Last night, Christmas Eve.
My boy, he cries. His stomach bloated.
I get out of bed and blearily pick him up. He slots in, between us. My husband's back, turned against us. My son and I turned into one another. He has a large birthmark on the back of his neck, forcing lopsidedness, it puffs up his skin. Ready for kissing. My lips find that mark. The ever-fixed mark. I imagine seeing that mark on his thirty two year old neck. Him as me. Imagining life times away. And still wanting to kiss it. Perhaps I will just run my fingers across it briefly. As I hug him in a polite, motherly way. Because I will have to let my ever-fixed mark go. That is the nature of motherhood.
And worlds and worlds of assumptions fall away. Assuming that I will be here. Thirty two years later. Me, doubled. Sixty four? When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now. Will you still be sending me a valentine? Birthday greetings? Bottle of wine? Will I? Will you? Will they? The walls wobble under the weight of my complacency.
My sister and I sung that song to our father yesterday. Jokily. But I wasn't joking. I don't think he knew that I wasn't joking.
Because I'm glad. I'm so glad I get to sing that silly song, so stupidly, to my father. So that he thinks that I'm joking. Because I can't sing. Because if it wasn't so light, it would be too heavy.
Will he? A full grown man? That, which seems greediness now, such a gift.
Reuben, thirty two. With children. Without children. With lines on his face? Oh I hope so.
Breathing? With that same birth mark on his neck? Me, with my same eyes, here to see it?
I rub his poorly tummy. We discuss it. I say, "Say goodbye poorly tummy. Bye bye. Once there was a boy. A boy with a poorly tummy. But they were parted. They never saw one another again. Say bye bye."
And they were parted. Bye bye poorly tummy ache. Don't come again. He falls asleep.
I wished. I wished stupidly and without the hope that should surely underpin a wish. I wished for that moment of reassurance. Mutual reassurance.
I wished I could just touch her skin. Touch her tummy. Rub a bad tummy away. Kiss her birthmark. My ever-fixed mark. My love. My girl. My first born. Who'll never be thirty two. Or sixty four. Or anything at all.
My love. My love. My dear girl. Bye bye.
This post made me feel like I could literaly sit and see the pair of you cuddled up wishing the bad belly away. At the same time I feel bad- because it is always my husband who gets up with the babes in the middle of the night (bad mommy!).
ReplyDeleteSending so much love and light this Christmas night.
I just reread your "about me" blurb. Catherine, you are no ordinary woman. You are, in fact, nothing short of extraordinary.
ReplyDeleteI hope you get to see R and J all grown up as their own people. I hope I get to see Clio that way too. But, there are no certainties in this life. A lesson hard-learned. So snuggle him close. It is good to wish a poorly stomach away.
I wish you could touch her too....
ReplyDeleteI hope the little one is feeling better.
Lots of hugs and prayers.
I love that song! Doesn't everything feel so fleeting right now? So fragile and easily taken away. Those birthmarks and night time cuddles break your heart in the middle of them because now we see with new eyes. We see with the eyes of a mother who has been robbed. We snatch at the moments gobbling them up. Knowing that each and every day is a gift. You are magic, your kisses are magic.... Especially for tummies. Too bad we don't have enough magic to bring back our children.
ReplyDeleteYou are a true artist, Catherine.
ReplyDeletexo
Yes. Just, yes. All of it. xxx
ReplyDeleteI bought my son new shampoo. He is probably a little too old but he doesn't seem to mind. It smells like watermelon and baby soap. I cuddled with him close to me last night breathing in the smell of his hair. I imagined just for a moment that he was an older version of Braedon. I pictured him growing up and changing. Of course it is all in my fantasy land.
ReplyDeleteBye, bye. I hear you. I hear it all in my own head playing over and over.
Love to you.
So beautifully and truthfully written, Catherine x
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about this post for a long time now... I suppose it's because it answers a question I've been pondering for a while now... When you lose a baby, does it colour the way you see your other children? I think the answer is inevitably yes... it colours the way you see the world.
ReplyDeleteBut you made me see it differently - I thought losing Seamus would make me a highly strung, wrap-all-future-kids-in-cotton-wool, hen-pecking, overbearing, anxiety riddled mother. (That's even IF I get to mother a living child... touch wood). But I hadn't looked at it from the other side - maybe it will make me the appreciative, blessed, treasure-every-moment kind of mother too... even the belly aches. What a beautiful image of the three of you snuggled together like that.
And lovely Georgina - I know how much you miss her - especially at this time of year. How much you ache to touch her, and how much that will never go away. Take care xx
What a beautiful image of you and your little boy, together in the night. And I wish you were able to do the same for Georgina too - those tiny, natural, taken-for-granted-until-they're not moments.
ReplyDeleteThirty two. Wow. I think my brain can almost - almost - get there. I hope you see it, and that it feels really good to see it.
ReplyDeleteI have similar late-night wishes. So much love to you and your little ones, all of them.