Mum is not alone in the coffin.
Two black and white, hazy pictures are tucked between her hands and chest. Two black and white, obscure forms caught floating in utero. They’re hard to make out, as scan pictures are at seven weeks. You can see some tiny limbs and bodies with disproportionately large heads.
I need them to go with her, to lay down this dream and pick up a new one. I’ve lived with loss for too long. A perpetual cycle of life and death that I can’t escape from. I’ve spent nine years trapped here; unable to disentangle myself from an invasive, uncontrollable obsession.
I’m exhausted. The hope, then loss, of these two tiny babies nearly broke me. And now to lose her too. I’m at the end of myself.
I need a new story.
The vicar is at the front reading something about love and loss, but she’s out of focus and I don’t absorb what she’s saying. She sounds submerged. The only thing I see with clarity is the wicker coffin.
It looks small from this angle. Adorned with a simple thistle bouquet. She loved thistles. They made her think of wild, rugged Scottish coastlines. It’s why we’re all in blue, not black. Auntie Margaret even dyed her hair blue. A nod to the wild thistles. A nod to her.
My senses are on mute; blurred, softened, dimmed. I don’t feel like I’m in my body and it feels good. I’m still. Everything is momentarily paused. And the stillness is seeping into me; peace pervading my body. In this moment I’m cocooned, everything is held and it feels ok.
I feel ok.
It will be ok.
I’m surprised by this feeling. It’s a bit like hope, but it’s non-specific. Unfocused hope. I want to stay here.
But then I’m back as quickly as I left. The vicar is committing Mum’s body. “Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.” She’s softly spoken, but it resounds, summoning me back to reality.
Everything is acute and loud, hard and harsh. Even the small things feel exaggerated. My pelvic bone weighs uncomfortably on the pew. I hear Jeremy’s steady, slow exhale next to me. I see the dust in the air, illuminated by a shaft of light intruding through a high window. I taste salt in my dry mouth. I smell the musty aroma of furniture polish. (It smells of death in here).
I want to put my hands over my ears and close my eyes to block it out like an overstimulated child. I’m trying to hold myself together, but in stark contrast to the stillness I felt a moment ago my body feels like it’s screaming.
I want to fling myself on the floor and wail. I wish we weren’t so British. Right now I just want to sob.
Undignified. Unreserved.
But I don’t. I contain it all. I’m back in my body and it hurts.
The heavy red curtain opens and the coffin rolls away, awkwardly. It’s meant to be smooth but it’s jerky and cumbersome, as though she wants to go, but we don’t want her to. Then the curtain closes and that’s it.
She’s gone.
I’m motherless. And childless.
No mother, and not a mother. Caught in a space I don’t want to be in.
We file out in silence. Blinking and shielding our faces as the bright April sun forces its way into our pupils. I feel Jeremy slip his arm around my waist.
“Ok?” he whispers.
He knows I’m not. I know I’m not. But I will be.
I still have hope. I just need to find a focus for it.