Let me tell you about my fabulous few days with Angèle last week. We cleared out and cleaned the cellar, a shed, sorted and tidied William's cupboards and chest of drawers (two drawers out of three of his clothes packed away - that was tough). We did numerous trips to the tip and to Emmaüs to donate things. We also had a fantastic evening on Wednesday when we had our monthly Anglo-group Girls' Night here at my house in order to raise a glass to William in William's Garden. He waved his wand again on this evening and produced for us the most amazing double rainbow.
Angèle was fabulous; she motivated me, inspired me and kept me very busy! We had a fantastic few days together. She totally gets it. I love her to bits. Oh, and the new idea that my friend Isabelle suggested and that Angèle and I love the sound of is to try and do Chambre d'Hôte (bed and breakfast) using my spare room and the attached lounge! We already have a sprung sofa bed in the lounge, so we have a ready-made suite for a couple or a family, with an en-suite shower-room and UK TV. All I need to do is paint the lounge (we had it plastered at the beginning of the summer and haven't painted it yet), put the curtain rails and curtains up and hang a lockable door on the entrance from the hall. There are French doors with their own lock to the front, so guests would have their own access. We have secure parking with a beep to open the electric gate. What more could you ask for? So that's a new mission. Keep 'em coming I say.
What doesn't break us, makes us stronger. My new personal motto. Off for dinner at a friend's house now. Put the mask on again. Smile the rictus smile - it works! You have to try - put it on and some of it wears off for real! I have worn my smile recently and found it actually became real as time went on.
Progress,
n'est-ce pas?
So from here is an update on what I've been doing this week. Yesterday Olivier and I joined forces to go and do something very difficult. It was our 'post-losing-a-child' meeting at the hospital, three months after William died. The meeting was held with one of the doctors who treated William, as well as the hospital psychologist allocated to dealing with parents in these situations. We were 25 minutes late going in and we both almost left - the wait was unbearable. To be in the same hospital where William died; the smells, sounds, even the sight of the metal-barred cots with high sides that he'd been in the year before after his fit (by the way, it was exactly a year to the same few days that William had his fit as when he drowned) had me fighting back tears. But suddenly we were in the consultation room (double doors for extra privacy which I found odd - when I went to leave I was first at the door and when I opened it, there was just another door. I hadn't noticed at all going in.).
As you can imagine, the meeting took two directions: the clinical and the psychological. Our opportunity to ask any questions that may have come to us since the horror and the days of living in the fog. I thought I didn't have any questions, but found that actually, I had lots. Was an EEG the best way of telling that he definitely had no brain activity? Yes - it was pretty conclusive. Was the fact that he was a premature baby a factor in his death? (William had had an MRI the year before after his fit and the medical examinor had immediately stated 'oh, he was premature?' - apparently premature babies' brains are different and stay different, so they are immediately recognisable by neurologists). The answer to this question is quite simply that we will never know. The doctor told us that every case was so different and that sometimes children that had been submerged for a long time came through with no apparent harm at all, while others were irretrievable after only two minutes submersion or lack of oxygen. He said it's the same for babies at birth who suffer from lack of oxygen - some cope better than others and, for the moment, the medical world cannot find any link or common ground to tell us why.
Although these conversations were very difficult to have, I am glad we went. It did feel a little like a mini-closure. The hospital has now been done. William will never go back there and hopefully we won't either.
The other part of the meeting dealt with how we were coping 'since'. Apparently, three months is a timeframe where many parents are truly at their most distressed as they try and find new routines in life, having emerged from the hazy, foggy days where they have no short-term memory, and now try and return to their lives as best they can. To find their 'new normal'.
They were quite amazed, I think, at everything I have done to 'advance'. But that's me, I HAD to. I couldn't stay where I was, in the madness. Out of control. I had many setbacks after a small advance - one of my blogs was even titled 'Two steps forward and one step back is still one step forward'. It seemed to be that every time I fought to regain some control, some sanity, something would knock me right back again. But I fought on. Olivier even admitted that he thought my three month pit was actually around a month ago (that is, two months 'since'). I think I agree, although I did hit a new pit a couple of weeks ago. But that's grieving, folks. Just when you think you've grabbed that wretched black claw of grief and tied it up with string and tucked it safely away in your back pocket, it Houdinis out and torments you again.
In fact today was a hard one. I think I may have mentioned that I don't cry every day any more. That's a good thing. That's not to say I don't think about William all the time. I do. Today was tough because Izzy woke up in a funny mood - I'm sure she is a teenager in a 6-year old's body - she didn't want a cuddle, didn't want to wear the clothes we had chosen together the night before, slammed her bedroom door on me... sigh. I don't know why I still bother choosing her clothes every night as she always changes her mind (oh, for school uniform in France!). But I just let her get on with it now. As long as the outfit is weather-appropriate and she's not wearing her coral pink butterfly knickers under white leggings (she got teased in the playground about this!), who cares? It's just not important. So I am more patient in that respect. I think that is why we still choose the outfit before bed, just because it's another routine for Izzy (important) and something we do together.
Anyway, all the tantruming, and the light in the house, oddly enough, as it's darker in the mornings now, just made me feel the fact that William wasn't there incredibly deeply. I have these moments when I feel totally alone. I should say that Izzy and I have bonded immensely recently and are closer than ever, more cuddly than we have ever been. But when she has her moments (quite normal for a 6 year old - I'm the adult) I do occasionally touch on despair. Despair that I have no parental back-up (Olivier), no cuddle back-up (William) and that I have to make all the decisions now. So today was quite a tearful day. I spontaneously shed a few tears over breakfast, in the car on the way to school, when I got home again, and even later on when I had prepared the new chambre d'hôte living room and was finally painting it. The reason was as I said before, today I missed the presence of William immensely, I couldn't shake off the feeling that he just wasn't there and should have been.
I still catch myself picking things up off the floor so he doesn't put them in his mouth. I check my watch in the middle of the afternoon to see if he'll be waking up from his nap. I often quite simply catch myself wondering where he is. It's a horrible moment as in the same instant I know he's gone and I'l never see him again. But you can't just erase the hard-wired mothering instincts that have grown and evolved with each child on a separate plane, just like that. Even these take their time to slowly dissipate.
I am on my own tonight as it's Tuesday and Izzy is with her dad on Tuesday nights and Wednesdays. I really need to start planning things for Tuesdays as I hate them. I hate being in this house on my own. No noisy kids running around and playing, no Olivier watching the news in the other room... Just me. Trying to find something to do to occupy my brain. Next Tuesday I have a dinner planned with two French girlfriends that I haven't really seen since everything happened (the two mummies from the families we attempted our holiday with); partly because I seem to have extricated myself from Olivier's world and they were originally Olivier's circle, partly because it is still so hard not to be jealous of people who still have two children, especially a girl and a boy. But let me just say, this is another advance for me - I am ready to see them. They are both fabulous girls, have both kept it touch assiduously over the last few months and it will be an adult-only evening, so I am much looking forward to it.
One last thing, I have another visitor due. A friend that I have known since I was 17 and who has been my friend through thick and thin. Sean arrives next Thursday for an almost two week stay, ostensibly to provide some company for me and for me to avail myself of his building skills for jobs around the house, as well as testing out the hopefully by-then-ready chambre d'hôte guest suite! I can't wait - he will be an excellent tonic!
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