Wake up call

If life were like a painting, then mine is currently the landscape I have hanging in my lounge.

I’m walking down a long avenue of copper beeches and all around me a soft wind rustles a smattering of blood-red leaves at my feet. It’s a cool day and the breeze is fresh though not yet icy. It is dusk. The deep shadows of Autumn cozying up to Winter deepen the dew on the fields to either side but Nature for all her beauty is failing to dazzle me. My landscape is in sepia. My eyes are dulled with the fatigue of constant busyness; housework, cooking and ceaseless parenting. I am meandering half-blind through the months of the year, beauty all around me but too tired to bear witness with my eyes to what I treasure most deeply in my heart.

And then with a cold electronic ping a text message erupts into my life, like a hot slap around my face, and I wake suddenly from a stupor bordering on drudgery. My dear friend (L)’s husband has a tumour. And it’s malignant.

Folds of tiredness fall from my face as shock knocks me from side to side like a fish gasping for breath on a sandy shore. I am stopped in my tracks and looking bewildered all around me as the vast avenue of my life, that has thus far stretched endlessly before me, is brought back to life with all the colour and vibrancy of a child’s first painting. My knees find the floor and before I can finish a reply I am mouthing the words of a childhood prayer.

Miles lie between me and my friend but her faith and mine are like two thick ropes spanning a void and I know that the best I can do now – and will ever be able to do – will be to pray.

I am throwing her my feeble rope though I know her own is made of steel. Sure enough, when I finally get to speak to her I am left breathless and in tears at her peaceful acceptance of this change. She speaks hopefully of how God has reminded her of all that is wonderful in her life. My own ingratitude is exposed and, like the sudden silence that follows the cessation of a background noise, I realise how much I have been taking for granted.

L’s life is a work of art, the outpouring of love. I imagine it as an alpine meadow, vibrant and fresh, life in abundance on a mountain ledge, so overflowing with vitality under the shadow of illness that it has startled my own painting back into Technicolor.

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Angelitos

I have two little angels – angelitos – waiting for me up in Heaven.

I would ten thousand times rather that they were sitting here, right now, in my arms but they were never destined to see the light of day, nor I the light of their eyes.

Today is the anniversary of a birthday that never came. Every year, I struggle with myself as December comes and goes. Should I mourn a life that barely flickered into a flame? Am I being uncharitable to my surviving children?

But, with time and the arrival of little T, I have made peace with the reality that I will always mourn the loss of my babies, however tiny. Intricately caught up in my unfailing belief that life begins at conception, I will not deny the reality of their existence, nor God’s decision to call them to His side just a few weeks after they winked into being.

It is so hard to see the rhyme or reason behind God’s decisions sometimes. I say sometimes. I could say oftentimes. Life can seem so very, very fragile. A puff of wind and a memory is all that lingers. Peace; better to have lived a moment, and been loved, than never to have lived at all.

 

How fleeting a life can be

A tiny bud of potentiality

A brief spurt of individuality

Stolen away, washed away

Drained away.

 

A mother’s love

Quarterised in its infancy

Blunted before its time

So ungracious, so very ugly

And so very very cold.

 

Brief weeks of intimacy

Immortality in the waiting

Until then, precious,

Here’s a tear at nightfall,

Here’s a smile at moonrise.

I whisper your name at dawn.

 

Though never shall I know you,

Always shall I love you.

Picture me, remember me.

Wait for me.

 

2nd May 2009

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A decade side by side

It was a bitterly cold November Saturday. A considerate patch of high pressure had left even grisly Manchester with clear blue skies and a sparkling frost.  M got up early with his friends to breakfast in the warmth of the Hall of Residence dining room, while a few miles away S poked a warm toe out from under her duvet, waited a few seconds as it slowly began to freeze in the mouldy cold of a chronically damp student house and then tucked it back in, deciding to delay getting up til lunchtime. M set off to the library to indulge in several hours quiet companionship with his biology journals. His Masters nearing completion, he was finding it hard not to daydream about potential PhDs. He was mildly looking forward to a CathSoc Spanish-themed party being thrown by his friend in the pub opposite their Halls. It promised to be a lively but temperate party – after all, most of the attendees would be Catholics from the university chaplaincy or the 3 Catholic Halls of Residences.

S had a stinking cold. The prospect of a catechism class, followed by a student Mass and a violin recital given by her housemate did little to lighten her mood. Like so many of her peers, juggling the temptations of the wild and lively party scene of university life with the duties of, and desire to live, a Christian life left her feeling guilty most of the time. Her first year over, constant socialising was fast losing its appeal as friendships waned, parties became insipid and coursework assignments became more serious. Yo-yo-ing in and out of Church was making her realise she was being untrue to the two most important people in her life; God and her own self. So, no. S was definitely not looking forward to the CathSoc party and was busy concocting plausible excuses to get out of going.

God had other plans.

It was 8pm and the party was already going strong. The number of Spaniards that M’s friend had managed to unearth amongst the grey wastes of Manchester was really quite impressive. To get away from the loud music and even louder layers of shouted conversations M positioned himself at the door, bouncer-come-ticket inspector for new arrivals. S, meanwhile, worn down by the requests of no less than three independent girlfriends, finally caved and, snivelling through swollen glands, grabbed a packet of tissues on her way back from the aborted violin recital and set off for the party on foot. The first person she laid eyes on, as she came through the door was M. It wasn’t conscious, but the two, having seen each other often but never spoken, migrated towards each other. M was older, more mature. He dreamt of a single life married to a career in academia, preferably in the States. S was looking for anything but another relationship. She’d only just split up from her boyfriend a few days before and wanted time to think about what she wanted out of her life. She was only 19.

Hours slipped by as the two chatted. The hours turned into weeks, weeks into months. Differences in personality and opinion faded against the backdrop of a deep, shared Faith. M turned down a job in the States. S moved back to Manchester after graduating. They met each other’s families. Friendship blossomed and deepened, tinged with the excitement of early romance. Then came the honeymoon of a year-long engagement followed by a beautiful white wedding, their honeymoon proper and their first home. Years slipped by. Heartache touched them on more than one occasion. So did great joy.

Romance has deepened, love has grown and tiny little feet patter through the corridors of their home.

On a cold November day, 10 years ago two lives crossed. Two lives treading separate paths, joined hands and began carving a fresh new path together. Although it has been a whole decade, they still feel like they’re only just setting out. Two young students, whose eyes met across a crowded room of noisy Spanish partygoers on a cold November evening, still whittling out their path together while God hands out the tools.

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Grinning like a Cheshire cat

I have just heard the most amazing, wonderful and beautiful news. Someone very close to me, after many, many years of trying, has just found out that his wife is pregnant. They had just been approved for adoption. The same day they took the test. The news was so shocking, so utterly unexpected (we had all given up hope) that I am still reeling from it now.  And I can’t stop smiling. I’m grinning like a Cheshire cat and every so often I burst out laughing, much to the surprise of my boys.

God really does work in mysterious ways. This really was the hat trick up his sleeve. Just as we had finally accepted his will not to have it our way, he goes and gives us what we had been asking for all along. 

And sometimes he gives us what we thought we least wanted but what we actually most needed.

When we found out at our 20 week scan that J would most likely be disabled we felt our whole world crumble around us. And then J was born (and he was disabled) but he just set about from day one putting that world back together and leaving it more beautiful than ever before.

Sometimes we get to see the master plan behind our struggles. Most times we do not. But today I caught a glimpse of a future so very bright with possibilities; full of open doors we had thought forever shut. 

So here I am, still grinning. Will be for the next nine months 🙂

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