Rest

My parents had two phrases that they used (and still use to this day) when they were particularly exasperated with me.

My dad, "Give it a rest girl."
My mum, "Have you no rest for your soul?"

In terms of frequency of use, these phrases probably reached their zenith in my teenage years and were used in relation to dyeing my hair different colours, spending excessively long in the bath, playing my music too loud and being on the 'phone every single minute I was in the house. I was young in those ancient times before everyone had a mobile 'phone, A world which seems slightly unbelievable now. When I, aged 17, wanted to speak to the boyfriend who would eventually become my husband, I had to 'phone his home and ask his mum if I could speak to him. How bizarre.

I suppose I have never been an especially calm or restful person. I am certainly not now.

I am finding myself increasingly juddering back and forth, between a kind of fierce elation and abject despair. Pausing for spells of stupid numbness characterised by my slack jawed mumbling of 'what? what just happened? This? This all happened to me? To my family? To my children? Really?'

Looking back at this blog of mine, this seems to be a recurring theme. Even the post titles give me away, oscillate wildly, teeter totter.

Georgina and Jessica were due on the 19th of December. They were going to be Christmas babies. I'm sure I would never have made it that far, I know that twin pregnancies don't usually make it the full forty week stretch. But, because of this due date, many of my day-dreams of the girls involved Christmas. Two babies dressed in their first Christmas outfits. Two little stockings of presents.

My mum bought two beautiful little sets of red dungarees with 'my first christmas' embroidery. One has been put away indefinitely in the loft, it was far too big for Jessica to wear on her first Christmas and is far too small to be worn this year. I suppose I'm keeping it in the hope that a third child may wear it one day. Ever the optimist.

The second outfit was never worn. It is in Georgina's box. With other outfits I bought her before she was born. All so ridiculously, heartbreakingly big. Far too big for my tiny, delicate little baby. Bought with the stupid naivety of a woman who been told her baby was measuring at the 91st centile and was expecting a big girl. But sadly, so sadly, my 'big' girl will always be tiny. So tiny that it almost defies belief that I have as many ashes of her as I do.

As I try to reintegrate myself into the life I had before, I find myself feeling increasingly awkward, clumsy, stupid. My tongue seems to have thickened and furred. I find myself apologising to colleagues, to friends. "Gosh, it's been so long. Over a year. I don't know why I'm still so upset by it." And then I hate myself and my lack of grace, my inability to tell the truth of the matter. As if I would be over it in a year. Or ten years. Or ever. My inability to tell them how much it hurts. How much it hurts to see your child die. How much I loved her.
And they look away from my teary eyes. Or start apologising for upsetting me.
The unexpected "how many children do you have?" from the new girl at the Christmas lunch. The looks of agonised pity thrown my way from those who saw my 'rabbit in the headlights' face. The tearing I felt in my stomach as I replied "just the one, Jessica is my first."

I am distracted in meetings by vivid memories of details, Georgina's tiny jaw, her sparse little tufts of hair, the way her hands were so full of fluid that they looked painful, the cold water we washed her in. Details that I didn't even know that I remembered.

I find myself standing in the shopping centre, feeling as though I have simply stopped. As though time has stopped. Struggling for breath. The shoppers around me either mutate into uncaring, unthinking automatons who all have perfect lives, whose presence highlights my own inadequacy, my own freakishness. Or they all turn into walking tragedies. I look around and see dead children, accidents, fatal diseases. I wonder how we can all continue walking past Tesco. How we can all queue up at the ATM. Without the world just bursting apart.

Jessica very nearly came home on Christmas Eve last year. But this plan was cancelled on the day due to a lack of staff. So this will be her first Christmas at home. I am excited, nervous, happy, terrified and sad all at once. I feel as though I am already building myself up into a frenzy. It is hard to describe but I had a similar feeling when Jessica first came home. As though everything sped up, as though I was speeding up. I wanted to make everything absolutely perfect for this little girl who had been through so much. I needed to make sure that all her clothes and muslins were perfectly clean and ironed, that she never cried, that she fell asleep in my arms every night, that she had every toy and outfit that she could possibly need, that the freezer was fully stocked with purees. And I was just racing along and I could do it all and I could make it all perfect. Faster and faster and faster. Until, until I couldn't.

I can't make life perfect. I can't bring back her twin sister. I can never 'unthread that bead' from the necklace that Jessica's life will become. It doesn't matter how many Christmas presents she has under the tree. Even if she gets enough for two. How many books I read to her. How many songs I sing to her. I need to try and have a little rest for my soul.

Sometimes I wish that I could be entitled to a day, one day, just to sit and cry.
To cry and cry and cry for my Georgina.
To attempt to make sense of this.
But I suspect that it would take more than a day. Sometimes I feel that I will never make sense of this. Even if I had one hundred years to sit and think about it.

Sometimes I'm very glad that I've never had that day, that I wouldn't know what to do with that day of mourning if it was granted to me.
I think, deep down I still don't fully accept that Georgina has died. Because I've never had to face that fact. Because I've always had another baby, for many months a very unwell baby, to concern myself with. I still feel as though I am expecting twins, just that one of them hasn't arrived yet.

And I feel so clumsy. I feel I should be apologising even here for my failure to progress, my inability to make any meaning or sense out of the loss of my daughter, my endless repetition of the same old things. The loss of my daughter. My failure to have another baby. Same old, same old.

I'm sorry. I wish I had something new to say. Something helpful or clever or enlightening. Something that might offer comfort.

I still miss her.
I still wish she had lived.
I still wish I could have spared her pain.
I still wish I could have stopped her birth from happening, so many months before she would have been prepared for it.
I still love her.
Nothing has really changed my sweet girl.
I get a little better or a little worse at hiding how much it hurts. That's all.
I find greater or lesser degrees of rest for my soul.
That's all.

I love this song. It was written for one of my favourite singers, Nick Drake, when he was suffering with depression by a friend of his, John Martyn.  I love the image of solidified air. Sometimes, in my frozen moments in shopping centres or other inappropriate places to chose to suddenly stop, that is how it feels. As though the air has solidified.

You've been taking your time
And you've been living on solid air
You've been walking the line
And you've been living on solid air
Don't know what's going wrong inside
And I can tell you that it's hard to hide when you're living on
Solid air.