13.12.11.10.

13.12.11.10.

Your 13th birthday, on 12th of November 2010

A descent, a plaintive sound in any key.

A pattern, like you, that will never be repeated.

Yet, I notice I find solace in the order, as if it were written in the stars

Challan

Did you know that Challan is an Irish girl's name meaning

spirited little fairy dancer

welcome to congruence, commitment, passion, fragility and determination
and welcome to knowing how it all goes, being seen as a total waste of space,

a drain on resources,

a beautiful human being,

a beautiful divine being,

one that waits patiently whilst we crank up our understanding.

A little one, a frail one, a fiery one, a dying one, a living one, an eternal one.

Leaving Home

Hello darling

I just wanted to record that today I felt, for the first time, the possibility that we might leave home. That I might scoop you and your little brother up and take us right away from here. And I felt a breeze of possibility and excitement.

To bring you to a new place. Tryarnon is in my heart, and Constantine Bay. Sand twice-daily rinsed, rock pools emptied and refilled. And the flat, flaky grey slates calling to soles of young feet. And the strange spongy turf that softens my step at the cliff's sheer edge. We could all be happy here, we could leave the shell of our lives behind. I thought I could never contemplate it, but, today , I feel a glimmer.

And like a mussel clamped shut, I will await the next time I dare.

Good Friday

..the darkest day of the christian calendar.
and the day, 5 years ago, when we knew the time had come for us , weary with dread, to pack ourselves up for the end. In your room, packing everything you need for a journey from which you will never return. Your new clothes unworn but too pretty to leave behind. Tiny beautiful dresses - that may be wearable for your funeral. Toys, books, candles, wind-chimes, fairy lights, all to make your last days as close to home as we can.
The terrible knowledge of knowing what we are doing; the only unknown is 'how long', not 'what if.'
The unbearable part? wrapping you in a tiny bundle and saying goodbye to your cat, who eyed us with uncertainty and suspicion as we left ...
And into the beloved blue car, where you sat only days before as we drove you under easter blossom and winter jasmine.
Driving in silence, your little brother in the boot-seat, you and I on the back seat, our Third man beside us, as we try desparate late attempts to keep your throat clear. Your quiet father drives us to our last destination.
On arrival, the relief of the staff nurse leaked more than she knew and filled me with chill. With outstretched arms she reached to us, "You're here now!" - Oh that's ok then. Here,to be held to the breast of death. I really knew then, that we were never taking you home in any other form than dust.
Good Friday. Good Dark Friday. Unlike the biblical story, we were allowed four days with you before you left us. But the stone that guards your tomb has been too monumental to roll away. It has been inched, feebly maybe, and you have been released from the dark cave in radiant glimpses. It is true, my girl, that in fact you have always been resurrected; from the moment of your birth you seemed to live in a different dimension. But it is my stone, that I have struggled to move, to fill my own cavern with your light. Your divine brother is the angel that appears at your grave and says to me "Woman, why are you weeping?" He tells me constantly that you live in the sun, and shine on us every day. You are two breathtaking children, and we, your parents, are the infants here.

April Fool's Day

i'm running, i'm running

Towards you, breathless, arms outstretched to catch you,

again, before you fall

Again, racing against the time to intercept your falling

Do i think I can save you?

No, just want to hurl myself into you

Throw myself round you and be there for you again

5 years since you fell,

And now, more urgent than before

Racing like the tide, to
Find that place where the surf fills every space

for a few seconds, before

leaving you again

Letting go

is the trauma

that is so hard to visit each year

reliving itself,
before leaving again.

it would have to be the moon
that drags me from you in this universal pull
each calendar form teetering in man-made frailty

so - my girl - i am nearly with you

for our foaming annual embrace

Mother's Day

You, little boy, are the exquisite creation continually shaped by the honing and whittling, the white bone picked clean. The importance of you Staying Here. Yes, you are more than fully aware of your job, as your innocent and knowing message says. I am only deeply sorry to you that I have laid this enormous burden upon your very young and beautiful determined shoulders.

It's as if the very d.n.a of me knows that it is mother's day and turned upside down, it is a day when I sorely miss having you both, my children, here to squeeze. In remembering my mother, I am full of gratitude and know what I have been handed down. But - the hinge upon which my mother and my two children swing - has a few screws loose.

