For the first time ever, I have an unpublished post in my "drafts" folder. Generally, I'm from the "publish and be damned" school of blogging. Probably because my head acts as my drafts folder and, if something makes it from head to screen, it's usually what I needed to get out. But, recently, I feel wordless. I have wondered whether this is me telling me to stop, to pack up and move out. But I'm resisting. I don't feel done and this is one of the few places in my life that is still all about Emma (okay, with a little bit of Toby thrown in ... but mainly my girl.) The frustrating thing is that the words are there - I feel them bubbling under the surface, I gag on them but I can't make them take shape here. And I hate that it's her second birthday soon and I can't find anything to say. Of course I can say "I hate this", "I wish this hadn't happened to us", "I want her back" but, well, those things go without saying don't they?
***
It's our niece's second birthday today. I thought it was tomorrow. Fortunately, I sent the card and present earlier in the week so it arrived in good time. Shopping for her presents is a strange experience. I couldn't let myself think about what 2 year old girls really like so I was staring at rows of toys trying to choose something innocuous, something that wasn't going to make me feel sad and mad and angry that I'm not buying something for my daughter too. I certainly couldn't buy her clothes - that would mean going into the girl toddler aisle and I can't do that.
I rant (prudish mama, me) about the difficulty I had in trying to buy Lucy (soon-to-be 6 but tall and lissome and older than her age sized) an age-appropriate winter wardrobe - Jeggings, yuck, yuck, yuck! At least, shopping for a 6 year old among Han.nah M branded clothing and lurid neon sack dresses - nostalgia for an era twenty years before she was born - is a world away from trousers still cut to accommodate nappy covered bottoms and sweet little dresses.
I don't actually know what my little niece is "into" - her favourite TV characters or her preference for play. I don't know because I choose not to know. Bad Auntie that I am, always striving to avoid the unavoidable. She is here - a beautiful, healthy little toddler - and Emma is not. I bought some jigsaws and some crafty/colouring stuff. A nice (such an anaemic word) present I hope. I made her card too - taking time and care over it, perhaps overcompensating for finding it hard to see her as anything other than my daughter's shadow companion.
5 comments:
Every time I read here I get more of a sense just how alike we must be!
I too have unpublished posts, and all of them are from the last couple of months, just before she turned two. We come from the same school of blogging, but lately I am feeling hopelessly mute as well.
Ugh, those shadow babies. They sting. I don't have any that close to me, eg no nieces or close friends' babies, but those I do know of, I have kept my distance from. Some I have never laid eyes on and at this point, I don't really care if it stays that way. I just can't go there.
God I wish things were so different for us both. For all of us.
Maybe we should share our unpublished posts with each other?
xo
I get it completely, Jill.
This a particularly tricky thing, I think, especially when the "shadow child" is a family member. And the further away they are from babydom the harder it is to reconcile their existence with our babies non-existence. They look so different now whereas our babies are stopped in a moment of time.
Jill, I'm a little way behind you in all of this, but that sense of the words just bubbling under is there for me too.
I torture myself by deliberately going into the baby/toddler girl depts.
x
I have such difficulty writing now too.. I feel like I've already said it all, and now I'm becoming a record. I miss him, I wish he was here, why why why?? I almost bore myself with it (not really, I could talk about my boy all day)! Of course, I do get really great conversations going on in my head sometimes about Dresden, but I just can't remember long enough to type them out! haha I am literally surrounded by 2 year olds.. in ALL parts of my family and friends circles. I'm normally okay with them, they are all girls, which I think makes it easier.. but every so often, I just look at them and think, WOW! Dresden would be chatting away and running with the big kids and eating a cupcake and it's just crushing. I tend to avoid the boy clothes too.. Even now when I see baby boy, like newborn boy clothes, I just get a pain in my heart.. it's so sad. :( You are a good auntie though!! I know that for sure!! :)
I'm resisting too. I'm just not ready to stop and pack up either and yet the words don't seem to come as easily as they used to. But I still think about G and the circumstances surrounding her death very frequently.
I don't think you are a bad auntie. It is hard to see a shadow counterpart to your own beloved child. I wish she was here with her cousin. xo
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