Sunday 19 August 2012

Amplification

So . . . end of August. Here you are again. Pulling at the edges of my heart. With your talk of endings, summers and pregnancies, with your small gentle hands. Baby's hands. Not the kind with dimpled knuckles though.

Summer is fading. It's very close today. Humid and sticky.

We have had a typical end of summer weekend.

On Saturday we went to Frensham Ponds. A tiny inland sea, Frensham Great Pond. Packed with boats and screaming children. Surrounded by sand heated up to nearly unbearable temperatures. Everybody, ever, appears to be there. Balanced on towels spread out on the sand. Eating ice-cream.

Today, we went to a pick-your-own fruit farm and picked blackberries and blueberries. Too late for the more conventional strawberry and too early and too late, both at once, for raspberries.

I find the physical sensations associated with these trips overwhelming.

The hot sand, gritty on the soles of my feet.
The cool, cool water of the pond, dappled with sunlight.

I take Reuben to the pond. His soft, fat feet walking across the sand next to my adult bony ones. Which look like a horrible caricature contrasted against the perfection of his one year old version of the same.

His cautious first dip in the water. Gently easing one toe into the shallow channel. Then, with a crow of delight, we plunge in and he is pulling me by the hand. Babbling excitedly in that language that is not yet language but does not preclude understanding. Fun, fun, curiosity, joining-in-with, come, come, come and see.

I look at Jessica's mouth, smudged with blackberries. "Look mummy, SO juicy," she gloats. I offer to carry her hoard of blackberries and she eyes me suspiciously. "NO, I will carry them," she says, brooking no arguments and clutching them close to her chest.

And I feel these things, the sand, the water, the blackberries in my mouth. And I seem to feel them more than once. More than I did before the twins were born. Before August 2008.

Because, although I cannot know what my children feel, what my children think, what my children know, I can imagine. I am lost in the imagining of it. Sometimes they seem to be conspiring with me, as they look me right in the eye and beam. Look at this, look at me, look at me. The cries oft repeated by young children. Witness me, imagine me. I'm here, I'm here and I'm being. Look, look.

When the hot grains of sand burn my feet, I feel them over again. Enlarged, hotter. Against a smoother foot, without callosities.

The water seems cooler, thinner. As Reuben smiles up into my face, the sensation undergoes a peculiar doubling. The joy, another joy.

The tart blackberry in my mouth, turned up by Jessica's purple stained smile. Amplified.

To very nearly unbearable.

To such a pitch of joy and such an awful sorrow.

I am so very grateful that they know what these things feel like, that they have experienced, as far as I can know, something similar to things that I myself have experienced. That we share these things, that smile, the looking into one another's eyes as we do something particularly fun.

But one of my children will only know a hospital and pain and a desperate kind of trying. A protracted death. Which I could only observe. No sand, no pond, no blackberries. And I'm so very grieved by that and I can make no sense of it.

I know this. I've known it for a long, long time.

And I've wondered, over the years, whether she is lucky. Luckier than all of us. In a place where sand and water and blackberries might not even exist. Or they might. How would I know after all.

So far removed from all of this, these bags of meat and chemicals and bone, that flicker and experience and collapse.

But today, I'm just so sad. That I can't really share any experiences with Georgina. Apart from holding her in my arms as she died. And sometimes I wonder if I were merely an annoyance to her. With my anxious hovering and protestations of love.

And I wish I could gift her with something. With hot sand against her feet or cool water on her skin or a blackberry pressed against her lips. Anything. Anything from the world that I know. To bind us together.

16 comments:

  1. Oh my, Catherine, this is beautiful, and heartbreaking. Did you ever imagine that your heart could be big enough and strong enough to hold this much love and pain together?

    I believe you brought comfort to your daughter, comfort and strength. But if you didn't, if you actually did annoy her, well, just think. That is one experience she didn't miss - she got annoyed with her Mom! How utterly normal.

    Sending love, Jill A.

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  2. I often wonder where, how, what life is 'after'. For him of course.. for all of them.
    I wish I were there to share a cuppa my friend..

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  3. I had a fun, comfortable and fulfilling childhood. Sand, water and blackberries included. And in all of my childhood memories, there is not a better feeling than being held in my mother's arms, knowing complete love.

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  4. Oh, Catherine. I wish you could, too. We were picking blackberries this weekend too, in the the park beside our apartment. E was delighted and I was able to enter into that delight with her. I thought: now I am being a Good Mom. But I missed my second, shadow daughter too, who should have been held against me in a carrier and maybe we would have held a blackberry to her lips, her first to taste, watched her eyes widen.

    And I want what you want, what I suppose we all want: Anything - anything that will bind us together.

