Sunday 5 September 2010

Three Years

Since the second anniversary of Georgina's death, I feel sad. Very sad. Too sad to feel angry. Too sad to feel anything other than just . . . .  sad. My heart is so heavy.

In that first year, I felt such a strong connection to Georgina, the person. My daughter. A human being who moved and thought and looked about. Inside my womb and outside.

Now I think of her as a spirit or a ghost.
A brief touch on my shoulder, then gone.
A tiny hand in mine, withdrawn.
A few breaths, then no more.

Or as a copy of her sister.
A toddler who has never been, who never will be.

Neither of these incarnations are my Georgina.
That connection that I had, or thought I had, feels so very gone, so absent.
I don't take her photographs out of their box.
I don't take out her ashes in their plastic bag.
I don't take out the only hat she ever wore, that scrap of pink woollen with the ties and the crust of blood on the strings.
I don't cradle it in cupped hands as I used to. Trying to will the former occupant back into some form of existence, even if only to fill it with a memory. A memory of a glimpse of a ghost.
This is the hat, that held the scalp, that held the skull, that held the brain, of the person that was my daughter, Georgina.
Who I miss so terribly.
Or so I claim. I feel I've lost my hold on who she was. That makes me sad.

On the evening of the 29th, I played some music. Loudly. I don't usually play my music that loud although our neighbours in the adjoining house are not likely to complain. Three young guys who like to play their own music loud occasionally and have a few beers out in their back garden from time to time.They won't come round a-grumbling. They are nice neighbours to have and they seem to like Jessica which is the most important thing.

I played Ben Harper, Regina Spektor, The Shins, Nick Cave, Mountain Goats, Bette Midler, Snow Patrol, Peter Mulvey, Pearl Jam, Ryan Adams, Kate Rusby, Florence & The Machine. A jumble of everything. Songs that remind me of my daughters. Songs that I have found here.

I lit some candles. I gazed out of the window in to the darkening evening.
I hoped she knew that I was there. That I remembered.

My husband came downstairs. I went into the front room to speak to him. He went into the kitchen and turned my music off and blew out my candles. I was hurt.

Later he mentioned something about Jessica's 'learning disabilities' and again I was hurt. I felt he had slighted my mothering. I felt he had slighted our daughter.

My husband is a practical man. I often think that he would be a better mother than me.
I'm likely to be looking at Jessica and saying "she looks lonely, do you think she misses Georgina?" and he will bat me out the way saying, "Can't you smell that her nappy needs changing?"

I know that he is not the sort to play music, light candles, gaze out of a window. But it still hurt. It hurt that he didn't know that I needed to do it. Because that is the type of person I am. That is the sort of mourning I do.

We spoke about it later. We both apologized.
We do things differently, we always have. If the knowledge of over a decade has taught us anything it is that we are not the same person. We can think, and act, very differently but that does not necessarily mean that one of us is wrong.
However.
We are both such terrible 'fixers', we both want to make everything perfect.
We look at our broken daughters and want to fix them. To give life. To fix damage.
We look at each other and we see the fractures. We want to fix them.
We look at our marriage and we want to fix that precariously balanced mess too.
But we are not gods. More's the pity. Only mortals. Such gifts are not within our grasp.

We try. But there are things you cannot fix. And some things still work even if they not perfectly intact. Function, not form, is what matters.

After two years, I feel like the slow one.
The child who can't quite grasp it.
Not the joker, occupying the back row with a nonchalant gaze at the teacher. Flicking bits of papers about.
The earnest one.
Right up at the front.
Chin stuck out towards the blackboard.
Tongue poking out in concentration.
All available brain power directed toward unravelling this one thing.

She died.
Your little baby girl died.
She isn't coming back.
Not soon.
Not ever
No matter how much you yearn and love and wish and write and attempt to support and cry and ache and drink and talk and swallow pills and sleep and dream and wake and wish. You can wish your life away on this one.
She died.

When you thought you'd been handed the golden ticket of an instant family. Of more twins joining the family. A grandmother who told her colleagues that it was twins AGAIN. The strange weirdness of those weeks when something almost unbelievable had happened to you. Not only one. But two.

