bucenterIn Retrospect/b/u/center
[email protected]/center
When I was three years old, my father left my mother, my sisters and I to fend for ourselves. He simply left. No goodbye notes to be given to us on our eighteenth birthdays, no Christmas or birthday cards. No savings accounts or wad of cash for my mother to help raise us. Nothing. We didn't hear from him for over twenty years.
Not long after my fourth birthday, my mother died. She went out before dinner one day, and never came back. She simply died. Whereas all the other children surrounding me had the luxury of their parent's supposed immortality to grow up with, wrapped up in the disillusionment of childhood, I walked home each day, holding tightly to my elder sister's hand, braving the wind and the heavy bag and the roads to cross by ourselves. Brought up by my grandmother, my childhood shaped me more than anything on this earth. My father's abandonment, my mother's death, my sister's utter devotion to my safety.
I gave birth to a baby daughter today. She's the most perfect thing I've ever seen. We've named her Melinda Prue. Melinda, after the most ancient ancestor of our family line. Prue, after that sister who formed so much of who I am today. Who took my bag from my back when it got too heavy for me to hold. Who grasped my hand so tight as we crossed the roads to our childhood house, the house where my husband and I still live today. That sister, who died five years ago.
Died for Phoebe and I, as I always knew she would.
I've been a daughter. I've been a granddaughter. Now I'm a mother. And today has changed me again. Changed the way I think of things, I suppose. Changed the way I see my life; my father, my mother, my sisters. And most importantly my role in my daughter's life. In retrospect, my childhood was one of the happiest times of my life. At the same time it was one of the saddest. But when there is a general role of dull, mundane happiness, tinged slightly by that ache in your heart which fires up every so often, the emotions all blur into an everyday life of a kind of saddened form of blunt contentment. Because the life that I was faced with couldn't be changed anymore than I could fly, I grew to live with it. I went into a form of limbo, where each day came but with little new light or resolve. It was as if I was treading water, unable to sink or swim. Stuck in one place, frantically moving my arms so not to simply slip under the water and disappear from view.
Becoming a mother has somehow brought me out of this sense of limbo again. Occasionally, we all fall into a dull everyday routine. We get up, get dressed, make breakfast, go to work... It's a cycle which starts and stops with the rising and setting of the sun, and rarely does the routine change. Stuck in abeyance, we go into autopilot. I suppose my pregnancy was the same. One month of such excitement, of name picking, of first scans and picking colours to paint the nursery. Eight more months, still of pure joy, of the first kick and happy smiles exchanged between myself and Leo. And each day, he would lie with his head listening to my stomach for hours on end, until he would fall asleep in the same position, s I stroked his hair and felt Melinda kick inside me.
I was so angry at my father for such a long time. I never understood how he could just leave. Just up and go, abandon his own children. I came to an understanding once, if only for my own sanity; a simple case of too many difficulties, too many disagreements, too many arguments for life to be bearable. But today I looked at my daughter's sleeping form, each breath so fragile, each writhe and wriggle so delicate. Phoebe was maybe a few months older than she when Dad left for good, and not even born when cracks began to appear in his and Mum's relationship. And I question his decision now, as I used to. Seeing my daughter, so vulnerable, so reliant on myself and Leo, so utterly unable to fend for herself. And I know I could never leave her. I would fight through flames for her, I would die for her. I would give my own life if there was the slightest chance she would benefit, even in the most minute way possibly. And I know Leo, iher/i father, would do the same. I can see it in his eyes; a kind of utter devotion burning through fatherly love, a gentle glance at me, and his eyes are straight back to her, mesmerised by his daughter. And I'm finding I can't understand my father anymore, or his abandonment of me, my sisters and my mother.
My mother and her love for us has become as clear as it will ever be, I suppose, just a few hours after Melinda was born. Having a child of my own has allowed me to feel the kind of love I know she felt for each of us as soon as we left her womb and made our noisy appearances into the world. I can relate to her decision of risking her life, and losing it, to protect us. I would do the same for Melinda a thousand times over, if there was even the slightest glimpse of hope for her safety. I can imagine the kind of utter despair she must have wrestled with in the last seconds of her life; so wanting to call out her pleas of love for us one last time, to let us know that we would be okay; but unable to speak as her body shut itself down. I love her more than ever, now. Love her for loving us as only a mother can; with the kind of love where your child has no flaws, only unreserved perfection. And we were okay, because of Prue.
