No More Sob Spot: the last post

if you're going through hell, keep going

My pear and hazelnut cake
- it was delicious

I have been telling newly bereaved mothers this for some time now.  It is a truism.  The thing is, one day you wake up, and although it still is (and always will be) shit that my child died, it is increasingly obvious that I am no longer in hell.   I should know.  After all I spent enough time there.  

Instead, this week I have been working my way through a few recipes from the new Nigel Slater cookbook.  Yesterday I had some  other mothers to lunch.  Next week, I'm having my first coffee and cake open house for bereaved mothers and their children.  I am still limping; a trifle broken, but after a fashion, I'm sort of starting to function a little bit like I used to.  Now we're through Halloween, I'm even starting to think about Christmas, and my caution about how to cope with it is tempered and sometimes over-shadowed by joyous anticipation.

This might seem small beer to someone who hasn't lost a child, but regular readers will know these all represent huge leaps forward.  I am minded of this time 2 years ago, where I blogged my huge sense of achievement in buying the new Nigella cookbook.  Six and a half months after Catherine died, it was the first time I'd managed enough enthusiasm to actually buy anything that wasn't some adornment for my daughter's grave.  I was hugely proud.  I never cooked anything out of it.  Not ever.  Yet here I am, two years later, making cake for other mummies.   The painstaking process of becoming a mother-again; negotiating the social minefield of dead-motherhood.  Coping with other people's children.  Re-integration.

So no more sob spot?

It is a cliche, but losing a child is a journey.  My horizon is the decade mark.  I think that is probably the point to seriously take stock and ask if you made it through.  Yet there will be staging posts, and I think this is one.  After two and a half years, it is time to move off of my sobbing spot, even if there will still inevitably be tears..  

This is not the end, but it is the end of the beginning.

More to follow.

“Does love wear out” said Small, “does it break or bend?  Can you fix it, stick it, does it mend?” “Oh help,” said Large “I’m not that clever I just know I’ll love you forever”. Small said “but what about when you’re dead and gone, would you love me  then, does love go on?” Large held Small snug as they looked out at the night, at the moon in the  dark and the stars shining bright. “Small look at the stars – how they shine  and glow, but some of those stars died a long time ago. Still they shine in  the evening skies. Love, like starlight, never dies”. No Matter What - Debi Gliroi

Unhinged

"People really aren't trying to upset you, but I do think you need some professional help.  You need to put this behind you and move on with your life for everyone's sake" she said sagely, nodding towards Madeleine, as they do.
"But I can't" I countered, cradling my hot tea.  "It is too hard".

"There's no other choice" she batted back triumphantly. "Of course Catherine's death was very sad, but it has happened, and nothing can be done about it now.  Catherine would want you to move on".

"Sometimes" I replied carefully, "I think it is impossible to go on".  "However" I continued, pausing to nibble my Fig Roll "I do sometimes wonder if I should go out with a bang.  Y'know - a final comment on the impossible cruelty of it all.  A lesson in manners for all the people who don't have dead children, but want to tell you how to deal with it.  A Cautionary Tale".

I lean over for my mummy bag, and she automatically pushes it across, as you do.  Later, that is her "what if".  Could she have changed the outcome?  And I pull the semi automatic from the insulated compartment reserved for formula bottles...


OK, don't be silly - of course it didn't really happen.  People don't ask me how I'm coping without my daughter any more. :)

"Halloween Light"

We bought this kitchen for Catherine for Christmas when she was 2.  To be quite honest, it was a little bit big for her, and she needed to use her pink Disney step to reach the "microwave".  We have a through kitchen-dining room, and all the time she was alive, that is where it lived.  It had always been my intention to eventually move it into her room, and indeed Catherine had approved this plan shortly before she died.  Instead we carried it up there some months later, when I could no longer bear the sight of my dead daughter's kitchen as we ate our meals without her.

I mention it now as we brought it back downstairs this week.  Madeleine likes to open the doors and sort through the plastic vegetables and cakes and pots and pans.  She is too young to role play as such, but she is beginning to use it.  So it is back - in situ - where it belonged - serving its primary function - to amuse my daughters whilst I'm trying to cook something delicious to eat.