    Love to you at the end of this summer.

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  5. How I wish I could stop August from pulling at the edges of your heart. I am sharing in your sadness with you, and taking so much from your writing. You always really hit straight through to my heart. To be so helpless that, as you say, you could only act as an observer of your child's death...well, that's horrific. And yet it happened to us, the horrific, the worst possible, unimaginable thing. I could give Max nothing of my world, either. He never even saw my face. I see on this blog that you and Georgina *are* bound together. That bond is so strong so as to be in plain sight. But I understand your feeling that she is so far away. I really understand that. Sending you so much love and heartfelt wishes that you get through the final days of this month. You are in my thoughts xoxox

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  6. How?

    How?

    How do you do that?

    The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (of course, you know) - the beginning, when Eustace Scrubb is looking at the picture on the wall - the ship on the ocean.

    Suddenly, he is wet - literally wet - the room is wet, drenched, the deck pitching now, suddenly, under his own feet.

    The spell of your words

    Balanced on towels
    soft, fat feet
    smudged with blackberries
    Enlarged, hotter
    cooler, thinner
    bags of meat and chemicals and bone, that flicker and experience and collapse
    To bind us together.

    And I am wet - literally wet - the room is wet, drenched, the deck is pitching now, suddenly

    August, August, Georgina, Georgina.

    Here, the 26th, the 27th, the 28th, the 29th, pressing,

    CiM

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  7. Catherine, our experiences are so different and yet so similar. You always seem to be able to describe so much that I struggle to articulate.
    Being only an observer of our girls as they underwent such dreadful medical interventions, and then holding them as they took their last breaths...it's cruel and horrific, and I go over and over the parts I can remember and feel so guilty for doing nothing but stroke her cheek, hold her hand and then hold her as she died.
    I understand the amplification,I an in awe of my other children's Aliveness.
    Thinking of you this month, always remembering Georgina.

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  8. the ache of that distance, that unbending inability to share sensation and space. it does me in. i have no idea what to do with it.

    i'm glad for your words, though.

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  9. Oh, my dear. Tears in my eyes as I read this... And wonder about your little Georgina, and my Acacia too. Holding our daughters in our arms while they died - a bond I wish we didn't share. And yet, here we are. I am thankful to share this heart and gut wrenching journey with other wise, loving mamas like you!

    XOXOXO

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  10. beautiful. and heartbreaking. thank you for sharing. so happy for what you do have. so sad for what you don't.

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  11. Just yes, and yes, and *yes* to everything you write here. Thank you for these words. This August, for some reason, I keep struggling for words, and I'm so glad to find your words here because they seem to say so much of what I can't right now.

    I wish you share some of these experiences with Georgina, too. And I've been thinking of you and your girls all August, even though I've gone rather quiet.

    Sending love.

    So much love to you, Catherine.

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  12. Catherine, that was a beautiful entry. You've captured summers end, the human experience, and your always unfolding grief so well.

    Don't ever stop writing. There is such healing vibes in your words... I need people like you to just keep being.

    You love so completely. May August be kind to you, with all the old aches and pains of this love

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  13. "But one of my children will only know a hospital and pain and a desperate kind of trying."

    You forgot the most important one - love. She knew your love.

    It was only when my second son was so desperately ill that I understood this. His heartrate bounced around for days, and when I was finally allowed to hold him, it settled. He knew me. Even barely conscious, feverish, with crazy bloodwork, he knew me, and was comforted in my arms.

    I think Georgina knew you too. And whilst her death was horribly traumatic and something I wish you never had to witness, I think, if anyone has to die, isn't it always the wish to die surrounded by the ones who love you?

    You are in my thoughts this August, and your beautiful Georgina is sorely missed xx


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  14. In a recent letter to M, I wrote about all the things that "aren't the same without you." I think your writing depicts this so clearly.

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  15. I have thought of you many times this month and will continue to think of you and sweet Georgina. I so hope the next week is gentle to you.

    I'm so sorry we weren't given more time, more experiences, with our precious daughters. But we did and do give them the best gift we have to offer in this life: we loved them and we still love them, and I believe that's what everyone longs for the most, unconditional, unending love.

    Many hugs to you and your family.

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  16. Catherine, I am in awe of your sensitivity to the world around you. To your childrens' perceptions, or your perceptions of what their world may be. And I agree with Aoife - that Georgina knew comfort and peace in your arms, close to your heartbeat, sharing pieces of your breath, whether carrying words of love or just breath, she knew your love deeply. In her marrow. I've seen it happen.

    I hope for you peace and comfort and love for you this month. With moments of giggling and soft fruit in the mouth.

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