In Search of Lost Time

August finds me, unprepared. I am not ready for this time of year to be here so quickly, once again.

It is the tail end of the summer here in England.

The dregs of the pale, sharp sunlight.

The evenings darken. 

The weather chills.

It is raining here this morning and the sky is grey.

It suits me.

The dates loom on the horizon, sometimes welcome, sometimes ominous.

The 26th.

The 29th. 

The time in-between. 

When two years ago, Georgina existed. Breathed. Had a chance.

A voice murmurs in my ear, "She lived, she lived. It could have been."

The world was shot through with gold. Briefly.

As it has been by many brief lives before it. Many brief lives since.

Those pure golden veins of possibility, potential. 

Glimmer.

Closed off before they became sluggish and tired. 

Increasingly, I scurry about. Trying to remember those days.

Because how can those important hours, the only hours I will ever spend in the company of my eldest daughter, be so very lost to me?

My imagination tries to patch up those flapping holes. Conjuring up memories from photographs, from wishes. Memories which are not real, are not true.

Trying to sort out what actually happened over those three and a bit days is difficult.

It becomes increasingly so as I am irresistibly drawn further and further away. 

A different person from that woman in 2008.

I am still shocked when I look up and see that things have changed.

The change of shops in the high street.

The Wool.worths where I bought the twin's first outfits, an empty shell, then filled in by a pound shop.

The news stories that are seared into my mind. 

My husband bought a newspaper every day that we stayed at the hospital. Something that we do not usually buy.

The opening of the large Hadron collider.

The US presidential election.

These events have grown smaller, duller. They are part of the past now.

I can scarcely believe it. 

I remember.

I remember sitting outside the hospital with my husband.

We were both sitting on the kerb, at the front door of the hospital.

It was late evening, the sun was setting.

We were drinking cans of fizzy drink.

We were so stupid, we didn't understand.

We were trying to cheer one another up. 

We kept saying, "She'll pull through, she's been so strong. We can't lose her now. Surely she would have died last night if she was going to. The doctors are saying that there is still a chance. Our daughter won't die."

I think we simply couldn't believe that something so terrible had happened to us.

We walked back into the hospital. 

I felt stronger. I felt sure.

I would like to go back and give myself a good, bone clattering shake. Tell myself to wake up. 

Because time is pressing.

There was a single, solitary decoration in the lobby of the NICU.

A Mr. Daydream hung from a string dangling from the ceiling.

We used to reach up and touch Mr. Daydream for luck before we went in.

After Georgina died, we stopped doing this.

I remember when Georgina opened her eyes for the first time.

They were so blue. She looked so wise.

I felt as though I knew her a little. I hope I was right.

Her movements looked so strong to start with.

Then they became spasmodic. 

After her brain was damaged. 

She had beautiful little feet.

I remember that her skin was slightly hairy, as it often is in premature babies.

She had a sweet chin.

Her profile was like her sister's.

I'll always wonder how alike they would have looked.

I remember talking to one of the consultants in the family room.

It was the middle of the night.

He was kind. He looked tired. His hair looked pulled about, as though he had been running his fingers through it in exasperation.

I was crying.

I was asking if there was any point to any of this. Because I couldn't bear it.

To see them so exposed. Like tiny open wounds being poked.

With needles and lines puncturing their skins. Their small eyelids flickering.

Was there any chance of a life?

A life with any understanding, a life with a chance of happiness.

Because, in the dark hours of that night, the whole endeavour seemed futile.

I remember holding Georgina for the first time.

I felt such joy, happiness, peace.

I can't really explain why.

We were something other than ourselves at that time.

Or, perhaps, we were the most like Georgina and her mother that we are ever likely to be.

I was glad to be with her.

To finally touch her.

I very much wanted to feed her. I remember that. The last desperate instincts of a mother not ready to face the truth. Not ready to let go.

I held her.

My husband held her.

The ventilator was removed but I'm not sure how. I can't remember that part.

