Tuesday 6 November 2012

Parallels and collapse

A reflection triggered by a post about parallel solitudes written by Kate at Sweet Salty here.

Another post written by Bon at Theory.CribChronicles.com about living in public here.

A huge thank you to Cathy in Missouri for making me think about these two posts rather than simply running away, clutching my over stimulated and electrified brain, screaming 'ARGH thoughts and  . . . um, stuff and . .  unintelligible, but excited, gibbering'! 

And . . . . listening to the radio . . . .ha! You never saw that one coming did ya now?

Catherine W?  Listening to the radio? Unheard of!

Still. All pulled together by listening to Matthew Parris speak about the death of his father on the Today programme this morning.

****

I listened to Kate's TEDxHalifax talk.

And then I sat. I sat for quite some time. As the little boy pottered around my feet, banging a pot.
Jessica was out. Swimming with her Daddy.
I sat. Bang. Bang. Clang. Tea going slowly cold. Jaw a-flapping in the breeze.
It's a habit.
I thought about all of those who had underwritten my own solitary journey.

Then I wrote a comment.
It's another habit.

I meant to write something about how lovely Kate's parents are. Because there is something in that earnest reflection through her parents' faces, of her (now fulfilled) ambition to be an author, back into Kate's six year old eyes? I hope I can do that for my own children. Even a little. To have that faith and encouragement.

About how I had bought The Dread Crew for Jessica and how I won't break the spine without her, not without my first-born, second-born daughter. And she isn't quite ready yet.

But, being the self-centred little being that I am, I was whisked back.
To a cold, dark January 2009.
To a spare room with a whirring computer fan.
To a house that was never quiet.
The pump, hiss of an oxygen concentrator mumbling away. Competing with the fan.
Plastic tubing draped everywhere. Metres and metres of it.
So that I could take my baby attached to the end, like a pendant, like her twin, all around the house.

A baby that hardly cried.
A mother that peered and sat. Shell shocked.
Long into the dark night.

In the NICU, babies work to a schedule. Feed on schedule. Nappy change on schedule. And Jessica and I had been there so long that we didn't know any different, I used to sit and wait. Whether she was awake or not. With a bottle ready. We would sit and wait. Looking at one another. Waiting for 4am to click round. When I would pick her up for a feed.

I used to tick off all her medications on a chart. My own, poor, home-made replica of patient notes.
A shell of a nurse of a mother.

And one night I think I typed, 'my baby died and I don't know what to do' into google. Because, I suppose, I was unhinged?

I don't know why I thought that a search engine might hold the solution but . . . . . there you were.

Those of you that arrived prior to the winter of 2009.
Although you didn't know that I had arrived.
I was there. Silently.

Sputtering and going under.
Glugging water into my lungs as I paddled along.
Through this strange life that I didn't anticipate and had managed no preparation for.

And you were there. Parallel.
And you were swimming.
In impossible, oil-choked waters.

Swimming gracefully or clumsily.

But you were swimming.
You were breathing.

Although sometimes you raised your fists to the sky and cursed that very fact.
And sometimes you revelled in your beauty and strength.
Exultation.
That is the right word.

And I could see you.
Out of the corner of my eye.
Just.
That kept me afloat.

And here I am. Still.

***

I turn on the radio after I've dropped Jessica off at school (and there's another LENGTHY rant that I won't post here!)

And Matthew Parris is speaking about the death of his father, eight years ago.


"I'm not obsessed by grief but I was surprised that, after dad died . . .

people said, for a while you won't quite come to terms with it, and then you'll suddenly find you have a period of intensely missing him, and then, gradually, you'll move on. They used phrases like move on or get over it, you'll come to terms with it, achieve closure.


Well  . . .  That didn't happen to me.

I missed him terribly. And I carried on missing him.

And I still miss him and I don't feel that there is anything wrong with missing someone who has been very important to you, they ought to leave a gap. People talk about grief as though it were some kind of temporary mental imbalance, some sort of disease that needs to be dealt with, cured by counselling. 


Grief is a natural reaction. And it's right, if they really loved that person, that there should be a permanent gap left and that they should miss them terribly forever. And there is nothing wrong with that.

There will be a period of intense grief when you can think of almost nothing else. You can't go off for a month and come to terms with it."


Typed whilst listening to a podcast so please forgive me for any typos or errors and know that they are not Mr. Parris's.

