Growing up

I read an article in a broadsheet about three weeks after Freddie died, by a lady who had lost her third baby.  She explained how she had grown up as a result of the death of her daughter and how, right up until the catastrophic event and even with two other small children, she had led a charmed, carefree existence with her husband.   At the time, her blunt observations on her own grieving and ultimate maturation, made bereavement sound like an unending terror at a time when I was desperately looking for hope.  She described how she would drop news of her stillbirth into conversations with unsuspecting randoms and how alienated it made her; how she walked along streets sobbing openly and how cold life became.   The article was saturated with blue; the meaning of her daughter's name, the description of a rapidly distant New York in winter, the sadness and bleakness of her tone. This all horrified me beyond belief.   I didn't want to lose myself, I didn't want life to become a echo of the three colours trilogy; drenched in pathos.  But this IS how things ultimately are; when one has stopped fighting and wrestling with such dark thoughts and accepted they are household furniture.  They belong to your child and your child belongs to you.

After Freddie died there has been a loss of innocence and a sense that we've finally become the grown ups, after trailing in the wake of them for so long.   We now feel aged like a battered leather chair;  weathered perhaps.    We have observed profound and undeserved death in our arms.    We have watched life leave our child and we can never laugh with the same sense of joie de vivre again.  From the point where Freddie died onwards we have become the last gateposts between beginnings and ends and we bear the weight of responsiblity for it.  Freddie has aged us, like all children should and left us better parents to his siblings.  But we inhibit a more sombre space now, knowing life at it's cruellest.   We trust nothing, we suffer no fools, we raise a cynical eyebrow whilst holding on to each other tightly.   We look back with envy at such casual hopes and dreams when all we wish for now is existence.

Heavy hearted

Baby boy we've been without you for a while now.  We function reluctantly,  your brother and sister keeping us going daily. You exist through them, through your brother's tender charm and kindness and your sister's exuberance and tenacity; the way she delights in saying your name and the insistence of drawing you whenever an opportunity rises.   I look at them and feel you nearby but it is like Narnia; you are through a wall of ice, a children's wardrobe,  through the parting of an ocean.  I know you are around but I can't reach you.   Some days it's too painful to look at my photographs, I can't acknowledge your passing because it renders me incapable.  I am trying to exist and then I remember what happened to us and I can't put a foot in front of the other.  The fear of never seeing you again.  It's like I left you at a shop in your pram and got home to the front door before remembering, it's like I've left the house and thought that I can't leave you on your own.  It's like I forgot to check that you are warm enough.  The nausea that comes with a feeling of panic - something might be wrong, but never having the dropped shoulders of relief.  Then the depths of despair that this is it, we've had our fill of your lifetime.  There is no more.

I manage most days to celebrate you through the sadness, to find a way to ensure thoughts of you are nourished and positive.  When I look at your now over studied photographs I manage to feel overwhelmed with pride at what a beautiful boy you are.  I manage to box away the jagged sorrow, the bitterness and turmoil that festers, I manage to lock it deep inside for most of our glorious moments.   Then I can enjoy you.  I'm like any parent who is busting to tell everyone how amazing you are.   But the days when I can't look at your face are the days that those darkest thoughts get let out on day release.  I've learnt to accept them, the unwelcome guests at my pity party.  I have to relinquish control, put on my hat with the big "V" and be a self proclaimed victim.    It isn't fair and it's ok to wail about it, but I won't let it consume me and I won't let it sully our relationship.  

I began to think about work today Freddie,  and it made me feel a little like the old me again, which initially felt good.  But the old me didn't have you.  I don't want to go back as if nothing has happened.  I don't want to be pitied by others, pitying myself is enough.  I don't want to walk back into work without giving everyone a lengthy and unasked for progress report on my baby boy.  I don't want to go back in without crying with acute separation anxiety and several calls to your nursery to check whether you're managing with a bottle.   I don't want to go into work without your dribble and mashed food down the back of my coat.  So it felt good to use my brain again until the darkness came and reminded me of how things should be. 

We miss you every second of our waking moments, and I dream of you in the gaps inbetween.   I'm learning to balance without the weight of you,  though my heart is heavier than us both.

Little Bird

Mother wait, I am not ready
- implored the little bird
Let me hear those songs I loved you singing From inside my little world,
These wings they are not yet steady,
It's not time to leave my nest,
I want to lie with you a moment longer
Because I love you best,
But when you are ready we'll make a vow
To meet again one day,
And I'll feel your kisses on my cheeks
As I prepare to fly away.
I know you'll want to come with me
To protect me as I soar,
But mother you know you have to stay,
Because life holds so much more.
And as you journey forth without me
Worry not - the little bird said
For I fly free with endless love from you
And in your heart I thus embed.