Kaleidoscope

'A kaleidoscope is a tube of mirrors containing loose coloured beads, pebbles, or other small coloured objects. The viewer looks in one end and light enters the other end, reflecting off the mirrors. Typically there are two rectangular lengthwise mirrors. Setting of the mirrors at 45° creates 8 duplicate images of the objects, 6 at 60°, and 4 at 90°. As the tube is rotated, the tumbling of the coloured objects presents the viewer with varying colours and patterns. Any arbitrary pattern of objects shows up as a beautiful symmetric pattern because of the reflections in the mirrors.'


I commented on another blog this week that I sometimes feel as though I am looking into a kaleidoscope. One twist and the arbitrary pattern of the early birth of my daughters, Georgina's death, Jessica's long stay in hospital, my grief, forms into something beautiful and symmetric. Another twist and chaos again. Another turn and yet another pattern is assembled. The same elements but subtly different rearrangements.

One morning last week, I was putting Jessica in the car to go to the supermarket. It was an ordinary morning in February in England, slightly grey and cold. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught my own reflection in the car window. I saw an ordinary looking person, so average, a woman who could be thinner, whose hair could have been brushed, who doesn't look particularly beautiful or interesting. Completing a mundane task. Going to the supermarket to buy milk and a cake for later, when my friend came round for a cup of tea that afternoon. Just so very ordinary. My daughter isn't 1lb 7oz any longer, she doesn't trail oxygen cylinders and tubes around with her. We're both ordinary now, could pass for normal.

And yet. And yet I have this feeling that I know something that most people don't.
I've been somewhere, seen something, extraordinary. That hovering place between existence and a void. 
And at that moment, my internal kaleidoscope twitched and pieces went tumbling into place. 
Somehow, everything was sorted into its correct position, neatly arranged. 
Each piece to its own location within the pattern, not obscuring any of the others. All visible. All distinct. 
Here, premature labour. 
Here, guilt. 
Here, twins. 
Here, daughters. 
Here, the neonatal intensive care unit. 
Here, memory loss. 
Here, grief. 
Here, love. 
Here, fear.
Here, wondering if there will ever be another.
Here, the eldest. Here, the youngest. 
Here, Georgina. Here, Jessica. 

For a moment or two, it all made some sort of sense to me. This doesn't happen very often.
But I thought to myself. There she is. There is Georgina's mother. 
I smiled at my own reflection in the glass. Messy hair and all. 
I smiled at Jessica through the glass. 
Just for a moment, I felt fine. 

Then the kaleidoscope twists again. That particular pattern dissolves and another forms.




My cousin made a list of all my grandmother's great grandchildren and she missed out Georgina. 
She even included children who are no blood relation, step-great grandchildren and children of partners and so on. 
But not Georgina. 
Georgina was named for my grandmother, who was called Jane too.
I agonised and agonised and wondered if I was being rude, or just plain mean, or whether I would be misunderstood, she's not still harping on about the dead child, still, STILL, even after all this time. 
I finally screwed up the courage to say something, pointed out that she had missed Georgina's name off. 
My cousin replied and said that she had simply forgotten about her.
That stung. In a strange way, I would have preferred it if she had said that Georgina wasn't included because she was dead. 
But to be forgotten about? 
It gave me such a jolt. I suppose that I have spent so long thinking about Georgina that I tend to forget that she is just a passing footnote to other people. Almost like someone for whom you carried a torch in secondary school, you can still remember their name, the type of coat they wore, the way they smiled. But the object of your affection will have no clue who you are. Because you didn't even impinge of the edges of their field of vision, that skinny, scrappy girl a few years below them. 
Georgina might loom like a giant in my mind but, to others, she is something so trivial as to have vanished from their memories.
If my own cousin doesn't remember I had twins, it seems highly unlikely that many other people will.  
But I will always remember. 
Because I'm Georgina's mother.
I don't see myself forgetting that. 
Not for a very long time.