But I hadn’t been able to imagine the grief of losing a baby. Not until it had happened to me. Not until it had happened to me twice.
And the funny thing is that in ways, it’s similar to the other losses. I felt as lonely, rejected and humiliated as if I’d been dumped – lonely for the person I’d never get to know, rejected because they didn’t want to stay in my body and humiliated by my very defectiveness. And I also felt shock, grief and weirdness, like someone had died. But there was an extra dimension to my sadness, something that went to the very essence of my humanness. I had wanted a child, and the longing was as visceral and inexplicable as hunger.
Throughout it all, it was as though a pane of glass separated me from the rest of the human race, so isolated was I. I felt almost no one could understand the exact nature of my pain. Those who’d miscarried would – although I didn’t know anyone – and those who were unsuccessfully ‘trying’ for a baby, and maybe some people who’d already had children would. But the vast majority wouldn’t get it. I intuited that, because for a long time I’d thought the way they did.
The one person who truly shared my loss was the one person I could barely look in the eye – Garv. Having to go through it all with him made it worse and I couldn’t figure out why. Until I realized that I couldn’t stop thinking about something that had happened when I was about twenty: a child from the neighbourhood had run out from between two parked cars and been knocked down and killed by a motorist who hadn’t had a hope of stopping in time. The parents of the dead boy were devastated, of course, but there was also a lot of sympathy for the man who’d been driving. I overheard several people say, ‘My heart goes out to the driver – the poor man, what he must be going through.’
Well, I was the same as the driver. I was responsible for Garv’s grief – it was my fault, and it was horrible living with it.
But Garv coped a lot better than I did. In the fortnight after the miscarriage he kept the household running, monitoring my visitors, replacing my Mother and Baby magazines with Vanity Fair, and ensuring I ate. I flailed around, failing to reclaim normality, and refused to talk about what had happened. I couldn’t even use the word ‘miscarriage’ – when anyone started on about it, I interrupted and called it a ‘setback’. And when they said, ‘OΚ, setback,’ and continued trying to probe me, I’d say, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ I was so resistant that even the most dedicated of friends kind of gave up.
Then someone came up with the idea that Garv and I should go on holiday. All of a sudden, everyone was in agreement that a holiday was a great idea, and it felt like everywhere we turned there was another spooky face intoning, ‘It’ll dooo yooou the world of gooood.’ Or A few days lying by a pooool reading a crappy booook and you won’t knoooow yoooourself.’ It was like a horror film. ‘You yourself were conceived on holiday, Margaret,’ Mum said, accompanying this information with a wink and a disconcerting leer. ‘Don’t tell us, for God’s sake, don’t tell us,’ Helen begged.
In the end, Garv and I felt we’d no choice. I had no energy to resist everyone’s urgings and the idea of staving off real life for another week was too tempting to resist.
So off we went to a resort in St Lucia, spurred on by visions of silvery palm trees, powder-white sand, hot yellow sun and goldfish-bowl-sized cocktails. Only to discover that three days before we’d arrived, they’d had a hurricane – even though it wasn’t the hurricane season – and their beach had fallen into the sea, along with most of their palm trees. Not only that, but my bag, crammed with gorgeous, newly purchased beachwear, never turned up on the airport carousel. Salt was rubbed vigorously into the wounds by the JCBs which commenced work rebuilding the beach every morning at seven a.m. outside our window. And the icing on the cake was the fact that it pelted rain, and no, it wasn’t the rainy season either.
But the cherry right on the very top of the icing on the cake was the attitude the hotel staff took to my missing bag. No matter how hard I tried to convince them that I wanted my stuff urgently, it didn’t seem to cut any mustard. Every morning and every evening Garv and I made enquiries as to its where-abouts, but nobody could ever give us any hard information.
‘They’re so laid back here,’ I complained.
‘Laid back?’ Garv said grimly. ‘They make the Irish look as hard-working and efficient as the Japanese.’
On the fifth day, it all came to a head when we showed up, once again, at the front desk. Even though we’d gone through the whole missing-bag thing with Floyd every morning for the previous four days, Garv had to explain it all afresh to him.
Unconvincingly, Floyd pressed a couple of keys on his keyboard and looked at his screen. I twisted my head trying to get a look at it, because I harboured a suspicion that the computer wasn’t even switched on.
‘Be comin’ tomorrow,’ he drawled.
‘But you said that yesterday,’ my jaw was clenched, ‘and the day before.’ I thought of Garv having to wash my T-shirt and shorts in the handbasin again tonight and me having to put them on damp in the morning and be laughed at by the other well-dressed girls there. Then I thought of my bag, filled with jewel-coloured bikinis, flower-splashed sundresses and, worst of all, my new unworn sandals, and I became a little hysterical. Even now, when I think of those sandals my gut twists with pain. Not because I’m a shoe junkie – my first love has always been handbags, really – but because Garv went to so much trouble to get them for me. I’d seen them in a shop in town the week before we’d come away. I’d even tried them on and was all set to buy them when into the shop came a woman with a baby. It was tiny, clearly a newborn, its delicate eyelids fluttering with sleep, its marshmallow hands curled into fists.
I had to leave. I’m not exaggerating, I had to leave, or I would have lost it and started crying again – and once I started I found it very hard to stop.
At home, I collapsed on Garv. ‘It wasn’t just the baby,’ I said. ‘I know it’s stupid, but it was the sandals too. They were perfect, they would have gone with everything. And I left them… ‘I hovered on the brink of a great crying torrent.
‘I’ll get them for you,’ Garv offered, and a muscle leapt rhythmically in his jaw. ‘Where were they?’
