Monday 26th July 2010

One year ago.

Suse rises a few minutes before I do.  She quietly potters around the kitchen.  I go to the toilet, still in a sleep haze.  I walk into the bathroom, and then I see it.

The negative test.

We’ve been good.  For the last three weeks, we’ve been good.  We’ve enjoyed ourselves and loved each other.  I’ve been out of town for two of those weeks, and there’s a cliché reserved for just such occasions.

But the fact is, we’ve been in a good place.

Our counsellor, June, says that we are a couple of extremes.  By that, she doesn’t mean that we are two wild humans.  She means that, as a couple, we swing on a pendulum.  When we’re on an upswing, and things are good, they’re really good.  But when they’re not… they’re not.

I walk into the living room.  There I see Suse, her face tired and drawn.  She sits in front of morning television, chewing on porridge.  She doesn’t even pretend to be watching.

“Did you see?”  At first I can’t tell if it was her who spoke.  But there’s no one else around.

I nod.  I walk up to her and take her into a hug.  She relents, and I feel her body melt into mine.

“Even though it was the blocked side, I still had to hope.  Each time, every single time, I can’t help it.”

“I know, love,” I say, “I know.  Do you think I didn’t know what the pimples were about?  Do you think I didn’t think it too?”

She sighs, exhaling softly.

“Am I that obvious?”

“Well if you are, then I am too.”

I look at her eyes, drawn and sad.  It’s like I’m watching the pendulum itself, it’s swinging back that quickly.

 

* * * * *

I sit in the study, completing chores.  Nothing particular, just tidying up things from last week.

And then I hear it.

The soft sobs from the next room.

I walk out down the hall, and see my wife, in the same place that she was this morning.  Half the day has gone, and lots has happened.  But in mind, she’s remained here the whole day, just like this.

She lets out muted sobs, quiet helpless sobs.  I’ve seen my wife cry a lot in the last six months.  I’ve cried a lot myself.  I never thought I’d become a crying expert, but I do know the character of my wife’s pain.  And here, right now, there is no anguish, no sharpness, no anger to her pain.  Instead, I see a softness, a hollowness, an emptyness.  Quiet, tired hiccups.

These are her sorrow tears.

She sits, her head lilted to the side, her shoulders fallen, staring at the blank screen ahead.  I walk to her.  She barely sees me.  I slide onto our couch, and I take her head, resting it against my shoulder.  She falls into me.  It never ceases to surprise me how well we fit.  Me, all short limbs and stocky Cornish trunk, her, long flowing gracious appendages.  And yet, we fit very snugly.  Somehow, I was designed to fit this glorious woman.

She buries her head in further, her tears blotting against my shirt.  We sit there like this, for about twenty minutes.  Her tears flow smoothly as I stroke her hair.  I never thought I could be this comfortable around someone else’s grief.  I guess you learn it when you have to.

After a while, her shoulders stop bobbing, and the streams dry up.  Like I said, these are her sorrow tears.  There is no crescendo here.  Eventually they dissolve to nothing.

“What are you thinking?” I whisper.

“That I’m a barren old woman.”

“Nothing’s changed, honey,” I say.  “Nothing’s changed.  We’re in the same place as we were yesterday.”

“I know,” she whispers, a couple more sobs breaking through.  “It’s just harder to see that today.”

My own tear falls, as the pendulum brushes my cheek on the way past.

 

* * * * *

Saturday 29th May 2010

Gestation: 35 weeks, 1 day

One year ago.

 

“Does anyone want a Tarot reading?”

“Yes,” says Suse, her hand going up, without even looking back to see who is asking.  “Do you mind, hon?”

I look over her shoulder at the woman asking the question, having appeared from nowhere.  She wears an oversized blue jacket, like one you might see on the Avon lady.

“Why would I?”

“Well, it is your birthday.  I thought you might want a go.”

“Maybe I will after you.”

Suse gets up from her seat, and follows the woman into the garage.

“Interesting place,” says Joel, my big Italian stud of a friend.

“Mmm,” I say.

The owner appears, her arm in a cast, holding a plate with some more cheese toasties.  This is a new café, run out of the back of the owner’s house.  A child-friendly café, with play equipment and free babyccinos for the kids.

And unheralded Tarot readings.

“Did you know they did Tarot readings here?”

“Mate, it was your wife’s suggestion to come here,” I say.  “I’ve never been here before.  I was just trying to find a place to catch up with you guys that had play equipment.”

“Happy birthday,” he says, smiling broadly.

I look for a moment as Suse walks towards the garage.

“So, tell me, Joel, where should Suse and I go for a romantic holiday?”

I watch as the door closes, my wife and the reader inside.

* * * * *

Thirty-five minutes later, I walk into the garage, and close the door behind me.  There sitting on a wooden box, is a woman with a broad smile.  It’s almost a Cheshire grin.  She has yellowed teeth at the front, the teeth of a long-term smoker.  Of someone who smokes to cope with the cosmic cards she has ben dealt.  As she tells me later: yes, she does see dead people.  Her face is round, friendly crows-feet by her eyes.  Her tipped hair is held back by a band, the roots growing neatly at the front of her hairline.  She wears a blouse and a business suit.