And there he was. Splosh. Swimming along in parallel. Matthew Parris. Columnist at the Spectator.
Hey there.

Because it didn't happen to me either. Getting over it.

And I don't agree with him. Because I don't think that missing somebody terribly, forever, is a function of how important they were to you or of how much you loved them. It doesn't work that way.

I don't think that there is anything wrong with 'moving on.'
I don't think that there is anything wrong with 'staying put.'

Because . . . as I swim along.

As I get older.

Those swimming alongside me. Become far smaller in number.
An ever decreasing sequence of pools.

Because there is no right way to grieve, no right way to parent, no right way to believe.
We are all muddling along, diverging.
And that's right.

When I was young, I thought that everybody was like me, felt like me.
When I turned my music up, I thought that I was doing them a favour.

So when I was at preschool . . . oh hello, humanoid being? Hey, let's go along in parallel. We can flick sand at each other.

At senior school . . . oh hello, fellow fan of Smashing Pumpkins? Hey, let's go along in parallel. Still going along in parallel with one of these in the form of my husband.

At university . . oh hello, you've read Hesse or Nietzsche or Chomsky? Or you are interested in researching x, y or z? Or you'd rather go out and get drunk than read and research? Oh the latter, well . . . HAI, let's go along in parallel. Just for a bit.

Then you get older.

Oh . . . .HEY there? You actually like statistics? Hey! Let's mooch about in parallel.

Oh . . . oh . . . . oh you have twins? Let's move forward together but not too far, don't lets get too attached, because I'll be leaving you shortly, sister-in-law and best-friend. Love ya. MWAH!

Hmmm. Premature twins. Very premature. One dies.

Silence.

Until the night of my crazy search engine typing.

***

But . . .

the pool

Is shrinking.

That is the nature of parallelism. Maybe?

Other people are not there to swim alongside me. That is not their purpose. To provide a parallel from which to go, 'ahoy there Catherine W. I see you?' Because we are all immersed in slightly different waters.

Eventually your own experiences. Your own skin. Divide you from everybody. And I don't know if I really believed it, until I heard Kate say it.

The law of diminishing returns, taken to its natural conclusion.

Because the exit line is single file. As I've written before.

There is no hand holding there.

All the more reason to glory, to exult, to wonder, at those parallels whilst they do exist. To seize the hands whilst they are outstretched. Until we are inevitably forced to let go.

Thank you to all of you bloggers out there.

I'm here. I'm still swimming. Because of you.

***

And this is already too long. So I'm going to have to write about Bon's post next time I get a chance to write something!

19 comments:

  1. Still swimming right alongside you, beautiful Catherine. And I'm very tired.

    Much love,
    Christine

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh Christine. I know you're there and I think I catch you from the corner of my eye every once in a while. And it seems like we have covered vast distances but are no closer . . . . I'm very tired too x

      Delete
  2. This is such a beautiful post, and so true!! 15 months ago, I was completely raw, and I found other women on line who were recently thrown into the world of babyloss, as raw and horrified and alone and . . and. . .lost. But then, babyloss blogs turned into subsequent pregnancy blogs and then rainbow baby blogs, with everyone moving in a new direction, and I have felt like I'm just still here swimming in dark, murky waters.

    So lovely to read this blog again <3

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You aren't alone in the dark murky waters, Suzanne. I think I write less because of what you say. I feel alone in that place too. x Louise

      Delete
  3. I really liked this post.

    I have not listened to Kate yet. I will try to tomorrow, or Thursday when I have some quiet, alone time. I want to be able to sink in. Reflect on every word.

    The divide. I feel it. I don't know when or where I'll drop off, or if somehow I'll forever be somewhere in all this. But everything is always changing.

    Swimming. Yes. In a different year, with different circumstances. But I'm swimming along side....too.