Meanwhile, I have been thinking about Halloween.  I have a set of pictures from Halloween 2009 - Catherine in her costume; skeleton biscuits; spider cupcakes; the house decked out - and I feel I ought to be "doing Halloween" for Madeleine.  It is really not such a huge festival here (in Scotland) as I know it is in other parts of the world, and our celebrations in 2009 were unusual amongst our friends and neighbours.  But I feel hugely burdened not to let things slip, even though rationally I know Madeleine won't have a clue if we mark it or not.  

Much of the issue for me is other people's children.  I think I could cope quite well with cakes and coffee and pass the parcel with fancy dress for a herd of one year olds, but any invitation will necessarily see a tribe of other children, who are either the age that Catherine was when she died, or the age she should be now.  I know the cupboard is brimming with decorations - half of which were bought in the sales just before Catherine died and never used. So do I bin them or leave them for another year or wander to ASDA and fill my cart again?

It feels odd to have the kitchen back in place.  Considering it has always been "out" - just upstairs in Catherine/Madeleine's room, not even tucked away, it was a surprise to me what a jolt it gave me to see it back where it should be.  I suppose the whole thing is a minefield.  You try and push yourself.  You wonder what you can cope with.  So I have let myself off of throwing a Halloween party for a throng of 3 year olds.  I tell myself "Halloween Light" will do. Madeleine has a costume.  Maybe we will bake some biscuits.

It is just that we are engaged in reinstating the world as it was.  Yet it mocks you.  This cruel irony.  Because things can never be the same again.

Hospital (No) Drama

The world is not as difficult as you imagine.

Madeleine had a fall yesterday lunchtime.  An ordinary toddler fall with a wee bump to the head.  I wasn't overly concerned, though watchful, as you would be.  Then at half past eleven, she got us all out of bed and promptly threw up.  So  by the small hours of the morning, we found ourselves again in the Sick Children's Hospital, staring at the A&E cubicle as the doctors investigated her possible head injury.

Before you worry, let me tell you: she's fine.  Back at home, in bed, sleeping.  And I am fine too.  Not a nervous wreck at a rate, just a little weary.  Given a couple of years ago I shook when a taxi chose to drive past  that hospital en route elsewhere, it was all remarkably undramatic.  There were just a few sharp moments when it crossed my mind that I literally couldn't cope.  The moment we walked in.  But I could, and I did. And the moment they took us up to the ward (just for observation).  Of course, the last time I followed a nurse up to a ward with my daughter we NEVER CAME BACK DOWN.

Yet, I have to say it wasn't terrible.  Everyone understood.  They communicated "our history" and were full of compassion.   After a night's observation, Madeleine seemed to be recovering.  The doctors decided that the fall and the vomiting were unrelated, and whilst we are still waiting for results from various swabs, it seems likely she simply had a mild bug or has developed an intolerance to something she ate.  There is no drama.

Two things strike me, and I thought they were worth blogging before I forget to feel so hopeful.  The first is, you can cope with more than you think.   It really wasn't as hard as I imagined, even though we were steps away from the room my daughter died in.  You cope.  You just do.  I was busy comforting Madeleine.  It didn't make Catherine more dead.  Don't get me wrong - it wasn't nothing - and it helped that the staff were concerned and accommodating - and moved us from the original A&E room they selected, when my husband pointed out it was the same one we'd waited in with Catherine.

The second thing that occurs is this - don't other people make an awful lot of fuss about stuff like this?  I know - because since my daughter died, people keep wanting to tell me their sodding hospital stories.  I mean, I have had ones of my own before - but not since Catherine died - and it gives you a different perspective.  OK, it was no fun.  It is not pleasant to be covered in your child's vomit.  Of course you worry.  No one would choose a night without sleep.  Yet, compared to your child dying, it really is small beer.