The day just gets more and more incongruous.

“I was just chatting to your wife, Susan,” she begins, “and I’m really excited that you’ve decided to get a reading with me.”  Just thirty seconds earlier, as Suse opened the door at the end of her reading, I’d tried to gauge whether I should bother.  But I couldn’t read Suse’s face.  She came out looking a little dazed, and before I knew it, the Avon lady had me by the arm.

“It’s my birthday, so why the hell not.”

“Why the hell not?”  She lets out a cackle;  a slightly maniacal laugh.  “Sorry,” she says, covering her mouth.

“No problem.”

She takes a breath, closing her eyes for a moment.  I look around the garage as she does.  People keep the weirdest stuff in garages.  They’re the final step in disposal of waste.

“Firstly, I just needed to let you know that you’re here to help Suse through.”  She holds her hands together, fingers pointing upwards.  “To guide her through.  You’re surrounded by a lot of love and support, and you’ve got a lot of people looking over you.”  She takes a breath.  “But there are also a lot of people who are jealous of you too.  Does that make sense?”

“Ummm, I’m not sure,” I say.

“That house that you’re in…  Your ex-wife left a lot of black energy in it.”

“She wasn’t my wife, we were just…”

“…Doesn’t matter.  For the purposes of the spirits, you were married.”  She looks at me, daring me to contest.  I don’t.  “And she isn’t very happy for you.  She’s left something behind, a marker, on the yellow skirting boards.  Your skirting boards are a yellowy cream right?”

“Yeah, they are,” I say.

“Check them out.  There’s something there.  It’ll come to you.”  I look at her blankly.  “Either that, or it needs to be cleansed.  With the burning of a white candle, surrounded with salt.”

“Okay,” I say.

She takes another breath.

“When Susan first came in here, I felt pain in my stomach, and I said to her, ‘you’ve had endometriosis, or something that’s stopped you from having your child, right?’  It was then that she told me about the ectopic.  There’s a little girl, waiting to come down.  Waiting for her time.  But before – with the ectopic – it just wasn’t the right time.”

I feel the hairs stand up on my neck, thinking of the moment Suse had shared with Zach, our new nephew, just four days earlier.

“Suse has been pregnant before, hasn’t she?”  I nod.  “But the time just wasn’t right,” she continues.  “And there was a girl and a boy.  But she hasn’t let go of them yet.  When she lets go, that is when you will be ready.”

“What do you mean she hasn’t let go?”  I’m interested.  She’s reeled me in.

“The spirits continue to grow, if you don’t let them go.”  She holds out both of her hands, each at different heights, as if resting them on the heads of invisible children.  At about exactly the heights of those children, had those pregnancies continued.

“What are they waiting for?” I ask.

“For the right father.  For you.  They were waiting for you.”

A shiver goes all the way up.

“You’ve seen them before, haven’t you?”

I nod my head, almost unconsciously.  “You’ve seen these kids haven’t you?”

I nod again.

“Yeah, I have.  Whenever I dream about my family, I see a boy and a girl.”

“You’re very intuitive, Michael.”

“It’s Mark.”

“Michael, Mark, whatever.  Names don’t matter.  What matters is that you are what we call ‘a sensitive’.”

I can feel myself frowning deeply.  “Don’t worry too much.  But just know that you are very intuitive, and you have a lot of love around you.  A lot of support.  Your grandma is looking over you.  Looking down on you.  There’s a lot of love around you.”

I feel myself frowning even more.

And then I let go.

I stop trying to understand.

“Okay, okay, then, fine.  So what do I do about all of this then?  How do I help Suse?”

“Just love her.  With the palms of your hands, that is where your healing is.  That is why you are a doctor.”  The chill goes once again.  I haven’t told her that.  “You know the body, but you are a healer as well.  And you can heal her.  With your hands.  You’re a sensitive.”

* * * * *

I walk out of the garage forty minutes later, and see Suse sitting there, reading a magazine.  She looks up, and smiles as our eyes connect.

We say goodbye, both of us in a bit of a daze.

As we walk to the car, I ask her:

“How much of that stuff did you tell her?”

“None of it.”

“Did you tell her I was a doctor?”

“Nope.”

“The skirting boards in the house?”

“What about them?’

“Did you mention them?  The colour?”

“Nope.  She got it all before I could say anything.”

* * * * *

We light the candles, surrounding them in a ring of salt.  I spread salt across the front door step, whispering some words about only allowing goodness and light into the house, and banishing black energy, just like I’d been told.  I feel self conscious as I do, hoping there is no one walking past outside.

I close the door, and turn to sit.  Suse and I sit by the candles.  And then we each say our peace.  About our intention for our family.  And that this is done in honour of our family, and the love that we have for the creation of that.

It is a ritual, on this, my thirty-fifth birthday.  On a day, when – completely out of the blue, without any manipulation by us – we are given a reading, by a woman who knows more about our skirting boards than we do.

