Go ahead ...

I found this poem, I've not written it, I read it on the facebook page of the local miscarriage support group I've just joined. I think they are people who will understand what I'm feeling and this poem says what I'd wish all my friends to know.


Go ahead and mention my child,
The one who died you know.
Don't worry about hurting me further,
The depth of my pain doesn't show.
Don't worry about making me cry.
I'm already crying inside.
Help me to heal by releasing
The tears that I try to hide.
I'm hurt when you just keep silent,
Pretending she didn't exist.
I'd rather you mention my child,
Knowing that she has been missed.
You asked me how I was doing.
I say "pretty good" or "fine."
But healing is something ongoing.
I feel it will take a lifetime.
~anon

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Not waving, but drowning...

"Not waving but drowning."

It's my favourite line from a poem. Ever.

Four small, ordinary words. A simple sentence. But it says so much about how much we can mistake the actions which we see, how wrongly we can perceive situations and how much we take for granted in imagining we know what other people are trying to say to us. But it's so easy for someone to be lost when we could see that they need help if we just stopped to really understand what it is that they are trying to make us see.

I'm not quite drowning. I'm too strong to drown, I know this now. A year ago I wasn't too sure, I felt overwhelmed and unable to ask for help from those who could see me if I waved my arms. That was part of my problem, being unable to tell people how I really felt, being unable to tell people when I was upset, and what I was upset about. I would just go and lick my wounds in private and keep on wearing my shiny mask. Like I said, I'm strong. I'm not about to drown. I won't let myself drown. I know what it's like to see someone waving who you just can't help, who you just can't reach, and I'm not about to become that person. I don't need to become that person, because I can now blog about it.

The magic about this is that you readers can all choose whether to be burdened by my feelings or not. You can just ignore it all, you can walk away and I'll never even know you've been here. That makes me feel so relieved already. I'm not forcing anybody to listen to me and to deal with my issues. You can comment if you want, or not. It's a totally free relationship, no-one feels beholden and it's so good for me. So, here goes...

I feel a bit lost right now. I've tried a number of times to tell people how I feel. My husband, my family, my friends. Yet none of them can see that I need their help or what it is that I'm really upset about. Now I can finally tell people how I feel they don't seem to want to listen. I don't know why I keep on failing, why the fact that I'm struggling so much with one part of myself is so hard for anyone to see when they seem to be noticing all the rest and all the other things which we talk about. I feel like I am waving madly and no-one can see.

For once in my life I could say I had a quiet Christmas. That's because my head was quiet. It was elsewhere, switched off. I went through the motions and I'm still going through them. To be fair Christmas is always like a play to me. I know the lines, I've played it many times, so that's no different. But this year I truly felt vacant.

I am vacant.

I am empty.

That's the truth of it. I should have been seven months pregnant by now. I should have been enjoying our last Christmas before it all changed forever, I should have been excitedly chatting to my sister and my Mum about my pregnancy, about my plans, I should have been glowing, I shouldn't have been thinking about myself any more and what presents I might like. We would have been crowing over presents for the baby and Christmas would have felt a little bit magical again, how it used to feel.

But instead I feel like I'm missing a vital part of me and I can't understand why no-one can see the gaping hole. Every day I tend to my scars from two operations in fairly quick succession and I still feel twinges in those wounds, so there is no escaping it physically. Much more than that though I feel like every day is empty, like all my social interactions are just trying to take my mind off the hurt that I want to feel. I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to be morose and miserable and I want people to understand how I feel.

Yet I seem unable to get anyone to stop and really listen, to really appreciate what I feel and not just presume that they know. My friends without children, who don't want children, don't understand what all the fuss is about: just try again and have another one. My friends with children just tell me that it will happen soon, that they managed it so it will happen for me too. Maybe they've forgotten how difficult it was, or maybe it wasn't difficult at all for them. The only people I think who might understand are those who can't have children, but do want them. Then again they say to me that at least I can get pregnant. That's no comfort to me though.

I'm not sure I can even articulate my feelings properly. I can't seem to get across how wretched I feel. I suspect that people think that it's not healthy for me to dwell on it, that I need cheering up. But I don't. I need to share my pain. I'm grieving and no-one seems to want to acknowledge that it's happening.