Blue as ever, little girl, your father sends your love in a card that can only be you - you , in this, are the hinge that attaches the wings. A much better place to be in.

Love to my children, ever keeping me together today.

Restored , Returned

Warm are the still and lucky miles,
White shores of longing stretch away,
The light of recognition fills
The whole great day, and bright

The tiny world of lover's arms.

Silence invades the breathing wood

Where drowsy limbs a treasure keep,

Now greenly falls the learned shade

Across the sleeping brows

And stirs their secret to a smile.

Restored! Returned! the lost are borne

On seas of shipwreck home at last:

See! in the fire of praising burns

The dry dumb past, and we

The life -day long shall part no more.

W.H. Auden

..a few words..

I was asked to write a few words on child bereavement for a programme, hence the less personal style, but nevertheless, you are there in every word

...When your child dies your world is changed forever. Your heart is broken in a way you could never imagine possible. You will never return to the person that you were before your child died, and the process of coming to terms the death of your child involves irreversible life changes for you, for your family and for all those around you. This can cause others to feel mystified and shut- out. They seem to grieve the person you were “before”. But the most important thing is that you are able to get as much support that you can find, along with the necessary time and space for you to grieve in your own way. There is no map, and no right way, and there is no short cut. There are no recognisable neat patterns and there is nothing clean about it. There will never be a day that it will feel “acceptable” to you that your child’s life was cut short and that you outlived them. Life has been thrown into unrecognizable turmoil, and you find yourself in a bleak and lonely world that feels completely alien.
Becoming accustomed to the reality of your life without your child physically in it, growing alongside you, is a slow and painful process. In our high- speed world people want solutions fast. Often others close to you who love you may want you to “recover” quickly or come to terms with your loss. They may feel frustrated with how long it is all taking and they may offer advice or well-meaning comments that feel hurtful and inappropriate. They may also have their own opinions as to how you are coping, or not, and may express these without invitation. Sometimes you sense a feeling of barely disguised relief from those around you when, in their eyes, you make one tiny step, apparently forwards. However, for you, it may be that you just got through the last day relatively unscathed by the demons of grief, and it can feel like a hollow victory. (“So What. My child is still Not Here”). You may battle with guilt and try to appease, after all, you know that it is all well-intentioned and loving. All this can make a bereaved parent’s heart hurt even more. You may feel pressured to hide your true feelings, and you can often feel extremely isolated.

The grief that follows the death of your child unfolds in a way that others find hard to imagine. In the early weeks and months, you may feel raw with grief, in deep shock and after-shock, inconsolable and unable to imagine a life without your child. It is extremely common to feel that you want to join your dead child, or to feel that you cannot focus on your other children, if there are any. You may experience confusion, memory loss and inability to concentrate on anything going on around you. You may also feel so physically exhausted that you are unable to move, as if you are physically weighted down. You may be desperate to sleep but unable to. Answering the telephone, and dealing with the mail can seem like mountainous tasks, all requiring you to speak words to people that you are barely able to say to yourself – that your child is gone for ever. Most social events fill you with dread as they inevitably revolve around conversation about children. It is very important for those around you to be gentle, and to allow you time and space to spend thinking about your child and being with them, wherever you feel and sense that they are.

If you are supporting a bereaved parent, don’t expect them to plan too much further than the present day, or sometimes, the present hour. Offer a quiet place for them to feel they can express themselves if they need to. Sometimes, silence can be most comforting, as bereaved parents often feel crowded by other people’s opinions. Don’t give them advice, or suggest how they should feel. It is inappropriate - you’re most important act is to listen, be patient, and walk beside them in this most terrible experience. Don’t be tempted to offer advice on how they should deal with their child’s belongings, or what they should do with their child’s bedroom. These are all deeply personal choices, and it is up to the parents alone to decide, in their own time, how to best deal with these things. Most importantly don’t feel afraid to mention their child’s name, for fear of “upsetting” them or “reminding” them – they are upset already, and will not have forgotten! You can be sure that their child’s name is never further than a breath away for them. It is always in their heart and mind, and on their lips. To speak or to hear the name of the child they love so much and miss so desperately, and to know that the world has not forgotten, is a great relief. Be sensitive around birthdays, anniversaries and annual events such as Christmas and New Year. A Happy New Year is often a painful reminder of another year further from the life they spent with their child. These events can throw bereaved parents into the grips of grief, no matter how long after a child has died.
In the later months and first few years after your child dies, other feelings may emerge, such as prolonged feelings of bleakness, depression and the realization that your child really is never coming back. Often at this point, family and friends may be wondering if you will ever be able to resume a life with any happiness in, and they may despair themselves. If you are supporting a bereaved parent, be patient, and be there for the long haul.