Through all of this, through all of the inexplicable shit that has happened in this house, in this past year, I’ve been happy to do whatever it takes to have our family.  Shit, we’ll fork out thousands of dollars for IVF, so why wouldn’t we burn a three-dollar candle and sprinkle a pinch of salt?  We’ve been looking at saliva and temperature charts for more time than I care to remember.  And that’s supposed to be the science?

Science, I think it’s fair to say, has let us down to this point.

I’m open to whatever.  If it helps us get pregnant, then shit, I’m wide open.

We leave the house, closing the door gently, so as not to blow out the candle.  It sits on the tiles, in the middle of the living area, slowly burning to the base.  And then, as the story goes, the negative energy that has been left behind will be gone from our home.

As we walk, Suse and I huddle into each other against the chill of the night as we head around the corner to our local pub, for my birthday dinner.

I just hope the house doesn’t burn down tonight.

That would be really bad energy.

* * * * *

Saturday 1st May 2010

Gestation: 31 weeks, 1 day

One year ago.

 

Suse and I resolve to get counselling.  It’s the logical thing to do, and yet my wounded ego sees it as yet another sign of failure.

We limp along like soldiers with gangrene, holding each other up as we trudge through thick mud.  We’re not quite sure where we’re going, the bandages obscuring our view;  an amputation of some sort feels inevitable.

It feels like there is no cure for what we have.

But there is.

There has to be.

* * * * *

Friday 8th January 2010

Gestation: 15 weeks

One year ago.

Terry walks down the aisle.

Under one arm, he holds a coffin.  It is white, and about twice the size of a shoebox.  It has polished silver handles, but there is little need for them.  It fits snugly into the crook of his armpit, wrapped in place by his massive forearm.

He is dressed in a red shirt with gold stitching; celebration colours.  For here, today, we are celebrating the life – the very short life – of Val.

Val is short for Valiant.

* * * * *

Val was born at twenty-three weeks gestation.  He had a brief, but courageous life, lasting two hours in his parent’s arms.  He should never have been born this early.  And having been dealt this hand, should never have lived even more than a few minutes.  At twenty-three weeks, a baby’s lungs are so underdeveloped that usually there is very little ability to breathe.  There is just not enough lung tissue to stay alive.

Five days ago, I missed a call.

“Hello, Mark,” Terry whispered into my voicemail, his voice beginning to crack.  “Kim went into labour, and… and they couldn’t stop it.  Our little boy was born just now, and they said he is…”  There is a pause.  “But he’s still breathing, you know?  Fighting.  And… and… I just don’t know what to do.”

Terry took a big breath, a long silence ensuing.

“I just thought…”  Another long pause.  “I don’t know what I thought.  I just… I don’t know what to do,” he repeats.  “And I thought… that you… might be able… to do something,” he finished, his voice fading as he hung up.

I rang back as soon as I heard the message.  It was nearly fifteen minutes later.

“Hey, Terry,” I said.

“Hello, mate,” he replied, his voice empty.  “I don’t know why I called you.”

“I do, Terry.  And I’m glad you did.”

Through the end of the phone, I heard Terry begin to cry.  This 220-pound Goliath, an ex-Novocastrian, broke down.  I sat there listening, my own lip beginning to quiver.

“I just… I don’t know what to do.”

“I know mate,” I said.  “Well, not like this, I don’t,” I continued softly.  “But I know what it is to feel helpless.”

* * * * *

Terry continues to walk down the aisle, the coffin tucked under his left arm.  Kim walks just behind, her hand lightly touching the lid as they go.  There is barely a bump to be seen in her belly, her other hand resting lightly over it;  as if to ease the ache.

Her eyes are vacant.  She’s retreated some place.  To a place of strength and reserve;  to make it through the service.  But it is a place of separation, too.  She is with us in body, but even now, she is in shadow.

Just minutes ago, Kim spoke with amazing courage and beauty, about her little boy who had left.  As did Terry.

In this:  undoubtedly, unequivocally, the most painfully moving funeral that I have ever attended.

I look across at Suse.  Her eyes are fixed on the couple.  On all three of them, really, as they continue their slow funeral procession.  Tears stream freely down her cheeks, unnoticed.

I grip her hand tight, but she does not avert her gaze.

I turn back, and I take it in.  With Terry in red, and the coffin in white, the scene merges from rich colour, to shade, and then into Kim’s translucent complexion.  Almost invisible.

And then it happens.

Terry stops, and his face screws up in agony.  His entire body bobs, his eyes clenching tight.  He brings his free hand to his face.  Kim stands there, her mask remaining flat, still, watching.  Silently, this huge man begins to walk once again.  In his celebration shirt, his face crumpled like paper, his own tears now spilling like everyone else in the chapel.

All the while, continuing to hold an impossibly beautiful coffin under his left arm.

Such sorrow.

I’ve never seen anything like it.

Nothing ever quite like it.

And I hope to never again.

* * * * *