What’s the correct name for it?The sparkle you get on the surface of the sea especially in summer…… as sunlight catches the ripples, usually on a calm day. A gently moving carpet of glittering diamonds, shimmering and shimmying as far as the eye can see.
I’m not sure there is a name for it. It’s far too beautiful a sight to be contained by a single word. It takes my breath away every time I see it, which is not that often as I do not live by the sea.
I wonder if I would tire of this sight if I did? It’s a sight I long to see every year. Most years I’ve been blessed enough to see it. It makes me smile. Every single time.
I don’t have a Bucket List. You know the sort of thing, a list of places I want to visit in my lifetime, and or experiences I want to have at least once before I die. A cruise perhaps, or a trip to the Northern Lights. I’ve never fancied jumping out of a plane but I wouldn’t say no to a Trip on The Orient Express. Or Vienna. I’d quite like to visit Vienna. But I don’t have a Bucket List. I don’t really have a list at all.
Bucket lists are hard to fulfill when you are the main carer for someone you love. A list filled with experiences that may never happen simply because to make them happen would require the movement of both heaven and earth for most carers and the one(s) they care for. I don’t think many would deny that being an unpaid carer involves a level of sacrifice and loneliness that most people will never have to give or experience…unless they become one themselves, that is. Not only that, but the name Bucket List doesn’t sit well with me, it feels sort of depressing; though of course I know that one day I will ‘kick the bucket’ like every other mortal on the planet.
Personally speaking, having a Bucket List is a pressure I can happily live without. Don’t get me wrong, I would love (I think) every one of those experiences I mentioned and may have dreamt about as well as more, should they ever come my way. For now, and for the foreseeable future (which is a strange thing to say I always think, because the future is not really foreseeable for any of us) I am content to enjoy those experiences that often come with no name but that make me smile, make me catch my breath. And there are some I don’t enjoy at all that are also to be collected, valued even.
Some happen to me occasionally, like visits to the seaside. Others daily, hourly. Often.
Like the moment my daughter, who has Down’s syndrome, laughs out loud at who knows what. It’s a mystery but it’s very funny.
Or the moment she is given shoes that don’t rub her little feet red raw anymore, along with splints that fit correctly. She marches off, instead of hobbling. Her legs still tire, and when they do she beams as she sits back into her wheelchair. She cannot tell me her joy or her pain in words as she has none. These moments sparkle as much as the sea sparkles in the height of summer.
Or the moment her sister instinctively helps her off with her coat or shares an armchair with her. Though she shares more than an armchair; she shares her time, her attention, her love. Getting back in return seemingly nothing sometimes, but in reality everything and more. What is the name for that? Some say siblings of people with Down’s syndrome suffer. They give it a name, even though they have never sat in the same armchair, or taken off her coat. How dare they so falsely name an experience of which they know so little.
Sometimes it is the moment just after another procedure, operation or clinic appointment. Heart heavy with loving her through yet more trauma. Hers and mine. Tear stained walks along hospital corridors, telling myself and her “It’s over now, it’s ok, we’re going home”. Knowing that it’s only over until the next time. Knowing that it doesn’t really get easier.
Even the kindness of the medics can be painful and I have been known to crumple.
These moments are harsh, but they are also profoundly beautiful. The love swells, mingled with pain, making it ever more precious.
Oh but I do have a Bucket and I am very fond of it. It’s not shiny, it has holes and probably needs a good clean. Yet it is filled with experiences I would never have imagined possible before I was gifted the responsibility and privilege of caring for this disabled child and her sister.
Many of these experiences have no name, some are incredibly painful, others joyful beyond measure; and I treasure them all.
I never saw their faces, but I knew who they were. From behind.
Two adults holding hands. One taller, one smaller. One leading the other; slowly.
Walking.
A familiar outline, her unmistakeable shape and gait. Heads bowed, looking down at the pavement. Shuffling a little. Like a Charlie Mackesy illustration, but in real life.
Though in real life very few want to own this masterpiece.
And though I’d never set eyes on either one, I have seen them both before. I have heard others speak of them. This shuffling pair.
One person being led by another. Their image a negative left to develop in the darkroom of pity and now imprinted on the societal mind as such.
What a shame, they say. What a terrible shame.
Imagine.
So sad.
Pity them.
Who will care when she cannot?