Prue was my everything, I suppose, growing up. From age four to fourteen, she took the part of our missing mother. I never really considered the idea that she didn't have the motherly figure we always did. Whereas we had her, she had no-one. No-one to offer advice or guidance, no elders to help her on the path to life. Of course, we all had Grams. But she never really took the role of our mother. As our grandmother since birth, she remained our grandmother, and I suppose it was always hard to get past that. Hard to talk about boyfriends and first kisses and sex with the women who took you to the duckpond when you were five and holds every memory of you from childhood, as innocence untainted. Phoebe and I always had Prue to turn to. To find out how to kiss boys or ask someone out, or even fights with friends that seemed petty and Grams would merely have dismissed out of hand. But Prue had to learn for herself. I never understood why, age fifteen, she suddenly went off the tracks. But suddenly I know, now. It was because she had no-one to tell her any different, no-one to help her see the paths or make the right turns at the inevitable crossroads. She was in the dark, fumbling for the right tunnel, straining her eyes to see any glimpse of light to guide her way. But none came and she took the wrong trail. I loved her more than anything.
Retrospect is a wonderful thing. It allows you to see everything you ever did, and think it over. Sometimes retrospect hurts like hell. Because with the ability to remember, and feel pain, the human race has a fatal flaw. I ache because I doubt my father's love for me. I want to ask him the questions that have been spiralling in my head since infancy. I throb because I wish my mother hadn't died so early in our lives. I wish Prue didn't always have to be the strong one. I wish she had had the motherly figure myself and Phoebe always did. I hope I was there for her when she needed me.
But with the memories and knowledge of my childhood, I can shape how I want Melinda's future to be sculpted. I can take so much good from my mother and sister, and make Melinda's infancy as happy as mine because of them and what they did. I can make sure she knows I love her, and am here for her whenever she needs me. I can hold her as she cries and whisper to her in the night when sleep won't find her, because I learnt from Prue that it's the little things that make a child happiest. The details.
And I know Leo will be there for her until death comes for him. Every second of everyday, there for her with that ever more familiar burning love emanating from his eyes. He's so different from my father. He's not going anywhere, leaving no-one, abandoning nobody. He loves us more than words can express, and I love them so much, sometimes more than my heart can handle.
My childhood shaped me, and retrospect has moulded the finer details. And I know I can do this. I can be her mother, her friend, her guide. His wife, his lover, his best friend. Because Prue taught me it all, in her own special way, in the way she taught me everything. I miss her so much.
Fin.
[email protected]/center
When I was three years old, my father left my mother, my sisters and I to fend for ourselves. He simply left. No goodbye notes to be given to us on our eighteenth birthdays, no Christmas or birthday cards. No savings accounts or wad of cash for my mother to help raise us. Nothing. We didn't hear from him for over twenty years.
Not long after my fourth birthday, my mother died. She went out before dinner one day, and never came back. She simply died. Whereas all the other children surrounding me had the luxury of their parent's supposed immortality to grow up with, wrapped up in the disillusionment of childhood, I walked home each day, holding tightly to my elder sister's hand, braving the wind and the heavy bag and the roads to cross by ourselves. Brought up by my grandmother, my childhood shaped me more than anything on this earth. My father's abandonment, my mother's death, my sister's utter devotion to my safety.
I gave birth to a baby daughter today. She's the most perfect thing I've ever seen. We've named her Melinda Prue. Melinda, after the most ancient ancestor of our family line. Prue, after that sister who formed so much of who I am today. Who took my bag from my back when it got too heavy for me to hold. Who grasped my hand so tight as we crossed the roads to our childhood house, the house where my husband and I still live today. That sister, who died five years ago.
Died for Phoebe and I, as I always knew she would.
I've been a daughter. I've been a granddaughter. Now I'm a mother. And today has changed me again. Changed the way I think of things, I suppose. Changed the way I see my life; my father, my mother, my sisters. And most importantly my role in my daughter's life. In retrospect, my childhood was one of the happiest times of my life. At the same time it was one of the saddest. But when there is a general role of dull, mundane happiness, tinged slightly by that ache in your heart which fires up every so often, the emotions all blur into an everyday life of a kind of saddened form of blunt contentment. Because the life that I was faced with couldn't be changed anymore than I could fly, I grew to live with it. I went into a form of limbo, where each day came but with little new light or resolve. It was as if I was treading water, unable to sink or swim. Stuck in one place, frantically moving my arms so not to simply slip under the water and disappear from view.
