loss – Victoria Firth

The Shape of Water

22nd September 2021

An extraordinary thing happened to me.

I was walking along the canal when I saw a duck dive so it was half submerged and half above water – bum up.

And in that split second I KNEW exactly how it felt. Not emotionally but kinaesthetically. I had a total experience of knowing it’s shape, how much it weighed, what it was like to touch and how it’s body felt in and out of the deep. It was one of those unexplainable moments.

Later I realised my lockdown projects of keeping (and so handling) chickens, wild swimming and trying to be in my own body were all ingredients of this withchery.

There is more.

My sister and I have decided to read all my mum’s books. My mum loved reading and always had a book in her hand, or splayed half open on the arm of the chair where she was sitting.

In holding a ‘mum book’ out in front of me I can see my own hands and also slip into another consciousness where I can simultaneously experience her hands and know the feel of them around this same book. Part of what I see is heredity but there is another Knowing of her shape and sense of touch that I can trace on top of, or under, my own.

Later I realised my experience of caring for my mum in her end of life journey meant I knew the intimacies of her body in a more tactile way than I ever had before. Her skin, her joints, the weight and texture of her landscapes – the physical act of caring bringing a tangibility to our continuing bond.

I wonder about the impact of a year, in which most people had no, or very little touch, on our embodied empathy. The collective context of the pandemic has lent itself to online sharing and temporary communities of individual experience – loss and grief have been real points of connection for me and many.

But I wonder about the physical body, the vessel that holds the heart and spiritual self, it’s potential for us to make connections beyond our busy everyday consciousness. The intimacy of this raw material that knows that you, a book, a bird, a hand, love, are all one in the universe.

The words ‘feeling’ and ‘touching’ have multiple meanings and that makes a new kind of sense as I realise anew that what I experience physically has a relationship with what I experience emotionally – even across space and time.

We all transfer, imagine and recreate touch we have felt.

We can feel the shape of water.

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#3 of 3 – Daring Greatly

29 May 2020

This spring I cared for my mum in the last days of her illness. I wrote several times during that period as a way to comfort myself. Here is the last of three blogs taken from some of that material. In sharing them I am mindful that not everyone is able to care for, or even see, their loved ones, especially in these challenging times; that not all caring relationships and indeed family relationships are the same; and that some of these thoughts might be painful to read – but I have benefited from finding connectivity and community around loss and learnt how to be around it from the openness of others and so I wanted to make an offer in that spirit and with love for all of our experiences.

In some literature and cultures it is believed that there are three deaths. The first is that of the body, the second is when the body is committed to its final resting, the third is when there is no one left to remember you or speak your name.

My mum wanted to be remembered and she often saw her grandchildren as her legacy. As her daughter without children it occurred to me that I might feel lacking in not being able to provide a legacy in accordance with her feelings and that I wanted to serve my mum’s legacy in my own right.

This wasn’t the only question to come out of my recent experience with regard to being childless. When I think about the care I was able to provide for my mum the question naturally arises who will do that for me? In a society where more and more people don’t have children or whose families are separated geographically there is some real thinking for us all to do on what the future of care for our elders looks like. But for me that’s for another day. Right now I’m trying to check in with myself about my legacy deficit.

And then I do and find to my surprise that I am alright about it. I am trying to reverse engineer why that might be. I’m sure some part of it is to do with the time I have spent assimilating my thoughts and experience of being childless but it’s not just that – I’ve got a scrapbook of other possibilities.

First, when I think about my mum wanting to be remembered I am not sure if she meant that she didn’t want to be forgotten and that’s not necessarily the same. Since she died I have encountered an outpouring of feeling and respect that revealed a woman bigger than just the one I knew. Yet despite her strong character she sometimes didn’t see the extraordinariness of what she achieved. In terms of distance travelled, my mum achieved a lot in her time especially for her time. Within the historical context for women and personal circumstances all her own, my mum came a long way – but I don’t know if her confidence matched her achievements. Maybe in wanting to be remembered she wanted to know that she was visible – that she mattered. I know she did and the distance I travel springs from her achievements so her legacy goes on. Ripples carry movement before and behind them.

I then realise lineage is often thought of directionally. From this, to that, in a single straight line. That just isn’t my experience of influence. Perhaps inspired by the role model of my mum’s strong character, even though it felt like it was to establish my individuality, I have sought out amazing family friends, mentors, colleagues and confidants of my own. The matrilineal influence that starts with the imprint of a parent and then becomes a community – is not a line it’s a web. So although children of my own could have been a certain kind of thread it is by no means the only way that I vibrate my, or my mothers energy, into the world. And not the only way hers was shared. We all spin in all directions.

I think about our ancestors, our collective consciousness and I think about trees. If one falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound? What is the remembrance of a tree? It could be in the preservation of it’s form in antique furniture much loved and passed down from one generation to the next. But it can also be it’s quiet degradation as it shelters then feeds a whole ecology. Or it can burn. It can be bonfires around which we sit and make memories or provide heat at the heart of our home. All different, all sacred.

I’ve found in these blogs how time and space are more than how we choose to organise them. Once we expand our notion of connection my mum has abundant legacy irrespective of my family circumstance and I see myself in that. I carry her continuing presence alongside my own. I show her things through my eyes.

Our longevity is as expansive as our imagination. So perhaps the only things to be concerned with are continuing to dare greatly and being a bit less English about expressing emotion and gratitude. Instead sharing the release of telling people – without waiting for an occasion. I see you, I love you, you matter. We will say your name.

Thank you for reading.

My name is Victoria. My mum’s name is Christine.

