How I Live Now

On Wednesday morning I decided to take Jessica to a 'Messy Makers' class at the local children's centre. I was happily puttering about, putting things in her bag to take with us, a little carton of drink, an extra cardigan and so on, when I double checked the class timetable and realised that I had misread the starting time. The class began at ten o'clock, not at half past as I thought.

Cue panic, immediate cessation of slow puttering about, quick thrusting of everything I had gathered up into the car and unceremonious shoving of  Jessica into her seat. I drove quick smart over to the centre, unloaded the car, staggered up the hill to the centre carrying Jessica and the bag and arrived some twenty minutes late rather out of breath and flustered.

I don't know if it was because we were late and everyone already in the class turned round to look at us, or because I was annoyed with myself for being late, but Jessica went very shy. She brought her shoulder up to her ear and stared stolidly into space for the entire class. Which is unlike her. Nothing tempted her, not the singing, not waving scarves around, not bouncing the toys up and down on the parachute, not the other children. Shoulder and ear remained firmly wedged together.

She only relaxed when the 'messy' part of the class started. The children had trays of compost to pretend to plant seeds and plastic flowers in. Then she dived in and put up quite a fight against a much bigger boy for sole occupancy of one of the trays of dirt.

But by then the damage was done and I had worked myself into an internal frenzy thinking, 'Why did I bring this poor child here who is obviously hating every minute of this? Is she shy because I'm shy? Is she somehow picking up on the effort it costs me to talk to the other parents and to pretend that there is no dead sibling, no memories of death and disaster? Perhaps I haven't been ensuring that Jessica plays with other children enough? Perhaps I am a rubbish parent? Perhaps it would all be different if Georgina hadn't died?'

Whilst the usual internal rant was rumbling on in the background and I was exchanging the usual pleasantries with the other parents of how old?  name? do you come here often? I noticed a young girl hovering on the outskirts of the group. She was wearing one of the centre's badges and, eventually, she came over to speak to me and Jessica. She was a work experience student, she loved children, she wanted to work with them when she 'grew up.' We were having a perfectly pleasant and civilised conversation.

Then she asked me if Jessica was an only child. And I just couldn't say yes. I don't know why. I usually say 'yes', she is an only child, my first child. Even though it breaks my heart a little to say that. But I didn't give my usual answer.

Perhaps because part of me wanted to hurt this young girl, to shock her. Perhaps there is some horrible part of me that I would rather not confront that just wanted to give all this hurt I carry around with me to someone else to hold for a minute.

So I said 'No, she had an older sister but she passed away.'

This poor young woman. Her eyes widened. Her face took on a look of panic, worse than mine was when I realised I was going to be late. She got up from the sofa and just walked away from me.

As we leaving the centre, a little later, I managed to track her down. I could tell that she wasn't happy about the fact that I was bearing down on her again, the panic on her face was obvious. She was obviously thinking 'oh gawd, the woman with the dead child, oh gawd, please, please, please don't let her speak to me again. please just make her go away.' But I didn't go away. I told her I was sorry, that I hadn't meant to wrong foot her earlier, that I usually didn't mention that I had another daughter who died, that these things do happen, children do die and it is terribly sad. She told me that's okay.
I wanted to reply that it isn't, not for me. It actually isn't okay.

I walked out of the centre and pressed my face against Jessica's hair, the sweet curve of her fuzzy little head. My tears ran into her hair.

And I want to say to Jessica what I have said a thousand times before.

I am sorry that I still haven't figured out a more graceful way to handle this, that I ended up apologising for talking about your sister, that I still don't know how to respond to that question about whether you have brothers or sisters.

I am sorry that I didn't see you until hours after your birth, that I wasn't with you for those first few hours. I am sorry that I wasn't by your side until you were three days old. All I can really remember from that time is your sister. The doctors kept telling me that she was struggling and I didn't want her to die without me.

I am sorry that I did not ask to bring Georgina over to your incubator to say goodbye, I regret that so very much. Absolutely horribly.

I am sorry that my body let you down so terribly, that I couldn't breathe for you, digest for you, maintain your blood pressure for you, stop the bleed on your brain, stop the infections that plagued you, stop the steroids making you so uncomfortable, stop the endless scratching of needles, the endless pokes and prods. That I never wanted to believe that this would happen to me and so went into that NICU very, very uninformed.  I am so very, very sorry that I could do nothing to help you. That all I could do was watch you.

I am sorry that your sister died. I wish she hadn't. I hope that you aren't too haunted or upset by your sister's death. I'm afraid that I can't protect you from it. I can't fix it, I can't bring her back for you. It seems like such horrible, horrible damage to be done to you at the very start of your life.

Perhaps you'll grow up thinking that everyone has a dead sister, in that strange way that children have of generalising their own specifics to the population at large. My own sister and I were agog when we realised that some people actually had cousins who lived in the SAME town. How could this possibly be? Because we thought that everyone was exactly the same as us. Perhaps it will just be normal to you?

Perhaps you'll grow up thinking that every mum is frightened of people asking questions about her children, that every mum cries when they look at their children sometimes, that every mummy's gaze sometimes drifts ever so slightly away to another face, a face that nobody else sees.  I'm sorry I'm not the mummy that I wish I was, that sometimes my rumbling monologue dries up and you look at me perturbed, as if to say why have you stopped talking, why aren't you really looking at me?

Perhaps you'll grow up thinking that many babies die, that many babies are born sick. I know that your cousin, E, is very confused about this. She asked me if, when she has her babies, they will be born with pipes, will they need oxygen when they are sick, will they have to stay in the hospital, will they die there. I wish that I could say "not yours my darling, never yours". But I can't.

My love for you is such a useless, valiant old thing.
It thuds and it thuds and it thuds away in my heart to little purpose. Other than to love you.
It couldn't help you then, it can't help you now, it can't help you in the future.
But it beats for you my little girl, my daughter.

I feel so sad and so angry that this is the mother that you get.

Not the mother of a couple of years ago, so sure and certain, so confident in herself.

You get the mother that lives how I live now.
The mother that cries into your hair.