And they sigh.
I used to think there was no power in pity. Yet I see that pity brings powerful judgement. It asks questions that end with full stops. Pity does not want to know what the solution might be; that would mean purchasing a new book. Finding a new way. Too costly both in time and money, perhaps. Pity allows for no appeal in the Court of its judgment.
Case closed.
This mother. Her daughter. Perhaps I judge them too? Two women, one caring for the other but each one enjoying the other. If you look a little closer you might see this too. You might see what they see. You might see them.
The scales do not tip in one direction if the weights that are placed on them are of equal value.
Two humans walking around my home town. I walk where they do, only instead of holding a hand I hold handles – those of my daughter’s wheelchair. Mickey Mouse spins and grins inanely from the spoke-guards; evoking smiles from passers-by as opposed to frowns, thankfully. But pity is still there, I can feel it; and although Mickey is a welcome walking friend just now, we will one day outgrow his company.
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So is pity. I say. And there is nothing pitiful or even outdated about the two women I saw walking today. However slow or painful they might appear to a world that rushes on by.
Their outline. Their conversation. Their caring.
Their walk.
If there is sadness, which certainly there is at times…… it is that they walk together, alone.
So often.
Two is company, but three is not always a crowd.
This walk; this very familiar walk of theirs; of ours, of others too.
It remains a walk that is illustrated by love; the details of which can readily be seen, shared and marvelled at by those who are willing to move aside the highway and step into our Camino.
It’s a thing of beauty, my daughter’s favourite toy. It stands apart from the usual plastic playthings a child of her age may be drawn to. There’s a quality in the workmanship that can only be admired.
Bejewelled with rubies, sapphires, amber, amethysts and emerald ‘stones’, it spins on its wooden base with the lightest of touches. A little encouragement is all that’s required to make it dance.
Place it in the path of sunlight and it positively sings with joy.
And yet it’s fragile. Prone to tumbling off the table and clattering loudly, ungainly, disappointingly to the floor. Brushed off, knocked down, discarded.
And unless I am there to pick it up and put it back on the table, that’s where it stays. You see, my ten year old, non verbal, autistic daughter who has Down’s syndrome has never learnt that when something or someone disappears from her view, it or they are actually still there or somewhere else. Existing or existed, but now hidden. She has not learnt that her favourite toy can be experienced or even enjoyed again if only she would look for it. So she turns her back and walks away. She forgets the joy the toy brought and moves on to her next experience.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Until last week.
Last week was different. What changed, and why, I have no idea. Others more widely educated in these learning processes can explain. All I know is the toy dropped as it often does but this time she went looking for it. She bent down, she picked it up and it was she who put it on the table then continued to play with that which brought her joy. Her delight carried on as before, but her world had, in that moment, opened up and my delight was off the scale.
A first. An action I had given up on ever being possible.
This time, there was no turning away and moving on to another experience. This was the one she wanted and she took hold of it with both hands. She noticed it had gone and that now mattered enough to go looking. My assumptions about her were wrong.
Rubies, emeralds, amber and sapphire danced again in the columns of warm spring sunlight that streamed across the table.
An ordinary table in an ordinary kitchen on an extraordinary day.
A pleasure that was hers for the taking and she was finally able to seize it.
Some ten years ago, after many weeks, she came to be discharged from the neo natal unit that had been her home and our place of safety. A kindly consultant handled our departure and, sensing my unease at having to leave what we knew, told me of how much the world had changed even in a relatively short space of time. Just twenty-five years earlier her cousin had been born with Down’s syndrome and was routinely put into an institution.
Out of sight, out of mind.
The sadness in her eyes stayed with me. The if only was palpable.
She knew there were so many colours waiting for this baby. My baby.
I noticed she spoke only of her cousin in the past tense.
I hope someone walked with him and pointed out colours.
Like in a rainbow; though I imagine he noticed them first.
Last week the colours got a little sharper in our Down’s syndrome world. And now my daughter knows she can at least hold them in her own hands.
I see others similar to Hazel, they are picking up brushes and painting rainbows like I’ve never seen before. New colours coming to the fore in a shifting landscape. Emerging artists taking up residence in a world that still struggles to embrace their art form. Their Down’s syndrome.