    Love to you, Ms Catherine W. always a pleasure.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm still swimming, alongside you, Catherine W, barely, but I am.
    I like what you said about how you eventually own experiences.
    I am currently doubting my own experinces, my own truth. Something that Kate said that's been on repeat in my mind is "Standing in your own truth."
    I want to stand in my own truth.
    Sometimes, late at night, I dream. I wonder what would have happened if she would have lived, even in the NICU, even for one day, one hour, 10 minutes even. As silly as it sounds, in those night hours I pretend. I can pretend, can't I? I can pretend she lived, only for a few minutes, that I knew her.
    But I didn't, I never knew her outside of myself.
    I don't even know if this comment is making any sense, just the rambling words of a sleep deprived, baby-less mama, I guess.
    Sending love to you, Catherine. Thank you for giving me the strength to just keep swimming

    ReplyDelete
  5. One evening I sat in front of my computer feeling dejected and alone. I typed into my search engine, my baby died, and I found you. I found so many others with the same story and the same pain. Moving forward but always stuck somehow in that moment in time when everything changed.
    Because of you and others, I am still here. I am also still swimming.

    Thank you for continuing to write and be here, you yourself have helped to keep many afloat.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I typed into Google something very similiar..... I didn't the answer that I needed.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm still here. Hello. Still swimming, doing my best not to drown. *Waves*.

    Love you, Catherine W, beautiful swimming companion.

    xo

    ReplyDelete
  8. I, too, found a lifeline by typing into Google. Don't remember what I typed or when, but it was very early on and all those that I found (you included) helped keep me afloat. Those that were on the same timeline as me and those farther out, either way it was just so comforting to find others who had been broken just as I had.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Swimming right along with you Catherine and am going to keep on holding your hand as we try to keep each other afloat.

    xo

    ReplyDelete
  10. I have sat here with the comment box open for too long now, unable to think of what it is I am trying to say. It must be a swimming-against-the-current day. I feel, at the moment, like one of those ugly, cloudy-eyed fish that swim in the deepest, darkest, coldest waters, bumping around blindly at the edges of something so much more beautiful than I...Something I can't express. I can't not say though how much this post has got me thinking...

    ReplyDelete
  11. We both knew this. I had my miseries, not hers; she had hers, not mine. The end of hers would be the coming-of-age of mine. We were setting out on different roads. This cold truth, this terrible traffic-regulation ("You, Madam, to the right -- you, Sir, to the left") is just the beginning of the separation which is death itself.

    {A Grief Observed}

    *****

    I thought about all of those who had underwritten my own solitary journey.

    *****

    What you say is true, CW: "Eventually your own experiences. Your own skin. Divide you from everybody."

    And yet. CS Lewis and his dying wife; Alone into the Alone. Jean Amery; At the Mind's Limits. Glow in the Woods; et al, et al, et al.

    When ice slices, the propeller up-ends, and the deck hurls you off to black depths far, far beneath

    somehow the sight of those other heads
    bobbing in salt sea
    freezing slowly
    or quickly

    counts

    and
    if even one disappears
    below

    Hope staggers.

    Ahoy~~

    Floundering, gasping, counting heads,

    CiM

    ReplyDelete
  12. Keep swimming, Catherine, for as along as you need. You don't know how deep the water is and someday you might reach down and discover you can stand. But for now, swim....

    I wonder about my silence. I think Suzanne nailed it - everyone has had another baby. Where has the time gone? Where is it going?

    I love that you are still here. I hope that you can feel that love... if it would help. I see you. I like swimming alongside you when I swim.

    xx Louise

    ReplyDelete
  13. I love that idea of grief not being some sort of mental illness, something to "get over" (my least favourite phrase). So glad to have found you and your words. xo

    ReplyDelete
  14. I am new to your blog, here to thank you for your kind comment on my own. I look forward to reading and listening to your story. This post has left me breathless.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I watched Kate's presentation and loved it.

    Sometimes I feel like I am swimming along behind all the other bloggers who have the talent to write amazing posts like yours and Kate's. I can barely come up with words worthy of a comment on your posts but I am here. Even if I am slightly behind, I am still with you.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Here swimming with you, though I am new to the water.
    I appreciate your endurance and strength. And of course, the beauty of your writing.
    ~J

    ReplyDelete
  17. I feel this closing in, this ever shrinking pool of people who swim in parallel.

    I remember someone once describing me (in my twenties) as very social with an ability to talk to anyone.

    Now that comment couldn't be further from the truth... I struggle to find anything to talk about with others who haven't had a similar loss. And old friendships are fading fast.

    I feel Kate's words too when she says she doesn't want to be a bereaved mother. For that to be her defining feature. And she was so inspiring, going on to fulfill her dream.

    And yet... it seems so daunting to find the get-up-and-go to try - to try to achieve something, to have a life after his death.

    In a little while... maybe.

    ReplyDelete