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#2 of 3 – The Art Of Caring

21 May 20

This spring I cared for my mum in the last days of her illness. I wrote several times during that period as a way to comfort myself. Here is the second of 3 blogs taken from some of that material. In sharing them I am mindful that not everyone is able to care for, or even see, their loved ones, especially in these challenging times; that not all caring relationships and indeed family relationships are the same; and that some of these thoughts might be painful to read – but I have benefited from finding connectivity and community around loss and learnt how to be around it from the openness of others and so I wanted to make an offer in that spirit and with love for all of our experiences.

THE ART OF CARING

Caring is not
pictures of holding hands
doves
still ponds
Or soft woollens.

It is physical and sweaty.
Full of impossible heart hurdles that you have to make possible.
Holding your sadness whilst not compromising any bit of available joy
and finding small wins that are always smaller and less frequent than the last ones.

It is fierce – fierce like a lioness
Leaping over your reaction to repugnant smells and sounds so you can stay close
Protective and exposed
to a part of someone’s body that you’ve always been conditioned to not see
– to go beyond your modesty and theirs.

And it’s tough – tough like a thick rope that will not give way not matter how frayed.
Encouraging someone to push when they can
trying to accept when they can’t.
Sometimes you think you know better
Sometimes they know better
Sometimes no-one knows why what worked today won’t work again tomorrow.

Caring is an alternate time
Slow, as you measure mouthfuls… and sips….. and breaths.
Fast in panic –
I want to know all of your story
I want you to know all of my story.
Agonising over not enough, or too late.

No, caring is a bear.
Intimate – like a lover
Finding the familiar shapes of dances, embraces, touches that might make movements easier to

I want to give you the best chance at this experience and transition.
I want to give myself the best chance at this experience and transition.
We are both doing something we have no idea we can do
-or how to do it.

It’s the comfort of being of service at the time when someone must, willing or not, entrust themselves to you.
I’m glad it was me.
And I’m glad of the others
territorialism collapsing into gratitude.

Caring is total
Every part of me is occupied with every part of you.
I am writing my novel – an invisible tome of observations
of what you need and how you work.

Washing – there’s a lot of washing.
(One of us is often in a half state of undress).

We cannot be frightened together
And we don’t want to talk about
-but finding a balance.
Helping you to understand what is happening with honesty
in truth is independence…

Not wanting you to go
Not wanting you to be in pain
Not wanting you to lose consciousness because then you will lose me too

Caring is selfless
A shell full of patience
from the ocean floor.

We are in a bubble.
Of ever decreasing circumference

Moving a living space, then a limb, then a lip

There is something restful in being this present.
Our small world of basic needs
Microscopic details
Yet my heart so big it is pressing against the ceiling of your room.

I am heroic – I am big enough to hold this.
I am a lost child – I don’t know what to do.

I wanted to capture everything, take photos, make imprints.
I don’t think it was hanging on
more awe that we are doing this
crafting it between us.
Giving and receiving our completely separate journeys in complete symbiosis.
This is our blood.
This is our art.

We paint it together.

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#1 of 3 – All The Stars Are In The Sky

14 May 2020

This spring I cared for my mum in the last days of her illness. I wrote several times during that period as a way to comfort myself. Here is the first of three blogs taken from some of that material. In sharing them I am mindful that not everyone is able to care for, or even see, their loved ones – especially in these challenging times; that not all caring relationships and indeed family relationships are the same; and that some of these thoughts might be painful to read – but I have benefited from finding connectivity and community in loss and learnt how to be around it from the openness of others and so I wanted to make an offer in that spirit and with love for all of our experiences.

ALL THE STARS ARE IN THE SKY

I have only seen one person die.

Been with them at that moment – or series of moments.

It was the father of a previous girlfriend. He was called Tony. She is called Jen.

We hadn’t been together long and so it was a rather rushed intimacy and polite social dynamic to be with her family at such a personal time.

I was so frightened. Frightened of not being useful or being socially awkward, frightened of seeing death, frightened of death, frightened of not being able to cope, frightened of making it all about me. I coached myself on the journey into each visit – to remember what mattered, to try and be a vehicle, a vessel for whatever the circumstance required.

I didn’t know at the time but I definitely did after, and every day since, what a gift and privilege it was. Such a sacred and precious life experience. I learnt things – all the small steps of someone slowing down. How looks change, how time changes. How a family can hold space for it. And that death can be peaceful and releasing.

After I felt euphoric – celebratory. So glad that I had made it through, that he had, that we had. He had taught us the last lesson a father can – how to die – and taught us well. It will forever be a blessing.

Now I sit with my mum as she slows.

Her eyes don’t open. Her mouth opens permanently but there are no words where I want them. But I am grateful for recognising the signals, having had an experience to give some familiarity to this unimaginable time in my life’s journey – and hers.

I think about Tony and ask that he will look after her if she needs it. Show her the way in ‘whatever next’ in the way he showed me on this side how to go. It is a comfort.

It reminds me of how much a gift that sharing was. That the thing I was terrified to be anywhere near – is actually so necessary to be a part of.

And even though Jen and I were only on the same path for a short time and have since found new relationships, I find a continuing connection from sharing that experience.

And even though they never met and knew nothing of each other, I now think of our parents being connected in this universal journey. Like the lights of lamposts running down a long curving road. The light of one, and then the light of another, shaping the darkness.

They say you meet someone for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. I always thought that maybe I met Jen to accompany her on her dad’s passing. Now I think perhaps it was so her father could accompany me and my mum on hers. Time isn’t how you think it is. Space is spacious.

And as I open my mind up to this possibility I know my friend Jo’s mum is on the cusp of her passing. And there will be more with us. And I think about how my mum might light a lamp for her, then her to light the way for the next. The spirits of all our parent’s connecting. Their light comforting each other so that in ‘wherever they are’ no one is lonely or lost – no matter how far apart the links in the chain.

And together the constellation of their lights hold us up

– and gives us the heart to hold more.

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