Well, you did have the golden ticket. You had them. Those two daughters. Georgina. Jessica.
If that isn't the golden ticket then I don't know what is.
Even if you had only had them for an instant.
They are the golden ticket.
Even if you had never known that they were there.
The. Golden. Ticket.
Once in a lifetime. Winning lottery numbers. This is my perfect moment. The real deal.
Not the fact that they are arrived together, not their 'twinness' although that was a quiet satisfaction all of its own.
But them. Those particular children.

It wasn't quite the prize you'd been expecting. That's all. Still the prize but . . . .
She died and you have to live.
To live well.
Because there is nothing else you can do.

This is the lesson. My tongue is out, tasting the air. I can hear the words, they make perfect sense. Like a nice neat mathematical equation. My brain nods.

But my heart. . . . my heart is a dunce.

***

In other news . . .

Jessica appears to be saying something other than GUNK! At last!
Thanks for the advice Heather, it was much appreciated and it's helping. She now says . . . .Aaaarrrrrr (Car). . . . D'oh (Dog or Cat or any animal with four legs) . . . . Aaaapppp (Apple) . . . . still GUNK (who knows?) . . . . and Doooooooooorrrrrr (not door, seems to be a catch all for all other words she can't say yet)
She understands so much, I feel awful for her sometimes. It is almost like living with the wise old owl who lived in an oak, who . . . .

The more he heard, the less he spoke. 
The less he spoke, the more he heard. 
Why aren't we all like that wise old bird?

The next lot of tests at the fertility clinic seemed more promising. I saw a different doctor who did a different test. She thinks that the first result was an aberration. Hopefully everything is where it should be and it all appears to be 'doing the do.' Just to no benefit as yet.

Still that has to be a good thing? Right?

***

'Little ghost, little ghost,
One I'm scared of the most
Can you scare me up a little bit of love?
I'm the only one that sees you
And I can't do much to please you'

I am sorry, my love, my own sweet girl. I wish I could please you. I wish I could remember you. I wish I could stay but time does pull at me so.

'When I held her, I was really holding air.'

23 comments:

  1. Catherine...I wish I had some words but I don't. I'm feeling oh so lonely and broken myself right now. It's so hard to fathom isn't it? I think it's been only lately that I've fully grasped how horrifying the words truly are...She/He died....How permanent. If I could hug you and share your sorrow I would my friend. Because I understand. Because my daughter is also growing up without her twin. Because it hurts unbelievabely that this is our reality. Georgina will always be part of you, part of Jessica. Sending you love xo

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  2. I've been thinking of Georgina such a lot, these past weeks. I'm sorry I haven't been more in touch, Catherine.

    Husband stuff... it's so hard. We just bash against each other in our grief, I think. Our hurt, hurts.

    Reading you here, Georgina seems so very real and present to me, but ghostly to you. That's the interesting thing about our blogs, I think. That our dead babies are this articulate voice that is so far away from from GUNK and Aaaaaarrr and D'oh. (And, by the way, I'm delighted to hear Jessica's voice. So, so delighted to read her words. Love it.)

    Love to you xx

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  3. the permanency of death is really the hardest part, it wouldn't be so bad if they just died for a little while. the reality of it sucks. lovely to hear jessica is saying more words. thinking of you and georgina and sending love, xxx anne

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  4. hey Catherine, I hear you, too. I always thought I knew what is meant by the words, taking for granted, but, well, we all know that the words are just shadows of the real beast which is reality. And I feel understood by you for your words reflect how I feel, too.

    Some days the difference between partners is a real source of strength and at other times it feels like it's tearing us apart.

    Wishing you so much love and peace, my friend.

    xxoo

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  5. I light my candles, too. DH dies not, but gives me my space when I need it. They are the only candles I am permitted to light in the house. (Saftey Pup!)
    Im sorry you are hurting so much. I could've written the part about what you don't do/hold anymore...

    On another note, Im so glad "GUNK!" is being joined by more words :) And, calling all four-legged animals "dog" is typical on the course of language development :), you'll be happy to know!

    Thinking of you and your little girls.

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  6. Hi Catherine, I'm in the remedial class with you too - it takes so long for the awful permanence of it to sink in.

