The dream
that
haunts me
The dream that haunts me is not Gothic or other-worldly.
I am holding you.
You are the age
that you are now.
I’m holding you
alive, silent.
Your face is beautiful
as it always is.
Your eyes guilty
like when you used to say
you had no homework
or you brought home a stray kitten
or your boyfriend needed money
cos he was goin to get beat up.
A stranger’s voice falters on the phone line
... your daughter ... driving … suicide
At the same instant,
I’m holding you,
for a moment.
Why didn't you talk to me?
“My patience, resolutions and beliefs are tested to the limits – sometimes daily.”*
Right at this moment one of my challenges is the constant, tuneless whistling from my elder son. When my boys were babies it was getting them to sleep or trying to figure out why they were crying. On any given day now, it might be squabbling, fighting, teasing, screaming, shouting or rudeness. Who’d be a parent? We might well question ourselves after the event, but we can’t very well put them back! Just how we find those inner resources, how we constantly demand more of ourselves, how we keep marching up that hill with a smile on our face and gladness in our heart at the sight of our ‘babies’ is one of life’s mysteries.
* © from Being Mummy by Anne‑marie Taplin published April 2007