Becoming a mother has somehow brought me out of this sense of limbo again. Occasionally, we all fall into a dull everyday routine. We get up, get dressed, make breakfast, go to work... It's a cycle which starts and stops with the rising and setting of the sun, and rarely does the routine change. Stuck in abeyance, we go into autopilot. I suppose my pregnancy was the same. One month of such excitement, of name picking, of first scans and picking colours to paint the nursery. Eight more months, still of pure joy, of the first kick and happy smiles exchanged between myself and Leo. And each day, he would lie with his head listening to my stomach for hours on end, until he would fall asleep in the same position, s I stroked his hair and felt Melinda kick inside me.
I was so angry at my father for such a long time. I never understood how he could just leave. Just up and go, abandon his own children. I came to an understanding once, if only for my own sanity; a simple case of too many difficulties, too many disagreements, too many arguments for life to be bearable. But today I looked at my daughter's sleeping form, each breath so fragile, each writhe and wriggle so delicate. Phoebe was maybe a few months older than she when Dad left for good, and not even born when cracks began to appear in his and Mum's relationship. And I question his decision now, as I used to. Seeing my daughter, so vulnerable, so reliant on myself and Leo, so utterly unable to fend for herself. And I know I could never leave her. I would fight through flames for her, I would die for her. I would give my own life if there was the slightest chance she would benefit, even in the most minute way possibly. And I know Leo, iher/i father, would do the same. I can see it in his eyes; a kind of utter devotion burning through fatherly love, a gentle glance at me, and his eyes are straight back to her, mesmerised by his daughter. And I'm finding I can't understand my father anymore, or his abandonment of me, my sisters and my mother.
My mother and her love for us has become as clear as it will ever be, I suppose, just a few hours after Melinda was born. Having a child of my own has allowed me to feel the kind of love I know she felt for each of us as soon as we left her womb and made our noisy appearances into the world. I can relate to her decision of risking her life, and losing it, to protect us. I would do the same for Melinda a thousand times over, if there was even the slightest glimpse of hope for her safety. I can imagine the kind of utter despair she must have wrestled with in the last seconds of her life; so wanting to call out her pleas of love for us one last time, to let us know that we would be okay; but unable to speak as her body shut itself down. I love her more than ever, now. Love her for loving us as only a mother can; with the kind of love where your child has no flaws, only unreserved perfection. And we were okay, because of Prue.
Prue was my everything, I suppose, growing up. From age four to fourteen, she took the part of our missing mother. I never really considered the idea that she didn't have the motherly figure we always did. Whereas we had her, she had no-one. No-one to offer advice or guidance, no elders to help her on the path to life. Of course, we all had Grams. But she never really took the role of our mother. As our grandmother since birth, she remained our grandmother, and I suppose it was always hard to get past that. Hard to talk about boyfriends and first kisses and sex with the women who took you to the duckpond when you were five and holds every memory of you from childhood, as innocence untainted. Phoebe and I always had Prue to turn to. To find out how to kiss boys or ask someone out, or even fights with friends that seemed petty and Grams would merely have dismissed out of hand. But Prue had to learn for herself. I never understood why, age fifteen, she suddenly went off the tracks. But suddenly I know, now. It was because she had no-one to tell her any different, no-one to help her see the paths or make the right turns at the inevitable crossroads. She was in the dark, fumbling for the right tunnel, straining her eyes to see any glimpse of light to guide her way. But none came and she took the wrong trail. I loved her more than anything.
Retrospect is a wonderful thing. It allows you to see everything you ever did, and think it over. Sometimes retrospect hurts like hell. Because with the ability to remember, and feel pain, the human race has a fatal flaw. I ache because I doubt my father's love for me. I want to ask him the questions that have been spiralling in my head since infancy. I throb because I wish my mother hadn't died so early in our lives. I wish Prue didn't always have to be the strong one. I wish she had had the motherly figure myself and Phoebe always did. I hope I was there for her when she needed me.
But with the memories and knowledge of my childhood, I can shape how I want Melinda's future to be sculpted. I can take so much good from my mother and sister, and make Melinda's infancy as happy as mine because of them and what they did. I can make sure she knows I love her, and am here for her whenever she needs me. I can hold her as she cries and whisper to her in the night when sleep won't find her, because I learnt from Prue that it's the little things that make a child happiest. The details.
And I know Leo will be there for her until death comes for him. Every second of everyday, there for her with that ever more familiar burning love emanating from his eyes. He's so different from my father. He's not going anywhere, leaving no-one, abandoning nobody. He loves us more than words can express, and I love them so much, sometimes more than my heart can handle.
My childhood shaped me, and retrospect has moulded the finer details. And I know I can do this. I can be her mother, her friend, her guide. His wife, his lover, his best friend. Because Prue taught me it all, in her own special way, in the way she taught me everything. I miss her so much.
Fin.