I seem to remember Georgina trying to take some breaths in my husband's arms. I have written that in my diary. But I am no longer certain that it is true.

We left the ward. 

The medical staff did something to Georgina. I think they gave her morphine and they took her lines out.

I remember being worried that she would not have enough morphine. 

I think I asked. I hope I asked.

I think they reassured me that she would not hurt.

We went to another room. I think that the curtains were green. Or perhaps I am confusing it with the green of the memory box that the hospital gave us.

We sat in two chairs opposite one another.

I held Georgina, or possibly Georgina's body.

As she turned from one to the other.

It felt like quite a long time.

Or possibly, no time at all.

We seemed to be operating outside of time somehow.

A nurse came in periodically to check if her heart was still beating.

When it had stopped we unwrapped her.

I washed her body.

I wish I could remember doing this but all I am certain of is that the water was cold and I was upset by that.

I dressed her.

The clothes were the hospital's.

They were too big.

She had a very thick, woollen cardigan. I think it was white with a pale pattern.

A pointed hat with a pom pom.

I thought she was beautiful.

The family came in.

I gave Georgina's body to my sister.

I took it back.

The family left.

We put Georgina's body in a crib left by the hospital.

As my hands left her body, I experienced a lurch in perspective.

Blood dribbled from her mouth.

The clothes seemed innocuous and wrong.

The hat too jaunty.

The cardigan overwhelming. Its wool, irritating.

I wanted to snatch her up and take her with me.

She looked suddenly purple and alone.

But I couldn't take her.

Yet I didn't want to leave her.

But I knew I had to.

I felt as though I was about to rip off a plaster. Enlarged to a massive scale. A plaster stuck to every inch of skin I possess.

I looked at her.

I looked at my husband.

We walked out of the room.

I never saw her again.

I have another memory but it is a false one.

I am holding Georgina in a 'kangaroo care' hold, upright, as you are taught to do with premature babies.

I never held her that way round. I'm fairly sure.

Her hand is moving across my chest. Patting.

I think that the memory of that tiny hand is actually a muddle of wishful thinking, a dream and an actual encounter with Jessica, some weeks later.

I don't think Georgina was capable of that patting motion by the time I held her.

But my brain has determined that the baby should be Georgina.

'A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.'

This time in my life will never completely unhappen. I don't believe that it will ever stop.

Some times in our life, perhaps, just carry on happening. In another room. Parallel.

Times which are shocking, altering. Which send heart racing up throats. They cannot just fall away. 

Like my memories of brushing my teeth yesterday morning or what I ate for lunch one afternoon in 1995 have fallen away. 

Some things remain. Because there is nothing else to do with them. 

They cannot vanish. They cannot happen again, they can never take centre stage again. 

So they are pushed to the sides, where they continue.

I go forward, in a seemingly linear fashion.

But next to me, just out of reach. She lives and dies. 

Georgina does not completely unhappen.

Perhaps there is a strange comfort in that.

These are what I search for. 

Those strange, comfortable places where I can rest myself for a few moments.

With my memories of that sweet girl who was so nearly my daughter.

She was such a lovely baby. Truly.

It might have been hard to see underneath all the illness and equipment.

But I saw her. She was lovely.

****

Our trip to the fertility clinic resulted in pretty much what I had expected.

Husband dearest, nary a problem.

Me, slightly more complicated.

My previous pregnancies and surgeries introduced a mild infection which has damaged the structure of my womb. One of my ovaries is wandering around where it should not be.

Releasing eggs into the wild blue yonder of my abdominal cavity.

So I guess that explains a lot.

On the plus side, we are good candidates for IVF. Just need to locate the money.

On the negative side, this feels like a bit of a kick to the ribs whilst I was already on the floor.

But, as my husband says, "Catherine, it is nothing personal. Shit happens."

My predominant feeling is actually relief. It seems that the Gods do not smile kindly on my efforts to reproduce myself. Perhaps with good reason. 

But somehow, unlikely as it was, one snuck past them.
And for that, I rejoice.

More tests await.