SEEING YOU (2014)
It is funny that, when I close my eyes, I can still see your children; I can see them clearly and I can see their expressions and I know when they are laughing and making jokes.
I know when they are cross and don’t want me about and I know when they want to clamber over me and play with me and when they need their Mummy to cuddle into; into the warmest and safest of cuddles.
I hesitate because I haven’t turned my history with them into stories yet. I can’t quite shuffle a pack of cards and take one out and burst out smiling with a;
“Do you remember?”
But I almost can!
I think my best ever memory at the moment will be lunch time last week. It’s already a bit hazy but Charlotte pushed a knife near James’ plate and he said;
“Don’t push my knife!”
and she said;
“I didn’t”
Then, for the next ten minutes, they played pushing the knife and denying with blank faces that either of them had pushed it and, all the while, they were eating their lunch and there was so much laughter in the air.
We were giggling so much, we hadn‘t much air to breath and they were giggling with their eyes and playing this adult pretence that the under fives should have no right to understand.
And after that we were all making conversation composed of made up noises.
Before that we were in the garden and Charlotte was Queen Ailsa and you were the Bad Queen and I think James was the bad dog and I think I was the gnome. You did your bad Queen things and Charlotte magicked you to death, so you curled up on the decking. She rushed up and cuddled you and brought you to life and you said that you didn’t mean to be bad, you were just trapped in the spell. Then we all smiled and did it over again; you kept on dying and being brought back to life by love.
Then James and the rest of us were running round the waterlogged garden, with him giggling in that way of his; that way that says;
“This is the best, best thing ever to giggle about!”
Giggling as though he has never known what it is to cry or be sad or to doubt.
In the park, the day before; sitting under the pirate ship; steering away from the spider. Charlotte falling in the tarmac blue water; James twirling the wheel; lots of shouting and escaping and pointing.
And at the beach a few minutes later; by the golden sea, lit by the setting sun; throwing seaweed into the water, dropping shells in, collecting mussels for the bath bomb moulds, tracing patterns in the sand with long sticks, being magicked with impromptu wands. I think you turned into a frog and me into an orange!
I cannot think of a better weekend; just everything was so full on, so delightful, so crammed full of memories that I cannot remember from week to week what we have been doing.
Now you are upstairs and I have you all to me, all to me to cuddle, to talk to, to lie besides, to cook for, to tease and be teased by. I have made the sitting room tidy and I am delighted with the world; delighted to be in the warm room while you are comfy upstairs either reading Facebook or sleeping away.
Today has been a day of hand holding and laughing and adventures. It has been a day of joy; a day like a rosy faced snowball day, except without the snow, just the pale blue sky and the winter sun low in the sky.
Today’s memories are the beauty of pottering around and loving every moment, todays memories are everywhere and I am not going to write them all down just now, they are being with you and thinking;
“I cannot think of anything better,”
They are also thinking;
“I can see your children in my mind whenever I want but I cannot see my own son there anymore and it doesn’t matter in the way it once did. It doesn’t matter because I can sense joy around me and now wish to give that joy to everyone I know, despite that sorrow.”
(Photo: Autumn Leaves Helensburgh 10 2020)
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