#3.20 - Sacrifice

Ghin - one month old

She lay down beside her beautiful son. How gorgeous he was, his eyelashes creating a perfect crescent at the top of his cheek. How many, many hours had she gazed at him now, despite him only few a few days old. She could not stop being fascinated - how did she create this wonderful being. The bone, the skin, the perfectly formed minuscule nails, creases and folds - there was no how. Some intelligence had told her body and somehow, together, between angel and woman, this had come into being. Where there was nothing, now, there was more than something. There was a glowing seed, a lamp in the darkness.

I have very few pictures of Oisin as an infant
But here is literally what I have just been writing about

She slid her finger beneath his hand. Even as he slept, his fingers gently closed, grasping hers. The translucent nail, so fine that it was barely there. A slightly hardened piece of skin, let her see through to the flesh it protected beneath it, like a glass-bottomed boat. What wonders in those depths? She lifted her gaze to his forehead. There beneath the tideline of hair, so clean and still smelling of the amniotic fluid he swam in her womb, was his forehead. The eyebrows lifted briefly as he dreamt of something - what did babies dream about - and he inhaled shortly, his tiny breast rising and falling, stirring where he lay.

For you my son, I will lay down my life. I will gladly run into burning houses, lift cars, fight mad men, put myself between bullets and anger. For you my son, I would do anything. My darling boy, my shining star. My dream of beauty made real. More beautiful than I could have ever hoped. For you my son - everything.

She was, of course, beyond tired. No one ever told her how tiring babies would be. But maybe they did tell her, and she did not listen because how tired can tiring be? The labour was actually the easiest part - as horrible as labour was - but the relentless worry about how to do this - that was the REALLY tough bit. It seemed a bit odd that something so difficult and precious could be entrusted to someone who had never done this before. All the baby books she had read, the how to manuals, mostly disagreed with each other. And the people who were around her, giving advise is completely different from actually doing it. How did one carry a baby? Its strange warmth and wobbly body made it feel like handling a jellyfish in a plastic bag. One with eyes. Feeding it was hit and miss. Sometimes the milk would stay down, sometimes it would come up. She smelt of vomit and exhaustion, mostly.

Then there was the sleeping. She did not have one of those babies that 'slept through the night'. One of those babes who were 'so good for me'. When she went on to have another baby, they weren't very good as well. It was a deplorable phrase, was it not? 'So good for me?' as if the baby who did not sleep through the night, who cried every four hours, as babies should do, were being 'bad'. How did that make a mother feel when asked the question, 'Is he good for you?' It was a loaded spring. An undermining. Something which horrible, passive aggressive middle aged damaged women, who have cottonwool for brains, with their sly smiles and crooked eyes would say, ask me, 'Is he good for you?'

No, bitch. He is a baby. Who does not understand the concept of good nor bad. Are you asking me if he sleeps all day and then all night like a geriatric cat? Well if you are, the answer is no. He is a being which has just been expelled from the depths of the womb, the safest place in the world. So traumatic is the expulsion at birth that the most compelling myths have been created around it in the shape of the ejection from paradise. Deep within our primal memories is the horror of birth - the pain of the mother and the Hero's journey, the fight towards the light. So, if you are asking, if being in a strange new world, having to learn to breathe, learn to ingest, learn to expel is not not bewildering and taking its toll, then no, no he is not 'good for me', because he is trying to figure out without words and without thought and without communication what the fuck is going on. So, please, do not ask me that question again - in fact never EVER ask anyone that question at all.

No, he is not good - he is perfect.

Over the next few weeks, months, then years, she would walk alongside these boys. Learning lessons from them. She would suck the snot from their noses when on one night they couldn't breathe. She would wonder when their first tooth would arrive. She would sit, bleary eyed as she coaxed spoon after spoon into them. She would change then wash, wash then change them, relentlessly. Day after day, month after month. She would see that their shoes were now too tight. She place her lip against their foreheads, to check if they had a fever. She would read to them in bed and then fall asleep herself. She would go downstairs to fetch a glass of water. She would kiss them and tell them it would be alright when they bumped their heads, staunching blood and tears, saying it will be alright. She would have many, many adventures with them - clambering up rocks, trying new foods, holding moths, walking along the shore, stargazing... she would hug them closer and closer - see this, the world, see it. It is beautiful, it is yours. I stand between the world and you, creating the safe spaces and then opening the portals. I draw invisible boundaries, and make sure you find them.

I wonder and worry, I worry you watch too much TV, eat too much crap. I wish I was a better mother. One which didn't fall asleep in mid book, one which cooked beautiful organic wholesome meals every single day of the week. One which drank a little less at parties. One which has been able to give you an unbroken family. But, my sons, I have tried my very very best.

She sat, her eyes filled with years, twenty years later. Twenty years of pure giving. Until every ounce of herself was now gone... and still, she would continue to give.

Because twenty years ago, a child came into my life, and changed everything. Twenty years ago, the moment I held you in my arms, I fell in love and made a promise. And you never made me a promise. Never. You never promised me anything other than you would be you. That you would try to find your own path and I promised that I would try my best to help you. And here we are now - in the same place, in a different time.

Twenty years is not such a very long time. Not really. Not long at all, walking beside the both of you, here on our little planet, because from the moment you were here, you filled my universe with every conceivable star.

My sons, thank you