Day 5 - Your Favourite Quote.

Maya Angelou has plenty of pithy stuff to say about life. At college I had her poem "Phenomenal Woman" on my wall (although it isn't entirely true to suggest that I had men falling on their knees around me. But I'm allowed a little poetic licence, surely?)

I like this one of hers:

"When we knew what we knew, we did what we did - when we knew better, we did better"

 (I found slightly different versions when googling this, so I don't know if this the actual quotation). 

Immediately after Emma died, both Dave and I talked about becoming better parents as a result of her death. It doesn't always work that way, I know. Grief is tiring and sometimes, of necessity, selfish. Sometimes I have been a far worse parent when I am mired in thick, sludgy sadness. But, now that I know better than most how precious and fragile the lives of my children are, I try to do better by them.

Day Four - Favourite Book

Day 4 - your favourite book. has it changed since your loss?
 
This could be a V-E-R-Y long post if I were to allow it but I'm supposed to be online grocery shopping so I shall attempt to edit myself. I'm interested by the fact that a lot of the stuff this "sort-of meme" is throwing up, I blogged about, back in the rawer days of my early grief. I blogged here about the fact that I missed reading immediately after Emma's death. I'm pleased to report that I have now rediscovered my inner bookworm. But, yes, my reading choices have changed since my loss. I remain an ardent Jane Austen fan but I'm not sure when I'll be able to read Emma again. I know that I couldn't watch the BBC serialisation of it last year. My daughter is not exactly named for the book but, when we struggling to come up with a girls name for a baby we were certain was a boy, Dave suggested Emma. He likes classic names and thought I might agree to it because of the Austen link. So, she's not named for the eponymous heroine but her name is a respectful nod in that direction.

I still prefer a walk on the lighter side of literature - the adventures of the boy wizard will always, always allow me to escape and relax. I still find it very hard to read a book without peeking forward these days. I don't want nasty surprises to leap out on me.

One book which I loved before Emma died - and which I re-read as a direct result of a DBM blog about it, is The Red Tent. I wrote about it here. I still want to live in a red tent with only babylost mothers for company. I still think it is a book that profoundly honours baby loss.

And finally, something I really "enjoyed" - or rather, was captivated by, is the Stig Larsson Millenium trilogy, which I read this summer. Easy prose, very tough on the stomach ideas. I really don't know if I would have enjoyed these books, if I had read them before becoming baby-lost. I suspect I might have found them too disturbing but, since I live with the disturbing fact of baby death every single day, fictional distress doesn't deter me anymore. I have a stronger stomach for it.

Late as usual! Day Three.

I've just read Angie's idea for thirty posts in thirty days and I love it and hope it might help me out of my bloggy rut. Although, given that three posts in thirty days would be a challenge for me, I'm not entirely sure how this will work out!! So, immediately, I'm cheating. I'm going to skip days one and two and leap straight into day three.

A Television Show.

Immediately after Emma died, Dave and I spent long hours sitting on the sofa, after the children were in bed, watching DVDs and drinking wine. Amongst others, we watched Series One and Two of  "My Name is Earl". Perhaps, comedy was not the most obvious choice for grieving parents - or perhaps it was the most natural choice in the world. We laughed a lot - and took a break from watching when we realised we were unconsciously allowing the show's simplistic views on karma to influence our feelings about Emma's death. That sound so silly now but, back then, lost in a world where nothing made sense, where the foundations of our Christian faith had been rocked utterly; it was too easy to allow something that was never meant to be more than a handy hook from which to hang implausibly silly situations, become a philosophical possibility. I really don't have much of a clue about karma but I'm quite sure I'm not going to understand it any better by watching "My Name is Earl" Still, we've been watching them again recently - purely for pleasure and not to garner deep insights into the universe. They still make me laugh.

Silence and Shadows.

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.

The precious gift of being able to miss.

I love all of my children with a white hot love. I remember my first night with my first-born. A difficult but successful birth - a baby who lived. I was high on motherhood and morphine so those early hours are blurred but, as dawn rolled into the room, I remember watching my tiny son in his plastic bassinet and thinking, "I would kill for you." It was a foregone conclusion that I would have died for him. That choice was made the minute I knew I was pregnant. But having him there, next to me, my mama-tiger was roaring, prowling - ready to fight. White-hot love. Fortunately, I have never had need to test that strong, primal feeling but it is still there - for all four of my babies.

