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Ode to my Daughter
When my daughter was six months old and my son three and a half years, I went back to working a 60-70 hour week. On top of an unnatural level of guilt I was already experiencing (later to be diagnosed as post-natal depression), this took its toll. The following was written at 3am one morning, when my daughter was coughing relentlessly and I knew I would not be able to take the day off with her, but would have to drive to work against her protests and her streaming tears. I can honestly say that life has never felt so unnatural and cruel, in spite
It made me think about how unnatural modern life was – women are now trained to be career-focused, but when those babies come along, they fundamentally change our very being. I thought back on the difficult moments of my childhood: being ignored by yesterday’s best friend, the anxiety of English literature exams and exam halls, broken relationships – and then realised how my mother was present, guiding me through every one of them. Suddenly, life felt even more unjust, when I realised, at the
A year later, I changed my life. I went part-time. And the PND is lifting, slowly. But when I reread this poem, I feel the grief in my chest return and thank my lucky stars, my husband and mother, for enabling me to take the plunge and reduce my hours.
As a mother, you must listen to those aches and groans and do what is best for your family. You know, above all others, how to fix it.
Why is life so tough?
My friends are friends
But tomorrow I’m
Alone, left for Laura or Paula
And their shinier homes.
Their eyes are cold, rough, their
Dismissive glance enough to
Send me home with tears caught
On the edge of a precipice.
Life can be tough.
Why is life so cold?
I open up a book, stay there
Until those words, written
With a heart and soul
Of someone made old
with grief, cannot come
Unstuck. I carry them to a hollow
room full of only chairs and stares and
Those ”invigilator looks” that look
Like clocks, tockless and old.
Clocks that are
Life can be cold.
Why is life untrue?
Months, years you may
entrust your life to a stranger
who tempts your
Mind astray, alters the very
Heart of your being,
And then one day, like a pappus
Of fine hairs, pwwwf, it’s just you,
Learning again the truth. Who are
You? Life can be untrue.
Then one day it’s
no longer about you,
And your heart gives birth to
A new strength, whilst life
Is suddenly lighter.
And the things that
Once mattered
most matter least.
A child steals your sadness
and teaches you
cruel for the youth.
And the mother of the youth.
Why is life so cruel?
As I tiptoe round your room
And take a glance, a moment,
A chance to hear the soft whisper
Of your breath, I catch myself
Unguarded, wishing for you,
Not now, but in the morning,
When I smile my bravest smile
And turn my head away from
You and break through a wall
Of guilt as fierce as my fear and
My fight for you. And as I drive away
Your tears follow me, and join
The welling at the precipice which
Will not hold our
Fall, fall, fall until the ache, the grief
Resting in the centre of my chest
Groans and creaks under the weight
Of my sorrow. I grieve for you
And the moments I will miss
When your friends dismiss you,
And exams get the better of you,
And your partner ain’t bloody
good enough for you.
The times your baby cries for you.
I want not to be here
but there for you.
I promise you.
