Unintentional Poet

September contains, in quick succession, the anniversary of my sister's death, closely followed by my niece's birthday.  This year inspired me to write a poem, kind of commemorating both.  Making my niece a cake has been a painful privilege each year - I'm glad I could do it for her, whilst, at the same time, it underlines, afresh, the missing person who would make it for her, before.  This year I didn't actually make the cake, as her Daddy has become a cake-master, but, for poetic licence in the poem, I did!   Anyway...here is the poem.  Enjoy...I think! The Birthday Cake Mummy made me a cake, once, in the shape of a dinosaur.   Its long, fondant-icing neck, stretched to the edge of the board, bulbous and pink.   She had tears in her eyes, as she carried it in. The adults exchanged glances. One guffawed. Mummy giggled.   I wasn’t sure why, but I think they liked the cake very much and were proud of M...

After our daughter Grace was stillborn, at 25 weeks of pregnancy, a midwife came to visit to check how we were doing.  I told her of our plans, for me to take the “maternity leave” that I was still entitled to, to spend time with our son, then 19 months.  Her reply took me aback – “I know it might not feel that way, but consider that time Grace’s gift to you,” she said.  Truthfully, I wanted to poke her in the eye at the time, finding it impossible to see any good in the loss we had just experienced. Over the years, though, as the jagged edges of grief have softened and healed, I understand more, now, what she meant.   Losing Grace was one of the hardest things I have been through – but, ten years on, I can see that she has left many gifts for us in her wake.   I had a year, enjoying time with Ben, before Samuel came along.   I have a wonderful, second son, our rainbow baby who followed Grace here.   Her loss has enabled me to connect so much...

I wanted to write something for Bec’s anniversary.   Something moving and thoughtful and profound to commemorate her in a fitting way.   Something epic to reflect the enormity of the gap she has left.   Something comic to represent the humour she always brought to a situation. But my heart won’t let me, this year.   My fingers can’t type all the thoughts in my head.   My heart can’t withstand the tsunami of emotion that breaks if I try to form words and sentences in poetry or prose. I want to write her a letter, a poem, a song, an article about surviving grief, a reflection on being the only one left now, with no sibling to recall our shared history.   But I can’t.   Not now.   Not this year. All I can do is look through photographs and smile and cry and remember what we had and regret what we don’t have now.   All I can do is try to join the dots and connect some of the jigsaw puzzle pieces that fall between the photographs. ...

“I accidentally wrote a sonnet,” I told my husband, when he returned from the swimming run last night.   He laughed, understandably.   I hadn’t set out to write anything that evening – he had taken both boys swimming and I was supposed to be sorting washing, hoovering the house, getting things sorted for the working week ahead.   But I sat down, first, to read some sonnets a writer friend had sent through – and there it was – inspiration struck! I haven’t written much about grief for a while.   Partly, I think, because it isn’t so raw now, so emotions don’t pour from the pen so readily.   There is, though, still so much I want to write about it – but I often don’t know where to start, or, scarier still, if I start, where it will end. This is where the sonnet form came into its own.   The rhyme, rhythm and structural limits felt like they gave me the relative safety to explore some of my thoughts, whilst, at the same time, constraining them....

If you follow my blog, you will know that we lost my sister seventeen months ago, when my nephew was just seven months old.  Today, he turns two and is a whirlwind of fun and love.  He has forced us all to keep going through some really tough times, as, too, has his big sister.  My sister would be so proud of them both.  I wanted to write a poem to celebrate him - and her continued presence in his life. Today, You Are Two Today, you are two.    I have watched you grow,    As babies do,  And marvelled,   At your perfect, quizzical face,  At your soft cheeks,  Dimpling,   As you smile   And run away,    Whenever I stoop To ask you For a hug. Every time, I catch you and you giggle. You place your head, On my shoulder, For the briefest of moments; I breathe you in - A privilege, a delight. In an instant, You are off again, Laughing and whirling; You sho...

Those among you kind enough to have stuck with reading my blog over the years, will know that I like to write something, every year, to commemorate the birthday of Grace, our tiny girl, who didn't make it into this world, as she should have done. You can read previous years' posts here , here , here  and here if you want to! This year, I've experimented with a different form of writing, not with the aim of eliciting sympathy from everyone who reads, but more to show the long term impact of this sort of loss. I think those of us who have lost babies can sometimes minimise our own pain, playing it down, because we never really 'met' our babies, or knew them. But the trauma is real and the pain long-lasting. Everything I've written is real and true, although I've framed it in the form of a story. I hope it provides a bit of an insight into the long journey to healing that baby loss involves.   Nine years on, it's different again. I'm grateful...