I feel completely alone. No-one is right here, right now, in the same position as me and I can't seem to be able to communicate how I feel so that people can truly comprehend. Maybe someone who reads this might know?

Anyway, here's the poem in full...


Stevie Smith - Not Waving But Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

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Ten years gone, but not forgotten

Almost precisely ten years ago I sat on the floor of my best friend's bedroom in the final throws of an uncomfortably hot summer, leaning on a large mobile air conditioning unit, trying to read her poetry through eyes which could barely see and with a voice which no longer seemed to be my own. I shouldn't have been able to function properly, I should have been wailing and mourning and begging for the fates not to take her. But instead I found a secret hard place inside and I let it take over me.

She never once saw me shed a tear for her. Her best friend. The one who became like a sister when we she lost her Dad and my sister went to the other side of the world; the one who never questioned, never judged and never abandoned her in so many hours of need; the one who knew all her secrets and confided hers in return; and the one she'd given her strict instructions to...

No-one was supposed to talk about it, we were to carry on as normal until the bitter end (but people had to make sure they left with something precious of hers whenever they visited). She couldn't let herself falter in her resolve otherwise she would fall apart. She set the tone which we all followed. We dutifully avoided emotional outpourings (although I wrote mine in a letter which I noticed beside her bed at the end), we respected her need to be alone even though we wanted to spend every second with her, and we left her to her quiet times when she contemplated her forthcoming battle, perhaps she was planning how she wanted to play her final scene? She made lists of who was to get her treasures, which was so incredibly important to her. In her final days when the tumour pressed so far into her brain that she could no longer speak she could be seen slowly and carefully giving out imaginary objects to the friends she pictured in her mind, deliberately placing them into the grateful palms she dreamt were there in front of her.

Sadly for her there was only me in the end, in that final scene. It was my turn to sit with her and keep her amused. By this point she hadn't slept for three days and couldn't physically last much longer. None of us knew what she thought, but we imagined she was so terribly scared of what would happen when she closed her eyes. She was so incredibly uncomfortable, sitting on the edge of the bed, propping herself up with her elbows resting on her thighs, but she refused to lie down - presumably for the same sort of reason, the fear that she'd never get up again. She wanted to live one minute and then not be alive the next, she didn't want to fade away, to turn to grey, to drift in the place between the two. Now I know I said we never discussed it, but she was virtually a part of me this girl. I knew how she felt. She'd always been clumsy and awkward. In death as in life she felt self conscious. I knew that she was so mortified by the idea of the indignity of death. She held herself upright and presentable for as long as she could and we helped her.

They had been reading her a Terry Pratchet book, but I couldn't bring myself to read the humorous story with the character called Death. I couldn't even utter the word, plus I knew I'd be a poor substitute for her Auntie who did the silly voices. So I searched the room in snatched moments, returning to my place on the floor at her feet when she faltered and swayed forward, gently propping her back up before continuing my search. I searched for something meaningful, some words which could sum up our life together and found a book we both loved as children. As I read to her I looked to her to try to see recognition of my choice, some indication as to whether the familiarity was a source of comfort or torture, whether I was playing her last moments how she wanted them to be played. She was beyond any ability to communicate, which was so excrutiatingly painful at the time when I needed my best friend the most. You imagine having a perfect moment, that timeless meaningful last exchange, but I feared that if she could hear and understand me that she would feel my words like daggers through her heart.

A few pages into my tentative and angst-ridden performance I had reduced myself to a state of agonised indecision, compelled to carry on reading what I'd started in case it was welcome to her, but wanting so much to apologise with every word and feeling sure I should be intuitive enough to know exactly what to do. I had stopped focusing on her, stopped checking that she was ok. Suddenly her hand came sharply into view. I looked up to see her slumped a little in my direction, her elbow loose and her hand outstretched. I'm so deeply ashamed to admit that I thought that she was reaching out for comfort, in that moment I was full of my own importance and I took her hand and looked into her face to give her those words of love I'd longed for her to seek from me. This was that imagined perfect tableau - the faithful friend sitting at the feet of the brave soul, giving her the strength for her final journey. But this was my wishful thinking. She hadn't finally reached out to me, in reality she had lost that final morsel of strength that was keeping her composed, she'd finally given in and allowed herself to fall. In her last moments I'd made her lose her dignity and that will always haunt me.

