Sunday 18 May 2014

Bewilderbeast

'You just don't get it at all, do you?'

Taken from 'The Sense of an Ending' by Julian Barnes

***

Nearly six years later, as spring turns to summer.
I'm trying to pinpoint what, precisely, it is that still hurts.
What prevents my limbs from moving loosely.
A hurt at once so brain stabbing-ly sharp and so thudding-ly dull.
Fitting every description.  Every metaphor.
Yet none at all.

A childhood spent lost in one too many novels expects a resolution.

That Georgina's death will yield something for me to 'get.'
At which point, I will ditch that tiny body by the side of the road, click my heels and waltz off into the sunset.

But I just don't get it at all.
I don't even get that there is, in all probability, nothing to get.

***

It's one of those mornings. Mornings where nothing goes according to plan.
Where every act is a conflict of wills. Eating. Dressing. Brushing teeth. Getting into the car.
Where every negotiation, every bribe and plea ends up escalating into a stand off.
I'm tired. Too tired to fight. A lazy parent.

I huff and puff into the car. Then I sigh.
As tears crowd into my eyes. Frustrated by images of death, tiny broken children and promises that I cannot keep. The song on the radio. Trite and sickly, pulling at my tear ducts.

Jessica reaches out her hand.
'Do you need a hug Mummy? I think you should go slow and steady. Only one argument at a time'

And I wonder how she became so wise whilst I remained so foolish.
But I just don't get it at all, do I?

***

I wake up. She wakes up.

She smiles. The baby with the dimpled wrists and the blue eyes.
The little sister.

She pats my face. Pat. Pat. Pat. Pat. In tentative Morse code.

She falls asleep once again.

Consolation. My eye pressed against her closed eye.
My mouth pressed into the space behind her ear.
Pressing.
Soured milk and baby skin.
Electrifying.

And where I had thought there could be nothing, spaces barren or undetected.
Extra corridors and rooms open up. Doors flapping.
In the wake of that patting hand.

Consolation floods.
A furious saturation.
Then dries up again.

But I just don't get it at all.

***

I don't write here often.
But it isn't because I don't think about her.
Like many blogs, it is a furious flurry of posts.
That tends to silence.

But she settles into my bones.
As her name dangles around my heart and lungs.
Years pass.
She is there. In my marrow. My alveoli.
The little cavity. In me.
Neurons, synapses and valves.
Whatever it is that causes a thought. Or a breath.
Autonomic. Conscious.
Her.

I still linger here. A stupid fool, jaw flapping. Speechless. That she left me.
I'm still so sad that she left.

I just don't get it at all. Treading my own strange circular path of unmet expectations.

I have been here before and I know the way.
I have been here before though I know I am lost.

Both equally true.
I know how this goes. An unresolvable cycle. A little better, a little worse.
But, in the greater scheme of things, I am utterly, utterly lost.

Six years. Quite a long time. But not long enough.
Because I just don't get it at all. Still.


7 comments:

  1. Many hugs. I don't get it either.

    "Too tired to fight. A lazy parent." I often feel I have too many shortcomings as a parent, and that I'm just too tired to do an adequate job. I wonder how different of a parent I might have been....

    ReplyDelete
  2. A childhood spent lost in one too many novels expects a resolution.

    That Georgina's death will yield something for me to 'get.'

    But I just don't get it at all.

    My eye pressed against her closed eye.

    Doors flapping.
    In the wake of that patting hand.

    Consolation floods.
    A furious saturation.
    Then dries up again.

    Treading my own strange circular path of unmet expectations.

    *****

    A patchwork
    quilt your
    words I
    borrow and
    drape across
    my frame
    although they
    paint a
    story different
    yes different
    to mine
    still the
    heft is
    so familiar
    and unyielding.

    When the need to write is there
    the need to read is here
    forever.

    And ever, amen.

    xoxo CiM

    ReplyDelete
  3. Catherine - I wish it helped that others don't get it, either. But, I know it doesn't..., not really, anyway.

    Treading my own strange circular path of unmet expectations.

    It is so difficult when the unmet expectations are the minutes, hours, days, health and lives of our children, who never left the hospital.

    I am still so sorry, for you and Georgina, six years later. It is still so wrong. I will abide with you, in not getting it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't get it at all either. I never will.

    xoxo Georgina love.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I still linger here, yes.
    Speechless, yes.
    I'm still so sad that she has left. Yes.
    Treading my own strange circular path of unmet expectations. Yes. A little better, a little worse. Yes yes yes.

    Catherine, you write so beautifully. About her and about you. Mother and daughter. Separated by death. My heart is broken. For you. For me.

    I don't get it either.

    I love that Alice is here. I love that Theo is here. I want a million of him as a sweet newborn. But a million of him won't give me back just my one Alexander.

    I don't get it either. How can this be?

    My love is with Georgina tonight as I soak up your words.

    Georgina. A million x's and o's for you little one.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I don't understand either. When I die I hope I might find an answer to the question of why.

    Sending love.

    ReplyDelete
  7. That Georgina's death will yield something for me to 'get.'
    At which point, I will ditch that tiny body by the side of the road, click my heels and waltz off into the sunset.

    These 2 sentences have simmered in me for a week. I'm not sure why, but I understand how it's entirely impossible. Your words are perfect.

    ReplyDelete