I always imagined I couldn't cope with a Sick Kid's admission because of what we went through there.  I suppose it cuts both way.  We are more capable than we imagine.  It really wasn't that bad.  Even though it was.  For whilst I am grateful for a hospital that will take care of Madeleine, I hate it with venomous passion and would cheerfully launch Exocet Missiles till one brick no longer stood upon another.  

The last thing on the couldn't-cope-list:  my husband came to pick us up, and he parked the car out front.  We had to leave through the main doors.  We did that the day Catherine died.  I remember turning to my husband and saying "we're leaving without our daughter".  As we approached the main foyer this morning, imagining those few Victorian steps on which I had vocalised our new found childlessness, it briefly crossed my mind that I could not do it.  That I would have to find another door.  But the building is old and complex.  It was the obvious path, and I was cradling my poorly baby who needed to go home.

It really was a no-brainer.  

The world isn't as scary as you imagine.  You are braver than you thought possible.  And nothing can hurt as much as what has already happened.  

I quickened my pace, and cuddling Madeleine just a little bit tighter, slid out the door, down the steps and into the light.



Postscript
For clarity, just wanted to add that when I suggested parents make too much fuss about visits to hospital, when it is nothing compared to losing a child, I'm really talking about routine and non-serious visits comparable with this one.   Attending with a seriously ill child is a very different matter.  Apologies for any offence caused.

Unmentionables

We had a new roof on the house a couple of weeks ago, and the roofer lost the key.  So we changed the locks, and so I find myself waiting in for the cleaner.  I have to admit, I do have a little middle-class cleaner-angst.  After all, I am a stay-at-home mother, and should have enough time to clean my own toilet, but anyway, I digress - at least I am creating employment, and anyway, that is not the unmentionable.  She was late, and I was pleased to see her as I was about to leave for the doctor for Madeleine's flu vaccination.  Something that leaves me on edge anyway, as whilst my daughter will be protected, I know someone's child will die.  As mine did.  And that is shit.

The unmentionable.  I should have told her I was late for an illicit rendezvous with my married neighbour, or that I was starring in a porn flick, or was off to rob a bank or shoplift in the local Thrift.  Instead I told her I was getting my daughter vaccinated.  She was horrified.  Didn't I know how dangerous vaccines were?  Before you ask, she does know about Catherine.

Do I know of any child whose actually died of flu?  Yes, actually, I do.  I know several.  Sadly.  Tragically.   Yes, but children die from vaccinations too.  Actually, they don't you know.  But lets not argue.  Lets just ponder how vaccinating your child is such an unmentionable that people forget that bit in the conversation where they express sympathy or sadness that I know several little children who died of flu.  They aren't worth pause for thought.  They are simply cancelled out by other dead children.

I guess it is because people are so petrified for their living children; so immobilised; so filled with fear, that they forget to show any respect.

We went to the library this afternoon.  It's the half term break, and I bump into mothers from my old antenatal group with their Catherine-aged children.  It hurts and distresses and confuses me like it always did, but no one asks me how I'm coping any more.  I suppose that is unmentionable too.

A Little Bit of Calm

We were on holiday last week - what is left of my wee family, that is;  up north, in the back end of no where in the Western Hebridean Islands.  Now this is the strange thing about it, given what has been.  Given how I used to be filled with panic loading the car to go away without my eldest daughter; given how hard it usually is to be surrounded by other complete families - none of those things happened.  Instead, as the ferry left the mainland, I felt a sense of restorative calm.  My anxiety symptoms that tend to surface at some point most days dissipated, only returning when my husband and I were discussing something specifically difficult.

My husband thinks that being away alone in a remote cottage with no phone or internet access would obviously induce this state of heightened calm.  Certainly it is true that many of my stressors these days are the insensitive idiots I am surrounded by day to day situations.  Yet it really wasn't obvious to me - or maybe I would have gone before.  Though, to be honest, I don't think it would have worked then.  I'm pretty sure this little piece of calm was carved through hard work: the pushing through the pain of packing up for holidays without her, till it too becomes normal...  just the daily grind of slow, visercal healing.