Many of us with rainbow babies have written about the fact that we, probably, would never have had both babies, if our dead child had lived. That is almost certainly true for us - although when I said so to Dave, he said that maybe Toby would have been my "stamped feet" baby - the "let's have one more" child. Or, as my sister calls it, my "Oops-a-daisy baby". Maybe, we were always meant to have him somehow. Look at him - he's gorgeous. So alive. How could he not ever have been? How could I not love him with every last atom of my being ? ... and yet, if I hadn't had him, I wouldn't have known him to miss him. I find that so strange and unsettling.

When Emma first died, both Dave and I questioned the adage "It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." Some days were so hard and so painful and so raw that we wondered if it might have been better not to have had our third child. If we had never known her, we would not have been able to miss her with such gut-wrenching profundity. But that thought was fleeting. More often I recognised that her being in my life was -and is- a precious gift. To be able to miss her every day is my connection to her, my opportunity to mother her. A testament to the deep, abiding adoration I have for my tiny, beautiful baby girl.

Moonlight, Memories and Musings

The long drive home after visiting close friends who live at some distance. It's late and three bathed and pyjama-ed children sleep in the back. The sky is clear and the moon is full - maybe. Maybe just past full. It's beautiful and I think back to the days before Emma's birth - the frenzied speculations on the forum about whose labour would be triggered by the full moon. I look again. The moon is a nine months belly - full and round and gorgeous. From here, it's not barren and dusty - devoid of life.

The short drive away from home - I step out of the back door into a peaceful, silent night. I'm wearing a nightdress and wooley socks. I walk, pausing often to breathe...scream ...groan, to the ambulance that has come to take me to hospital. I'm barely away of my surroundings but just for a second, I look at the moon, serene and round. With total clarity, I know that this moment will be imprinted forever - a postcard on my mind. The moments just before the birth of my child. The moments just before her death.

I look behind me. I can't see baby. He's rear facing. I can barely see the oldest - they're in the second row of seats but I sense their breathing and their dreams. Just for a moment I'm aware of my second daughter too - the moon brings her close.

I step out of the back door - no romance. I'm taking the bins and the compost out. But I look at the moon and I remember a poem I wrote a long time ago. I go in and dig around the computer, trying to find it. To lay claim to something that connects me to her.


Emma's Playtime.

Search for me in the slim silver sickle
Of the new moon.
I'm swinging there
Legs out ... legs in
Flying high.
I've watched you teach my sister, mama,
And I can do it too.

See me climb the brightest rainbow
Heart in your mouth.
I'm sliding there
Hear me squeal with delight
As I propel myself down.
I love the orange, mama,
But I know you prefer indigo.

Find me in the softly blushing tulips -
The ones you bring to me.
I'm pretending to be Thumbelina.
I giggle as I hide
Tucking my knees under my chin.
I'm wearing fluffy fairy wings.
Can you see them, mama?

Admire my handiwork amongst the symphony of colours
In a beautiful sunset.
I'm finger painting
Dabbling my fingers in pots of pink and gold
The paint is everywhere, mama.
I'll enjoy my bath tonight.

Feel me in the sleepy kiss of my sister
As you tuck her in,
In the last, long hug my brother gives
Before you turn out the light.
It's been a busy day, mama.
I'll sleep well tonight.

Hope Angel

About three weeks before Tobias was born, I contacted Sally to say that if he was a little girl, we were probably going to call him Hope. Sally responded with such grace and generous spirit. It didn't register with me then but we already knew the date our baby was coming - Tuesday 19th January.

Toby, obviously, was a boy. I cannot envisage it (nor would I want it) any other way. And it is right and proper that a very, very special little girl remains, uniquely, Tuesday's Hope.

Sally - because the 19th is significant to me too, now - I think about you and Hope around this time every month. But especially today.

Happy 2nd birthday, Hope Angel.