Wednesday 29 September 2010

Sick


I've been sick. So sick that I took to my bed for over twenty four hours.
If I hadn't had to get up intermittently to puke my guts up, it would have been quite luxurious. 

I am so lucky to have my parents living close by, poor old Jessica would certainly have had a very miserable day if she had been left to the tender mercies of her mother. I would probably have managed to stumble around and thrown a bit of food in for her, perhaps changed one or two nappies.

She was most unimpressed when I had to stop my (rather less wholehearted than usual) rendition of Tanka Skunk in its tracks. She was unceremoniously shoved on to the floor and attempted to chase me into the toilet, hitting me around the legs with the book and then, when that plan was foiled, beating on the door with it. I emerged to an irate toddler and an enormous spider scuttling around the kitchen sink.

That was when I placed the emergency call to my parents. The spider was the final straw.

It was a strange day. Being in bed with the curtains drawn during the middle of the day made me feel like a child again. 

I drifted in and out of sleep. The radio muttered on. 

I learnt some interesting facts about Gauguin who is having a retrospective at the Tate. 
Although when I say learnt, I find that I can dredge nothing up now.
Apparently all we thought we knew about him was wrong. 
But as I can't remember the new things I guess I'm still misguided.

I must have fallen asleep.
I dreamt that a woman was standing over me. She had smooth brown hair and blue eyes. Kindly. 
At first I thought she was my mother.
I thought that I was four or six years old.
Then I realised that it wasn't my mother.

In my half dream, my heart leapt as I realised it was Georgina.
And that I was an old, old woman.
I felt so awful because I was dying.

Then I woke up properly. I wasn't dying. I felt a bit foolish. I just had a stomach bug. Like I've had tens of times before. 
It wasn't Georgina.
I cried.

I remember reading somewhere that some people loom large in our lives, like giants. 
The girl that bullied you at school, the lover who snubbed you, the passing stranger that saw you trip over your own toes and fall in a heap on the ground. 
Scenes of our grandest humiliations, our defeats, our upsets. People associated with those times stalk through our dreams and thoughts. 
And we probably never, ever appear in theirs. Such a one-sided affair.

So it is with me and Georgina.
She did not see me hurt or embarrassed.
Yet she persists because I love her so very dearly and there is nobody there to love me back. 
Unrequited in the fullest sense of the word.

I have spent hours and hours and days and weeks and possibly even months and hundred on hundreds of words trying to bring her back. To make sense of her death. To bring something back. Anything.
I lost a three day old premature baby and my dreams hand me back a forty year old woman. With kindly eyes.
Her presence, or more appropriately, her absence is such a void in me. 
That I will fill it with anything. 
Any old words. Any old dream. Any old image of a person that might be her. That could have been her. 

Oh Georgina. I'll try anything but I often know that I'm not close. I'm not close to you.

'What I meant to say 
Is that I didn't mean to say 
the things I said
Cornered, cut and rolled
and going mouthful mad 
with things I never said to you

All this time,
All these words,
I'm not even close. . . . .'

You'll have to excuse the video. This song comes from the land that You Tube forgot, the early 1990s.

Darcy and Elizabeth's silences have got nothing on me and my daughter. 


10 comments:

  1. ugh I hate being sick!

    Our babes do loom large in our lives - they leave such a big hole.

    Just like our living ones occupy so much of our being and energy.

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  2. I had the stomach bug as well. It is so awful! We all have that void in us. We miss them dearly and wish things could be so different. My heart aches for you. xoxo

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  3. So it is with me and Georgina.
    She did not see me hurt or embarrassed.
    Yet she persists because I love her so very dearly and there is nobody there to love me back.


    Oh Catherine.

    You put things so beautifully.

    i don't know what to say.

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  4. So sorry to hear you're feeling so awful. I hope you start to feel better soon. Thank goodness your parents could watch Jessica and you could get some rest.

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  5. I hope you are feeling better. I always wonder how people with children are able to function when they are sick. Like you, my sister has to be really sick before she calls in reinforcements.

    That void you wrote about- I have one too. I've tried wishing George back into existence more than a million times. I would try anything if I thought it might bring him back and frankly, that kind of frightens me.

    I think your dream of a 40 year old Georgina with kindly eyes is quite beautiful. I don't dream about George but if I did I would want to see him all grown up too. I would love to see an aged face and believe for a moment that he had lived a full life.

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  6. A beautiful dream....

    (hugs) feel better dear one!

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  7. it's beautiful and heart-wrenching. sucks you were sick though :(

    you have the best taste in music by the way. and when i watched your sweet jessica's two year video the tears found me quickly. and somehow i felt closer to both your girls, especially georgina. sorry it took me so long to write. you and your girls are always on my mind.

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  8. Sorry to hear you've been feeling so awful. Puking is a terrible thing... extremely draining. It's OK to ask for help, even though it takes me a longtime to do so myself if I'm down.

    I had a dream of a handsome, grown-up Sky on day. He had kind eyes as well. Glad you got a glimpse too.

    Handing you a virtual cup of Sleepy Time and hoping you'll be fine again soon. Get well, my dear. xoxo

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  9. I love reading your words, Catherine because they are so beautiful, but sometimes I hate reading them because they leave me so speechless. I want to comment because I want you to know I'm here, but I never know what I could say that would even compare to what you write.
    You are beautiful. Your daughters are beautiful.
    I'm here with you. Remembering.
    xoxo

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  10. "All this time,
    All these words,
    I'm not even close. . . ."

    Oh, my. Yes.

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