Partly I'm like this on days after I work as I don't sleep so soundly at work when I'm responsible for the wellbeing of 50 school children. I think the profound dip in my mood is also a result of having had something important to do for eight hours, with plenty of people to talk to and keep me company, and then having to come home where I will spend the entire week alone.
No one comes to visit. Barely anyone calls. As they say, life goes on. Well, for everyone else it does, I can see that now. For me, time might march past but my life doesn't progress. I still feel like my life has no purpose and that its defining feature is a large black hole that's incapable of being adequately filled. If you watch NBC's Parks and Recreation as we do, imagine my life as the Sullivan Street pit. It's empty, it's barren, it's an eyesore, and no one really knows what to do with it.
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| The Sullivan Street pit as seen on NBC show Parks and Recreation |
So here I am today in exactly the same place, wishing I could do more than I am currently able to. There are two books I want to write, a thesis I want to finish, letters I want to pen, organising I want to do, but all I actually can do is cry, and when I'm not crying, lose myself in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, which is what I'm reading at the moment. Thank god for Thomas Cromwell as his exploits are the only things of interest to me right now. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend you do. It's a great read, and so far as I can ascertain from my patchy knowledge of Tudor history, it ascribes quite closely to the facts we know about that time.
I feel like I want to say I don't know what's triggered this latest low mood of mine. After all, I don't really need additional reasons on top of the one that my baby is dead. But I do know, I think, because I know where it began over the weekend and what I have not stopped thinking of since. I went to Leslie's nephew's first birthday party and it was, as you might imagine, absolutely torturous to someone whose baby will never get to have any birthdays. The forced happiness of the occasion served only to highlight my despair and sadness. The giving of a special book I would have liked to read to Max, which seemed thoughtful when I bought it, really hurt me when I had to give it to another child, even though this copy did not belong to Max.
I did not want to go. In fact, everything in me screamed to stay away. But I love Leslie and his family is very important to him. He's incredibly emotionally generous with his sisters, although it often seems to me like he gets little support in return. And so, I wanted to do the right thing by him, even if it would not be the right thing by me. I don't regret doing what he needed me to do, but I regret not recognising the profound impact it would have on me.
It wasn't so much the birthday boy or even the idea of the celebration that got to me. The hurt that seeing babies causes me does not seem to be so intense when it is an older child - one that I can't so closely associate with my memories of Max. But Leslie's sister did not warn us that there would be a couple of newborn babies there. Nor did it seem she had discreetly told the new parents to perhaps give us a wide berth. Maybe she shouldn't have had to. Maybe my expectations of her sensitivity to our situation are too high and it wasn't her place. Maybe I think my 'get the hell away from me' face is more obvious than it really is, because try as we might we could not avoid those bloody babies the whole time we were there and no one seemed to notice our increasing distress when we could not get away from them. We moved from room to room, from outside to inside and back again, and the parents of both of them seemed to follow closely behind. The cry of one of the babies was enough to make me almost lose my shit at one stage. I was so close to screaming at all of them to get the fuck away from me.
If the mere presence of these people wasn't enough salt to rub into our wounds, their conversations sealed the deal. 'How was the labour?' one annoying 'experienced' mother said to the new mother. They proceeded to talk about the ins and outs of the birthing experience, as groups of mothers seem to perplexingly do. I certainly would not have wanted to be part of that conversation had I had my newborn baby in my arms at the party as I loathe such things, but at the same time I was acutely aware of my forced absence from it. I was standing right next to these two women, but I was worlds apart even though I, too, am a new mother. It's another one of those times where I wish I had a physical marker of the fact that I, too, went through the labour and birth of my child so that I, too, can be recognised as a parent. Since Max died I've so often had the macabre desire to have preserved his body so that I could carry him around physically with me forever, given that no one (especially strangers) are able to notice the subtle changes he has made manifest in me. To all but a handful of my closest loved ones, Max does not exist. This does not get any easier to bear.
We stayed around for all of the important things. The singing of the song. The cutting of the cake. The birthday boy wasn't allowed to have any of his own cake, which made me really sad. Leslie and I placed a bet on whether they'd let him taste it. I won. They don't fight ignorance in that household, they fight sugar, flour and dairy products as the evil invaders of the natural planet.
But, each to their own. I try not to judge, though sometimes I fall short because they just give me so much fodder with their insane conspiracy theories that it's like a reflex action to compose a cheeky remark. But really, they have a child and they have the privilege of being able to make choices for him, which I try to respect, but which I also envy. I only got to make one choice for Max, and that was to let him peacefully die. It doesn't quite compare, does it?
One thing is for sure, when I commemorate Max's birthday in November there'll be all the party foods a little boy just discovering the joys of life should be able to enjoy. And I'll eat them all for him until I'm sick in the stomach. It's the least I can do for the boy who will never know the exquisite feeling of squishing chocolate all over his face and hands and his mummy's lounge room floor.
And, if there's anything that will make me smile today, it's the knowledge that there'll another special little person there at Max's party, I hope, to help show Max how it's done. My Sasha, whose own joyful experience of birthday cake at her first birthday party is one of my most precious, happy memories:
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| My darling god-daughter showing everyone how it's supposed to be done |