Realisation then hit me like a slap to the face and I welled with panic, stomach crashing to the floor. This wasn't supposed to be my moment, it was supposed to be her mother with her when she died. I rushed to the top of the stairs and screamed a banshee's wail, "come, please come!". The family and friends gathered downstairs came rushing, with her mother in the lead. She had a book of poems she wanted to read to send her on her spiritual journey, she had it all planned out. But I had stolen her moment. The doctor had turned up and gently laid her back on the bed, for she had crumpled into an indignified lump in my absence, and he said that she should still be able to hear. I was unspeakably grateful for his intervention and the hope he gave to her mother that she was not too late and she could share the most important moment of her daughter's life.

Secretly though I knew she had gone from the world, I'd sensed her go, I'd felt the air above us electrify over our brief tableau and felt the shadow of death upon my face when she fell and blocked out the waning evening light from the window behind. But her mother needed to feel part of the moment of passing too. I never wanted to take that from her so I played along.

In the end I became some kind of folk legend, the "best friend", the one who she chose to die with. I don't know if this helped or not, they all wanted as perfect an ending as possible for this deeply cherished friend and what better than a peaceful passing in the comfortable presence of her oldest friend? At the funeral people met me with awed faces and wanted to be near me. I was a physical connection to the one they'd lost. I felt honoured and duty bound to play the part, but some things I couldn't do. She was an amazingly upbeat person and had given her instructions for the funeral. People should wear bright colours, but I wore black. We were all supposed to do The Time Warp at the crematorium to mark her sense of fun, but I remained seated and tried not to feel inadequate. I could no longer follow protocol and the sense of disappointment that I thought I saw around me added to my grief to make me feel completely alone and so desperately miserable that my best friend was not there to turn to. This in turn brought on further guilt until it was a frenzied loop of self blame and misery.

For you see the difference between me and the others, the reason why I was alone amongst friends, was that they had not shared that last moment. These people had all lost a loved one from their life, but they had not watched her go and they didn't carry the awful guilt of wondering whether they'd done it right (with no-one left to ask), nor did they view proceedings through the image of the moment their friend lost her fight, seeing all of life through it like looking through a stained glass window on the world. I even saw the image on the back of my eyelids as I tried to sleep. For weeks and months.

So I mention it's been ten years, tonight there is a big party, everyone ever connected to her was invited. I didn't go, I couldn't go, I still can't face commemorating her death day. To these other people it's a date to remember the good times shared with a dear person who they still miss, but for me it marks the saddest day I've yet lived through, the day my best friend slipped away in front of my eyes, no glory, no ceremony, no significant moment where either of us saw into the heart of things. They could only imagine and wish they were there, I continue to live the confusion of wishing I hadn't seen it but also knowing that I would never ever have wanted to be anywhere else.

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Less a poem more an outpouring...

The Guardian poem section this week is about "walking". I've had a lot to do this week and I've not been able to take time to really think about imagery and the right words to use, so instead I went for an outpouring into a tight structure. I'm going to add it anyway. Nothing ventured and all that!

I felt I'd represented the emotion anyway.

SHE AND I:

We walked here, She and I, when we knew no worry or worldly care,
Except where we would end up when we reached the place we knew not where.

We walked here, She and I, when we would share our childhood day by day
And in shadow of growling hills and besides glistening brook would play.

We walked here, She and I, when we confided each our teenage fears,
Voicing secret thoughts and dreams, interweaving our lives through the years.

We walked here, She and I, when we cleansed ourselves in timeless beauty,
Unaltered over the years whilst we'd assumed each adult duty.

We walked here, She and I, when we no longer found ourselves alone,
Chiling shadows falling on her, threat'ning to numb her into stone.

We walked here, She and I, when we knew that we would walk no longer,
Hearts breaking beyond all measure as death's claim on her grew stronger.

We walked here, She and I, when we sought solace in her final hour,
Bittersweet memories of beauty lived which we would share no more.

We walked here, She and I, when she lived again in colourful dreams,
Sadness soothed by embrace of green hills and sweet song of whispering streams.

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