    El Prima and I seem to be always taking different paths in our grief - it has broken my heart when she walks in and says "what are you crying about?" (when it is the same thing as always) but then it does mean that we can often help pull each other up from the well rather than both of us sitting at the bottom of it.

    Sending you so much love (and GUNK!) xxxxh

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  7. Catherine, once again your words move me. They are so true, real, and raw. I feel them in my heart. Georgina is so real and is yours. She will always be Jessica's sister. Grieving is hard and sometimes we grieve differently than our partners. I wish I had all the answers and knew how to make sense of it. Sending LOTS of LOVE to you! xo

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  8. you know i adore her already, even with all of these miles in between us ;)

    i almost never know what to say to you because you leave the most beautiful comments and when i read your astoundingly lovely posts i am always trembling and crying by the end, at a loss for words, just sad that you know what i know. so sad for anyone who knows this pain. like anne said, it would be something if they were only gone for a while and then we could have them back.

    alas, here we are. and maybe one day we will be with them again. but for now we ache. just know that i am alongside you friend. i wish i could do more.
    xoxo
    lis

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  9. My husband and I had a long discussion last week and the conclusion that we came to is that he wishes he could "fix me" (for lack of a better term) so that I wasn't hurting SO badly. I think most men are naturally fixers.

    It's great to hear that Jessica has learned new words and I'm sure there will be many more in the next few weeks and months.

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  10. Just so sorry Catherine, words fail me.

    Thinking of you and your lovely family.

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  11. Thinking of you...your girls...your twins. THEY were...and THEY still are. Even if one is a beautiful shadow.

    I see shadows too...and I long to hold them close. so very close. But they slip through my fingers...

    as shadows.

    Sending you warmth and love...
    I wanted to send it yesterday, but my little Bear broke his humorous...which is not funny...so i wasn't around.

    Love,
    Me...

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  12. car, that's how my husband is too. he finds it very hard that he can't fix me.

    i think my DH thinks it's pretty damned weird that i light candles, and that he only suspects that i do it in memory of the baby. but he would never blow out a candle i'd lit. i hope your DH knows better now too! (in a nice way)

    i'm so glad jessica is saying some words! must be a relief.
    xxx

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  13. I wish that words would come, words that would help or heal... or even better, change the past. But I dont have them. And for that, I am so sorry.

    I am thrilled beyond words about Jessica's progress! That is great! She is such a smart little girl and does her mommy (and daddy) and sister proud. Truly. You are doing a wonderful job mothering, and I'm sorry that sometimes harsh or quick words from C can imply otherwise. We have those moments in our home too... Is it just something about mothers? I dont know...

    Sending hugs and much love from across the "pond"...

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  14. Catherine, if I have left too little comments, it is not because of any lack of desire to leave one. Rather, ur words so touch the deepest and truest of my being, that I don't think any words I come up with will justify or reflect the response I wish to relay to you. Your fixing, your hurt, your husband, your heaviness, I feel like I know them all. Wishing you peace. Peace from within, peace that gives you strength, peace that gives you wisdom.

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  15. I love to come here and read your words. They make me cry. You have a way with words. Continue to share your journey with us.

    So glad that Jessica is doing well and learning new things.

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  16. Wow. Your post really resonated with me on so many levels. Thank you for sharing so honestly and so beautifully.
    xo to you and your girls and your hubby too.

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  17. You have me in tears again.
    Thank you for sharing so beautifully.
    I've been thinking of you and your girls. xo

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  18. Sending hugs to ease your pain and sorrow.

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  19. Thinking of you during this especially difficult time.

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  20. The whole way through this post I just got a huge sense of "yes, me too".
    Love you bunches, Catherine.
    xo

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  21. I too never know what to say to you, it always feels like my thoughts are not eloquent enough.

    Even though time has made it feel less, Georgina is truly a part of you, and you were a part of her. That will never change, in a hundred years she will still be yours. We have to live on, but we don't have to forget. Your heart is not a dunce, it is the loveliest part of you...

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  22. Peace to you.
    I hope Meg remembers Drew too,just as you hope Jessica remembers Georgina. It does all seem unreal.

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  23. "She died and you have to live.
    To live well.
    Because there is nothing else you can do."

    I, too, think it will be a long, long time before this really sinks in, Catherine. Thinking of you always.

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