Further pluckings from the brain of the sleep deprived

Sleep. That blissful state.

In its absence my brain feels like a gummed up clock mechanism, full of stickiness and grit, wheels grinding and protesting.

My dear boy does not like to sleep. He screams and protests and wants company. His face is screwed up and red with anguish. He screams of how he has been betrayed, ill-used. If I am not too exhausted, I long to console him. At other times I lie there, too bone tired to get up, jabbing my husband in the ribs and whispering, "YOU get him."

Sometimes, when Reuben wakes me, his big sister keeps me up further still. In the wee small hours  with their cold, gray light. They find me cradling my cold, gray child. My sweet girl. I miss you so. Do you know that I pretend to hold you sometimes, when I am alone?

I consider the back of his head, still downy like a baby's. Although I suppose he is getting too big to be called a baby. And I feel his weight, the dear weight that is so sweet in my arms, that has always been so sweet in my arms. The pressure that he exerts upon the world that is so lost to his sister. The pressure of flesh. So very, very dear. Especially to those who have tried to pin scraps to the earth.

The consolation, of breast and arms. Of murmuring and endearments and pressing my lips to that downy head. That is sweeter still.
But I am only proof against life.
I have no consolation for the dead.
More's the pity.

And I want more life. I am greedy for life. An ever ravening maw with no concern for practicalities or finances or what anybody else wants. I just want to console. To create the misery that comes inevitably with the making of life and then to console.

I don't have time for risks. Only my own gluttony. Want. Want.

Want and fear.

Not a pretty sight.

***

Jessica and I go to the school open day. I meet Jessica's teacher, who is kind and young. So young that I can scarcely believe she is a teacher. But I suppose that is merely a sign that I am getting old.

Jessica gives her a hug which I consider to be a good sign. Jessica 'takes' to certain people and her judgement is pretty sound.

It's nice. She has fun. Sticking. Playing in the sand. Singing. She is desperate to be picked to be one of the 'five little speckled frogs' and raises her hand as high as she can reach but it is not to be her fate today. 'Maybe next time," I whisper in her ear. "Maybe next time you will get to be one of the frogs."

Ah but she is three. A young three. And some of the other children are nearly five. I feel the difference and hope that my plans will come off. And I think that they are ALL far too young but that is beside the point.

The decision rests with the head teacher. We didn't even know WHO that would be until April when school admissions decides which school Jessica will attend. But I had made preliminary visits to all likely candidates, just in case.

So Jessica's doctor will write a letter, stating the case. The head teacher and the special educational needs staff of all related (and some unrelated institutions) will have a meeting. And we shall see whether she will start school very shortly (in September) or next year (my preferred option). I want to fight, just not sure who to pick the fight with at the present time.

***

"How long did she live again?" he asks.

"Who?" I say.

"Georgina," replies my father.

Her name in his voice is like a gift. A rarity.

"Three days," I reply. "And a bit."

We had been discussing the current debate about whether babies stillborn before 24 weeks should be given birth certificates. In the UK, apparently, you don't get any form of certification if your baby is stillborn before 24 weeks. If your baby is stillborn at any gestation, you only receive a 'certificate of stillbirth' not a birth certificate or a death certificate.

Georgina has both a birth and death certificate. Just as I will have. Just as Jessica will have. And that brings me a peculiar comfort. It seems unfair that it is not always the case.

***

"So . . . you had to register her birth and her death at the same time?" he says.

"Yes," I say. "Yes, I did. I have to go now. See you later."

***

Sleep.

There is not enough time for you. My dear and much missed friend. Amidst working and children and laundry and cooking and cleaning and reading (because it IS imperative that I read A Song of Ice and Fire in its entirety because I am, in my heart, a geeky teenage boy, who knew?) and putting away and faffing about and dancing with Jessica and snuggling with Reuben and trying to repel the ants that are invading my living room . . . .

Yearning for the one who nearly was. I miss her so very much. I still can't resist thinking about how life would have been had she lived (I have the fairly unusual privilege of not having a Sophie's Choice aspect to that imagining, I don't have to pick between having Georgina and having her brother or her sister) and I miss her. Oh how I miss her.

But I'm not unhappy. I worry that my last post sounded miserable. I'm not miserable. I'm so far away from the woman of late 2008/2009 that I sometimes have to catch my breath.

But in my tiredness, skinned and vulnerable, I still miss her. My sweet almost-was girl. She is at my centre, my exhausted, flawed centre.

But I hope she's somewhere more like this . . .

White flawed enamel pots and a place on the shelf for everything you've got.