A Remembrance Day to remember
Sunday, November 13, 2011 at 01:01AM Last Friday our youngest turned 18. I have no idea what lies ahead, but all weekend I have been basking in the knowledge that they are launched, our lot.
She took longer to be born than we expected.
My first labour went on for 36 torrid hours, including a midnight ambulance dash through blinding rain from our tiny town to Wodonga where an obstetrician intervened vigorously to get our baby out.
Second labour was pretty routine. Which means, for those who haven’t been through it, that it was akin to medieval torture but at least it only went on for ten hours.
Third labour was brutal and intense and so fast the father missed the birth. So we thought, logically enough, the fourth would be a breeze. But like her sister, she was posterior – turned around the wrong way, her face to my front – and she was stuck. All through the night of the 10th and the long Remembrance Day to follow, I sat in hospital trying to take in televised military ceremonies as the contractions stopped and started and then came with a vengeance but achieved nothing. When at teatime the doctor pronounced me a pathetic three centimeters dilated, I wanted very badly to die.
Suddenly then, I was compelled to push. Our baby had quietly turned herself around in there, and out she came, alive and whole, perfect and already loved.
I think of this sometimes when tough things go on and on with no perceptible change. I always expect things to get better in an even, predictable fashion, with progress you can measure, like one of those giant thermometers that indicates how much money has been raised for a new kindergarten. In fact, that seldom seems to be the case with the big stuff.
When I had a bad few years of depression in my thirties, I did a lot of painful work and felt as though I was getting nowhere for a long time. The invisible revolution must have been going on inside though, because quite suddenly, something big shifted and colour and joy returned to my life.
This same beloved baby number four who comes of age this week has given us an interesting ride. (And yes, I have asked her permission to post this.) Nothing compared to what some families go through with their teenagers, but just attitude, attitude, attitude, until I thought sometimes I would die of exhaustion.
This stage – no big dramas but relentless small, difficult ways of behaving – can go on for years. It feels as though it will never change. You have a little break-through and think you’ve turned the corner, and then everything goes back to exactly how it was before.
Then suddenly, when you wonder how much more of this you can take, your moody teenager drops out of school, where she’s never been happy, and becomes a different girl. The fights almost stop. She starts to take responsibility. She gets a job, saves money, makes plans. She helps around the place. Better still, she hangs around the place, chatting to her oldies for hours. She is affectionate and affirming.
This week I look back over her lifetime. Remembering the labour which suddenly came right as she turned herself and braved the world. Thinking of all the years between then and now, as I have grown older and she has grown up into this beautiful, funny, creative, loving young woman. I try and capture something of the gratitude I feel for her. But, wordsmith and all as I am, there are no adequate words. Just this paltry attempt to capture the wild ride we’ve been on, and the hope for her presence in my life for as long as I’m around.
Reader Comments (4)
Wonderful post Clare, so glad you have decided to keep going with the blog.
Little hug
Tricia
Thanks for such a gutsy post Clare. There is something clean and fresh in your blogs that is in marked contrast to so much other writing with its self-serving spin and posturing. Yours is an example of truly human communication - the sharing of a self in vulnerability. Keep it up, it encourages me and many others I'm sure.
Thanks for a lovely weekend celebration, and for bringing a beautiful little sister into the world for me!
Wonderful Clare. So searing and honest.
Like you, I have four children - three girls, one boy. And I will admit my middle daughter was "challenging". Through her teenage years, she was the brightest in her class, a sportswoman par excellence and popular with her peers. But also headstrong, Little Miss Right (about everything)! A wonderful blessing to the whole family. And my greatest moment of mirth - when she counselled me to 'set boundaries' for our teenage son!!