This is the other odd bit.  It slammed into me, suddenly whilst we were there, feeling calm and unhassled by everyday idiots  life.  Out of the blue, I thought:  Why the hell did I take it so calmly the day she died?  They offered us a cup of tea, and I said that would be good.  And I drank it, and waited for their explanation as to why my daughter had died.  But I could have grabbed her instead.  Unbundled her from the machines and ran with her.  Where to?  Down to A&E to appeal to other waiting parents?  Could we go back to that point just a few hours ago when we had arrived like them, mostly unconcerned?  Or off into the park opposite, where we had often played.

It took me by surprise and shook me.  These morbid thoughts.  These days I try not to think of that last day.  Or of her body.  It is still awful to me.  I have held my dead child.  And thus over time it has become a less intrusive image.  Mostly I think of her as alive and happy.  As we were.

I take this thought as a sign of the newness of my grief.  In the early months, I used to get irritated when people told me I was newly bereaved.  I felt I had come so far.  Now, half way through my third year, now that the daily pain has lessened to manageable proportions, it is easy to accept that my grief is raw; that it is still near the beginning.  That given space, my head still needs to trip back to the very second it began.  That I still cannot quite believe there is nothing I could have done.

So, it is still difficult, but it is easier.  We go on.  There is some calm amidst the grotesque.  Back when I was pregnant with Madeleine, about a year after Catherine died, my husband and I went to the Scottish Borders, and knowing that my readers were around the world, I muted that I might take some pictures to show you how beautiful Scotland was.  Yet despite some encouragement and best intentions, I just couldn't bring myself to be bothered.  It has taken me another 18 months to get to the point where I can.

Wishing everyone who is struggling with their missing a little piece of calm.

On becoming better?

My appointment for the clinical psychologist arrived this week.  My doctor referred me back in May.  I wondered if it might help with adjusting to being alive without my daughter amidst a world that is none too sympathetic, and more specifically with the anxiety symptoms (chest pains and numbing across my face) that accompany most upsetting episodes.  It's not that the symptons freak me out -  I know they will pass - it's just that I don't want to miss a trick.  If a psychologist will help, I am more than happy to give it a go.

I told a couple of people, and they were surprised.  I guess I don't look like I have chest pains or that I am mad with grief or that I struggle much at all.  The thing is, I  get sea sick trying to explain to others how I am.  I think I'm doing really well.  I can get through days without sobbing or feeling suicidal.  I have bouts of huge hopefulness.  I tackle difficult things.  I am looking forward.  I laugh.  I am enjoying things.  I have more good days than bad much of the time.  I am so much better than I was.  Yet still it is difficult, and when I tell people how well I am, I forget that most people never understood how bad I was.

I'm remembering this.  When I was pregnant with Madeleine, once passed 12 weeks gestation, I would sometimes indulge myself by wandering around the baby section in the local Department Store at lunchtime.  Yet, I could never complete a purchase, unless Madeleine moved, confirming she was alive still,  in the time between me making my selection and paying for it.  I knew it was irrational.  If she was destined to suddenly die, then surely me buying a changing mat would make no difference?  Yet I could not tempt fate.  So I would walk around the store, heart pounding, waiting.

Then when she was born, only gradually could I believe she would live.  I think it must have been nearly eight months before I would leave her alone to sleep.  Before then, I would sit, watching her chest heave gently up and down, or creep back constantly to check she was still warm and alive.  

Then just recently, I realised that I'd fallen into the habit again of removing my contact lenses and putting them in the living room bin before climbing the stairs to bed.  I'm not sure exactly when I resumed this habit - but I know why I stopped.  I stopped because I wanted to be able to pounce into action, able to see at any rate, if I climbed the stairs and found my child sick and dying or lifeless.

It's very concrete that - isn't it?  To be so convinced that disaster might await you, that you dare not remove your contact lenses at bedtime?  I have lived with such fear for so long, I think I have only become truly aware of it as it subsides.  Before it just seemed normal and prudent.

Who ever knew we would have to be so brave?