outbuildings - just to maintain, I don't want to go to court for one or two rooms, I'm not continuing the family tree anyway, but maybe my brother/cousin will. Those are things that I have to deal with myself, even though I don't feel like it at all, maybe it's the only thing I know I have to because I can't leave my father's work unfinished.

At the moment, I don't want to waste a lot of energy in order to have the strength to push through the forty-day commemoration and finish the administrative part, I just hope that no one will disturb me like on the first Saturday when an elderly woman (whom I first saw at the funeral and who is not a relative) very disturbed me by her behavior and words. They all freak me out when they bring up marriage, but I don't mind if they stop talking about it as soon as I say I'm not interested (we all accidentally bring up the wrong topic and I understand that), but I feel like slapping them if they continue and insist that it HAS to happen and as if it will solve all my problems. First of all, fools without a shred of empathy, is this topic to discuss after the funeral of the person closest to me?! Do you think that's what I worry about, you despicable jerks?!!! Do you even have a gram of brain that can control that long tongue of yours? Because of this behavior I don't leave the house very often, I can't stand so many thoughtless people who only see their point of view and don't want to listen to my side when they are already interfering with talking about MY life. Hey, my opinion about MY life doesn't count, but someone who knows me only by sight (without listening to my circumstances and situation) will tell me the right way! Of course, I'm a little stupid girl who listens to every fool, everyone should go the hell away from me - the person whom I was born for and whose opinion I valued died and I don't give a damn for everyone else and their "well-intentioned advice" without an iota of understanding. I'll try to slowly return to art to finish what's left, if the situation was different I would have killed myself (even before the first Saturday my condition got worse), I won't lie that I'm still thinking about whether to give up everything because nothing matters to me anymore; I have a neutral to tense relationship with my mother, on the one hand I don't have the heart to give her organisation of another funeral, and on the other hand I can't continue like this for a long time. Since his death, I often dream of the cemetery, my father as neither dead nor alive (as he sits in the house or as his body is outside the grave/removed from the concrete tomb), and the dream, as before, also reminds me of my self-destruction with its symbols of the bridge, hanging and of being shot in the head with a gun in the middle of class in the elementary school's library. These days, the hard feelings from elementary school are also coming back, since there was a massacre in an elementary school recently, so everyone has their own opinion and "sends to the guillotine" anyone they think is guilty, I think it is impossible to establish all the facts that led to this only by conjecture - that boy did kill them and the families of the victims had such a loss that cannot be compensated by anything, but it is not up to every fool to give judgment and diagnosis, nor to glorify such behavior; there is no justification for hurting others because of your own pain, but did those kids really have anything to do with making his condition worse? It is a non-stop philosophy because it can be seen both from the point of view of the victims of the massacre and from the point of view of the one who killed them, but he continues his life forced to remember those people because he will be constantly reminded of it and thus he only made himself worse, same as to the families of the victims because they are left without family members, and everyone is a loser in that case. I'm thankful that after the trouble in elementary school thoughts of revenge didn't overwhelm me like thoughts of suicide, even though over the years I've occasionally had the obsessive thought of destroying the place, and maybe even some people - it's just the thought that you can't destroy them in your memories, even when they are not here in the present, affected the disappearance of such a drive in me - it took years, but now I could go to elementary school without any problems or see people from that period and I would not harm any of them (but wouldn't really guarantee for myself, because there is a high probability that that meeting would end in my self-harm or even death due to my internal conflicts). I know that it seems incredible to young people who have the urge for revenge, how is it possible to get from so many accumulated negative emotions to the point where I can wish positive things in life for those people, and the answer to that is that we develop as people over time and change, just like those people who harmed us - if they haven't changed, it's their problem. You would be obsessed with someone who lives their life perhaps even far away from you and who does not even remember doing anything to you, while your own life is passing by - if that person does not exist you will still have them in your mind, if you kill them you will certainly not get a chance to resolve that conflict, but because of that you will forever be associated with that person whom you despised so much, and that is like a life sentence for you. I've written it several times, but I'll repeat it because it might save someone's life, give yourself time to heal those wounds and one day, if you're ready, gradually face the place/people that create a desire for revenge, you'll see that those people too (and even places) change, just like you, leave them all in the past where they belong and deal with what you have in the present or near future.  Maybe that principle would also work for healing traumas, it doesn't work in that direction for me, but it is enough that the lines "Fire of my hate will burn it down  (refers to school)/One day I'll revenge all these tears" from my song "Nightmare" and songs like "Rest in hell" remain only reminders of the thoughts those circumstances led me to, but not a foreshadowing of the actual crime, and I'm glad I didn't go that route of revenge, because there is no turning back from that path. What I'm doing wrong from a psychological point of view is that I take that accumulated anger out on myself, but it should be kept in mind that I've never gone to treatment and that there is a chance that a person who seeks professional help might be able to heal it better (I know that I'm not the right person to recommend therapy, don't think I'm a hypocrite for recommending it to others when I wouldn't go myself - some people still have a chance to get better). Well, I won't go any further on the subject to avoid recalling my past at a time like this, I hope that the journalists will also stop rummaging through every detail they can dig up because the families of the victims need peace to slowly calm down and sort out their thoughts as much as possible, and for heated society to slowly calm down, along with them those of us who carry problems from of our schools so the news about suicides and violence in schools take us back to our childhood. You've already lost a lot of children because of it, country, but most chose to hurt or kill themselves - did you need a tragedy like this to finally believe all of us who lost our lives, or suffer the consequences for a lifetime? Are you just now trusting us? You don't believe us even now, but you fear us, and we will again be ostracized from this failing society, they will put us all in the same basket even tho we all have different mentalities and stories. Stereotypes have followed us all our lives, I don't believe that anything will change in the long run, but I wrote from personal experience that the school psychologist and the mental (and physical) health of children at school must have a more important role (in every country, not just our), I wrote in detail on that topic and I will not return to it in this blog, I wanted to write about my father and I have already deviated greatly from the topic due to current circumstances. I'm finishing the blog now and concentrating on daily tasks, preparing the forty-day memorial and cleaning the house (some things were destroyed again in the room where it leaked, but we found a lot of useful things in sacks and boxes), and then I will slowly return to art. Of course, if this deranged brain doesn't change my plans. To be honest, I'd rather be able to indulge in self-destruction and have it culminate in my eventual death, to finally put my own desires first as I've been wanting for years, too bad I've been forced to ALWAYS think of others. Hardly anyone has really asked me how I'm doing, they usually ask my mother, I guess losing my father isn't a big deal so I should be broken about it, right? It's okay, they shut me up or don't believe me when I start talking about my mental state anyway, so I don't even get very far with it. May my grave soon convince them that I have been telling the truth all these years, just as my father's death only now reminded those in public institutions that he was right about our case from the beginning. That's how it is here, people don't believe alive ones but they believe graves, that's why our society is falling apart. Maybe one day you will hear my story, but that will probably be the day when I am taken down from the gallows or my corpse is found in a nearby river (I can't decide on the way of execution yet, if there is something better I will use it); that's how I write all my works, like a letter that will be read after my death, I no longer ask for understanding or trust because I don't believe in that, I'd rather believe in Santa Claus than believe that as a society we possess the ability to trust and empathize. I should stop fighting the windmills and instead stand still and let the propeller of the windmill rip my head off, when the windmills already ripped brain out of that head long ago. At least I would be with my dad again, before I wake up from this mental amnesia and realize that this time he will never come back, that he is gone forever and that it really is the end. I'm sorry that it ended like this, wish that at least his death was dignified when they already ruined his life. Rest in peace, father, I hope it's better out there than in this hell we lived in.