And the funny thing is that in ways, it’s similar to the other losses. I felt as lonely, rejected and humiliated as if I’d been dumped – lonely for the person I’d never get to know, rejected because they didn’t want to stay in my body and humiliated by my very defectiveness. And I also felt shock, grief and weirdness, like someone had died. But there was an extra dimension to my sadness, something that went to the very essence of my humanness. I had wanted a child, and the longing was as visceral and inexplicable as hunger.
Throughout it all, it was as though a pane of glass separated me from the rest of the human race, so isolated was I. I felt almost no one could understand the exact nature of my pain. Those who’d miscarried would – although I didn’t know anyone – and those who were unsuccessfully ‘trying’ for a baby, and maybe some people who’d already had children would. But the vast majority wouldn’t get it. I intuited that, because for a long time I’d thought the way they did.
The one person who truly shared my loss was the one person I could barely look in the eye – Garv. Having to go through it all with him made it worse and I couldn’t figure out why. Until I realized that I couldn’t stop thinking about something that had happened when I was about twenty: a child from the neighbourhood had run out from between two parked cars and been knocked down and killed by a motorist who hadn’t had a hope of stopping in time. The parents of the dead boy were devastated, of course, but there was also a lot of sympathy for the man who’d been driving. I overheard several people say, ‘My heart goes out to the driver – the poor man, what he must be going through.’
Well, I was the same as the driver. I was responsible for Garv’s grief – it was my fault, and it was horrible living with it.
But Garv coped a lot better than I did. In the fortnight after the miscarriage he kept the household running, monitoring my visitors, replacing my Mother and Baby magazines with Vanity Fair, and ensuring I ate. I flailed around, failing to reclaim normality, and refused to talk about what had happened. I couldn’t even use the word ‘miscarriage’ – when anyone started on about it, I interrupted and called it a ‘setback’. And when they said, ‘OΚ, setback,’ and continued trying to probe me, I’d say, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ I was so resistant that even the most dedicated of friends kind of gave up.
Then someone came up with the idea that Garv and I should go on holiday. All of a sudden, everyone was in agreement that a holiday was a great idea, and it felt like everywhere we turned there was another spooky face intoning, ‘It’ll dooo yooou the world of gooood.’ Or A few days lying by a pooool reading a crappy booook and you won’t knoooow yoooourself.’ It was like a horror film. ‘You yourself were conceived on holiday, Margaret,’ Mum said, accompanying this information with a wink and a disconcerting leer. ‘Don’t tell us, for God’s sake, don’t tell us,’ Helen begged.
In the end, Garv and I felt we’d no choice. I had no energy to resist everyone’s urgings and the idea of staving off real life for another week was too tempting to resist.
So off we went to a resort in St Lucia, spurred on by visions of silvery palm trees, powder-white sand, hot yellow sun and goldfish-bowl-sized cocktails. Only to discover that three days before we’d arrived, they’d had a hurricane – even though it wasn’t the hurricane season – and their beach had fallen into the sea, along with most of their palm trees. Not only that, but my bag, crammed with gorgeous, newly purchased beachwear, never turned up on the airport carousel. Salt was rubbed vigorously into the wounds by the JCBs which commenced work rebuilding the beach every morning at seven a.m. outside our window. And the icing on the cake was the fact that it pelted rain, and no, it wasn’t the rainy season either.
But the cherry right on the very top of the icing on the cake was the attitude the hotel staff took to my missing bag. No matter how hard I tried to convince them that I wanted my stuff urgently, it didn’t seem to cut any mustard. Every morning and every evening Garv and I made enquiries as to its where-abouts, but nobody could ever give us any hard information.
‘They’re so laid back here,’ I complained.
‘Laid back?’ Garv said grimly. ‘They make the Irish look as hard-working and efficient as the Japanese.’
On the fifth day, it all came to a head when we showed up, once again, at the front desk. Even though we’d gone through the whole missing-bag thing with Floyd every morning for the previous four days, Garv had to explain it all afresh to him.
Unconvincingly, Floyd pressed a couple of keys on his keyboard and looked at his screen. I twisted my head trying to get a look at it, because I harboured a suspicion that the computer wasn’t even switched on.
‘Be comin’ tomorrow,’ he drawled.
‘But you said that yesterday,’ my jaw was clenched, ‘and the day before.’ I thought of Garv having to wash my T-shirt and shorts in the handbasin again tonight and me having to put them on damp in the morning and be laughed at by the other well-dressed girls there. Then I thought of my bag, filled with jewel-coloured bikinis, flower-splashed sundresses and, worst of all, my new unworn sandals, and I became a little hysterical. Even now, when I think of those sandals my gut twists with pain. Not because I’m a shoe junkie – my first love has always been handbags, really – but because Garv went to so much trouble to get them for me. I’d seen them in a shop in town the week before we’d come away. I’d even tried them on and was all set to buy them when into the shop came a woman with a baby. It was tiny, clearly a newborn, its delicate eyelids fluttering with sleep, its marshmallow hands curled into fists.
I had to leave. I’m not exaggerating, I had to leave, or I would have lost it and started crying again – and once I started I found it very hard to stop.
At home, I collapsed on Garv. ‘It wasn’t just the baby,’ I said. ‘I know it’s stupid, but it was the sandals too. They were perfect, they would have gone with everything. And I left them… ‘I hovered on the brink of a great crying torrent.
‘I’ll get them for you,’ Garv offered, and a muscle leapt rhythmically in his jaw. ‘Where were they?’
