Writing

Bad mother.

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She had been admitted to a separate room in the Birth Center because of her special circumstances. The thing was written all over her notes.

“Congratulations Vicky! You have a beautiful baby boy. Do you have other kids?” the doctor’s voice boomed from behind the drapes covering Vicky’s legs. She was grieving her first born, Oliver. Only six weeks prior, his brain tumour had ended his sweet little life. He was three. The doctor should’ve known but he didn’t. Did he not read her notes? Did no one tell him?

She kept quiet and so did her midwife, who knew. She let go of Vicky’s hand and walked south to whisper something in the doctor’s ear. His question remained suspended on top of her head like a heavy cold fog.

Vicky lay there, admonishing herself for the time Oliver had asked her for a cuddle. She was so tired, she was unable to stand up. The last few weeks of her second pregnancy and the last few weeks of Oliver’s life had mercilessly clashed and she was trapped in the middle. She wished for more strength. She wished Oliver had been home to receive his little brother. His sweet round face with blue google eyes danced in front of her eyes. The new baby had been cleaned and weighed. He lay in the cot while she danced with Oliver in her dreams.

Back in her room, the midwife fished out a smiley portrait of Oliver and set it on Vicky’s bedside table so she could see his face. Susan, her friend from the Lamaze classes came with a bunch of red roses. In those days that was allowed. “You have the perfect replacement.” she leaned down to kiss Vicky on the cheek, holding her own belly with her right hand.

Forty-five years later, Vicky still says “Bad mother” to herself for not having given Oliver more cuddles, especially the one he had asked for. She has not forgotten his smile or his suffering. She still believes her doctor was callous. She wishes Susan had not said what she said.

The kindness of that nameless midwife still brings a smile to her face and a tear to her eye.

*** *** ***

(On Unresolved parental grief , research says that parents who have not worked through their grief are at increased risk of long-term mental and physical illnesses. Core helps parents grieve and grow together.)

Everywhere.

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A year or so after Saagar, one Saturday morning we were driving on the M4 to see Simon’s mum. As we tuned into BBC Radio 4, my ears were assaulted by the prefix, ’committed’. Neither the BBC, nor the psychiatrists knew better. They hadn’t learnt that crimes are ‘committed’. Not suicides. Suicides came from a desire to end insufferable emotional pain. Either these people didn’t know or they didn’t care enough to modify the words that habitually barfed out of their mouths. That prefix is so firmly embedded in the English language that it thoughtlessly rolls off our tongues. Suicide was a crime in the UK before 1961. It is still a ‘sin’ according to some good men and women of God. Hence, the default prefix, “committed”. That has to change. Like people who sadly die of cancer, people die of Depression and Schizophrenia and the like. They do not “commit” a crime.
Part of me was grateful they were talking about it, even if their language was wrong. I tried not to get too put off by that. I had not heard so many conversations about it before. Had something changed or had I not been listening all this time?
My mind could no longer handle long complicated, rambling books. It forgot names, lost plot lines and wandered off, out the window within minutes. Short and gentle texts, it could deal with but nothing that puts too much cognitive load. I asked a helpful librarian to recommend a couple of small books. She pulled out ‘The sense of an Ending’ by Julian Barnes and ‘The French Exit’ by Patrick deWitt. Both the stories had suicide at the center of it. I have read many books but couldn’t remember this theme arising so often.
I joined a short-story writing course at the Himalayan Writing Retreat. The award-winning author, Kritika Pandey, our teacher asked us to read ‘Why I decide to kill myself and other jokes’ by Douglas Glover beforehand. My heart pounded right through those sixteen pages. I was asked to pay attention to the technical details – the elliptical way in which the word ‘blue’ appears at periodic intervals, the sub-plot involving the dogs, the side-story of Hugo’s mum, the symbolism of the car – all of these were lost on me. I was inside the protagonist’s head, feeling her dread, her quandary and her hopelessness. It was in my face again.
The e-mail from the V&A was advertising an Alexander McQueen exhibition.
The film on TV tonight was ‘The Hours’.
The book that fell off the shelf and broke its spine today was ‘The First Forty-Nine stories’ by Earnest Hemingway.
This blasted thing that came out of nowhere, is now, everywhere.
Had my eyes and ears been shut for all these years?

Or, I wonder if, like many others I was not aware of my belief – this kind of thing only happens to others?

PS: The author, Earnest Hemingway and the fashion designer Alexander McQueen, both ended their own lives. ‘The Hours’ is a film based on a book by Michael Cunnigham with Virginia Woolf’s suicide at the center of it.

Five times more likely.

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Queer youth are five times more likely to die by suicide. I did not know that. I knew nothing about Andrea Gibson until after their death earlier this week from Ovarian Cancer. Every word they wrote throbbed with a cry against injustice. They were an activist for tenderness, a warrior for the human heart. I have spent most of today reading her poems and they sing to me. Gibson lived deeply and spoke candidly about moments when things got too much for them.

“When your heart is broken, you plant seeds in the cracks and pray for rain.”

“Just to be clear,” they wrote, “I don’t want to get out without a broken heart. I intend to leave this life so shattered there’s gonna have to be a thousand separate heavens for all of my flying parts.”

Respect!

Fall like snow on tall peaks

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There are laws followed by falling things

not humans

but things cannot determine the conditions of their fall

humans can.

Since childhood I was advised, if you want to fall, fall inside the house. ie. not outside

ie. fall onto the letter but escape from the envelope

ie. fall into the eye but escape from the glasses

ie. escape from words but fall into the meaning.

I, of average height could not have fallen more than five and a half feet

but how high was that?

My falling is not coming to an end.

The reality of falling things is revealing itself to me

in the middle of my 70th decade.

Look around and observe the falling of things.

fall like the snow atop glaciers from where sweet rivers erupt

fall like a sip of cold water on a dry throat

fall like drops filling a clay pot with music

fall like a teardrop in someone’s sorrow

fall like a ball amongst children playing

fall like the first leaf in autumn making space for a new one in spring

for if there’s no autumn, there’s no spring

fall like the first brick in the foundation of a home

fall like a waterfall on a turbine setting its fans in motion

fall like light on darkness

fall like sunlight on moist winds, making rainbows.

But stop.

Up until now only rainbows have been drawn.

No arrows have been drawn from rainbows.

So, fall like an arrow of a rainbow

onto barren earth and

cover it with flowers and leaves.

Fall like rain on parched land.

Like a ripe fruit,

fall and offer your seeds to the ground.

My hair has fallen.

So have my teeth.

And my vision.

The shells of memories continue to fall.

Names. Dates. Towns. Faces.

The pace of blood-flow in my body is falling.

My temperature is falling.

Why are you still standing, Naresh?

Before all of your existence collapses

for once

make a decision about your fall,

the correct cause and timing of it, and fall on an enemy

like lightning

like a meteorite

like a warrior

like thunderbolt.

I say, fall.

  • An excerpt from a poem by Naresh Saxena. (Translated from Hindi, by me. It is customary for Urdu and Hindi poets to insert their pen-name into the last verse of their poems. I enjoyed the instructional tone of his voice and the ebb and flow of all his metaphors.)