It is important to remember in these later months and years that this is not a permanent state, and often the support of other bereaved parents can be invaluable at this time, when it feels as if the rest of the world has peeled off. Though it feels that you will never feel colour in your life again, it is still an important part of the grieving process. Slowly we find different things that have meaning. We find we are slowly moving, inching into a phase of our life where we may feel the presence of our lost child even more profoundly guiding us. We sometimes find a way to work or live that honours our child and their gift to us, and can rebuild a life that feels meaningful. We know that life will never feel the same again, but it can begin to offer us different values, and different strengths, and different relationships, and most importantly, a deep and continuing relationship with our beloved child who has died. Our hearts were broken and the love inside is deeper than ever. We have not “moved on” from our child, we have “moved with” our child. They may not have grown alongside us in life as we dreamed of and expected, but we have grown alongside them in love and grief, and they will be with us and inside us for ever.

You'll never walk alone

I 've been aware, over the last eighteen months, that a different light is emerging. At first it came in glimpses and glimmers. I began to grasp the edges of you that had defeated my imagination. As the light bled into a stony dawn, it was if I understand colour for the first time, as each brick became rosy and the garden grew alive and opened like a flower. Colour grew stronger and i sensed that you were really there, just the other side of the veil between us. As if my bony skull clamped shut my view of the stars and the limitless universe, with you in it everywhere. So. It was me that was stopping you being with me. Grief and total despair restraining me. And like a dream fast running away as you chase it at dawn, those moments were gone again, impossible to recapture, leaving me deflated and disbelieving.

Now, those shafts of emerging light are longer and they stay awhile, illuminating everything in a different way - and that is to say , - you, my beautiful girl, are walking alongside me. It's the most incredible feeling. And I don't have to hold my breath. We are relaxed. You are present even when I'm not trying to soak every drop of you up. It's somehow as if we have both grown, dimensionally. We are expanded and we can do anything.

A matter of life and death

Restored and returned, precious children.

On the eve of your birth, my beautiful son, celebrating the moment as if it still awaits me. Lavender oil bath, an opulent bubble in the starkness of the UCH nhs delivery 'suite' - sounding more like a hotel every moment..

You arrived next day, with a determined look that you still wear. You mean business. A precious timeless few hours in the delivery room, you, in my arms. The room floats and gently nudges the edges of the frame like a screensaver, soft and soundless. That incredible jesus woman, lowest rank probably in the scheme of things, who washed me as if in an act of devotion. I always wanted to thank her for that. We name you and tell you of your awaiting sister. You keep my gaze. And have done so ever since, steadily underlining the rational, the reason, the matter and fact of it all. Keeping me on the straight and narrow.

And you, my sweet girl, I feel I am at last with you. Aligned, and in line, with you. And in that, yes I am happy - a word I vowed I would never use again. I can never be happier than at those moments, when I had the two of you in my life, in my arms. The moment when you came to the hospital to see your baby brother, no sibling rivalry there. You were proud, excited, benignly generous in your immediate acceptance of him, you understood the place of things without any need for explanation. You were like a wise old thing. Without a doubt, I will never be happier. That's ok with me. Until I feel anything else , that is how it sits, and everything else is a bonus.

so - solitary and connected at the same time. Learning how to walk with you even though you are out of my physical sight. That, to get here, has burst my heart and brain to breaking point. And here I am now, in a sort of calm lake, cradling you both. So - here I am, verging on my half-century, with two children who both, in this life , are 7 years old....

Your mother in love,

xx