Jessica and I went on a visit to a farm park yesterday with our mother and baby group. She loved seeing all the animals, especially the chicks. She seemed quite fascinated by them and wanted to touch them. So I had a little bit of a battle on my hands, trying to bring the chick close enough for her to see it and then whisking it away again when she put her hand out to grab it. I was a bit worried that the little chick might not survive the encounter. Jess is quite strong and has been to known to pull hair, I didn't want to give her the chance to try out her technique on this chick's little downy feathers.
As I sat down to hold the chick up for her, twin girls approached me. Older girls of about five or six I suppose. One of them came and sat right up against me, patted my knee. She wanted to tell me how excited she was to hold the chick. She was such a sweet girl, I hope that none of my upset showed in my face. I showed her the chick that we had and she asked what Jessica's name was.
Up until that point I had been enjoying myself, looking at Jessica's expressions of surprise, interest, disinterest and out and out boredom when confronted by various animals, the trampoline, a bit of cake, a swing, the other children. But something shifted inside me after that conversation with the twins. I started searching for Georgina, wondering what subtle rearrangment of Jessica's features she would have borne. Would she have liked the chick? Would she have made a grab for it too? Or not? Would she also have that strange, low chuckle that Jessica has?
I thought of a poem that I haven't thought about for years. Perhaps it was all the animals that reminded me, that brought back that phrase 'the zoo of the new'. Like many teenage girls of a certain type, I liked Sylvia Plath's poetry when I was younger. I still do but it doesn't 'speak' to me as it used to.
It's a poem called Child. The opening lines are . .
Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new.
This is what I want to do for Jessica. I want to fill her eyes with color and ducks. I don't want this sadness around us. It isn't fair for her. I never, ever want her to see my eyes scanning her face and wonder if I am looking for her sister. She is enough. She is more than enough. She's not half of what I wanted. There is a separateness, a distinctness between my children. I want to be my best for her, my happiest for her. Not this grief-stricken harridan that she sometimes sees.
The closing lines are
Not this troublous
Wringing of hands, this dark
Ceiling without a star.
Those lines reminds me of my Georgina now.
I hope it isn't so. Not without a star. Please.
My mom, who is Native Am, used to tell us that, whenever someone died, their spirit became a star in the night sky. So, no matter where I was, I could always look up at night and see the ancestors, watching over me. Every night that I am outside, I search the sky and find the stars that I just know belong to my children. No matter where I am, they are there. I may not see them because the sun is too bright... But they are there.
ReplyDeleteGeorgina is there... And one day, we will be there with them, too...
It must be so hard to parent Jessica without Georgina, the joy intermixed with sadness. Sending you so much love, my friend. xo
ReplyDeleteI can not fathom this form of baby loss. Ignorantly it never occured to me that it was out there. How horridly sad. I've often looked at my daughter who was 3 days shy of a year when my Logan was born, and I've wondered if he would have looked like her, acted like her. I can not imagine your pain and confusion. Ironicly, I took my DD to the zoo over the weekend and was followed around by a family with a Logan...and they just kept calling his name! And all I wanted to do was be at teh zoo with my daughter.
ReplyDeleteHi Catherine, I've seen you post on other blogs for a while now, but I just came to your blog recently. I'm so sorry that you don't have Georgina with you and that Jessica is missing her sister. I met a woman in my local support group with a similar story and heard her pain in trying to go on without the one child while trying to parent the other and simultaneously being told that her grief was somehow less because she had a living baby. That must be excrutiating. My thoughts and love go out to you.
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