We should not take their palettes away thinking they cannot paint. Neither should we begrudge what they find or what they are given. I have found they will share their lives, their experiences, their possessions willingly and extravagantly. They are not the ones needing lessons in humanity. From my little window on the world of Down’s syndrome Ive noticed they are often the first to show empathy to anyone who is treated differently.
When another cries in the room, my daughter cries too. Every time.
Instead I want to stand back and watch them pick up the colours that matter to them. However they pick them up, whatever their understanding or ability is. What will their world look like to them? How will they depict it, shape it, colour it? Who or what will they paint into it?
I no longer want to assume I know what’s best for my daughter or for others with Down’s syndrome, or anyone else for that matter. I do not speak for them. They are not voiceless and never have been, it’s just our world paid no attention to their voice or afforded their particular art any worth. The loss of colour to humanity must be, I have often thought, incalculable. No. Instead, I want to learn from them, from the experts, the artists. I’m convinced we can all move forward into new and more vibrant life experiences when we do.
Of course I’ll have my own opinions, and in future I’ll try harder to keep these to myself if I cannot be sure they will do someone, somewhere some good. But I do want to see a people group who, though in the past were routinely placed in institutions and are still discriminated against simply because they have Down’s syndrome, are now brought front and centre where their colours can be seen as they were always meant to be. Not because they are better than anyone else, but because they’ve spent more time than anyone else under the table.
Out of sight out of mind.
Some say diamonds are a girl’s best friend. I say it’s emeralds and rubies, and they can be friends to anyone.
I wrapped you up tightly against penetrating winds and prying eyes. I pushed your sister to and fro in the orange bucket swing. I must have fed you there too. Not by bottle or blanket covered breast but by nasogastric tube. Your soft, perfect cheek aggravated red raw by a strip of sticky tape that held the tube in place inside your tiny nose.
Gravity feeding, with one arm in the air, holding up a purple syringe. Fortified milk flowed down a tube, disappearing inside the pram. I glance around the park, fearing the double take. Afraid of what people might say, wondering if they might be cruel or insensitive, as had happened days earlier when a stranger had noticed you had Down’s syndrome and a “funny tube”. They pointed right at you and it stung.
Yet, I’m secretly hoping, wondering, if someone would walk by and say something lovely; to make what hurt sting a little less.
Always wondering, always worrying.
Afterwards, we watched the ducks busy on their little island. We did not feed them; no hands were spare for that. They took no notice of us anyway, as we had brought nothing to their table.
I took you there as a toddler.
In a pushchair.
Head to toe in snow suit, thick socks and fur lined boots. I knew your feet would be cold. Unable to warm them up by running around. You were a toddler who never toddled. Your boots always as good new. I pushed you in the orange bucket swing, your sister now at school. In reality, I wedged you in, both hands holding up your floppy body against rigid plastic as we both went to and fro, awkwardly.
I’m sure I fed you there again. Less concerned by the double takes or curious looks. Your beautiful face now healed. A thousand syringes later and with a battery-operated pump to boot, the tube by now surgically placed directly into your stomach. I worried about you getting cold as I pealed back the layers and connected you to the pump.
Picnic table not required, I sat on a bench and we watched the ducks. We did not feed them, there was no room in your bag for anything other than essentials.
I’m sure you must have wondered what they were, those funny little ducks. What did your blurred almond eyes make of them, I wondered?
We stopped visiting the park several years ago and I think our world shrank a little more. I had deemed it pointless as you could no longer access the playground. We could not enjoy it the way other families did. It was unsuitable for you; a public right of way with a caveat. And dogs. So many dogs tearing around the park with exuberance. Enthusiastically sniffing out their daily moments of freedom with no lead to restrain – though the Official Looking Sign said that, for the benefit of others, they ought not.
Silly sign, the dogs did not read it.
Today you visited the park again.
In your wheelchair.
Only this time, I wasn’t there. I have seen some photos your teacher sent me. I see you share your joy and delight at this unexpected trip. I hear your laughter. I see the spring in your step, even from the confines of your chair. A blanket has been placed lovingly over your legs to keep out the cold wind. I wonder who put it there? I’m so thankful and touched that they did; it makes me cry a little. It’s something I’d do for you.
From your chair you watched the ducks. You held a stick. You’ve always loved a stick. Your face tells me that you wondered at all you saw. You shared your wonder with your teachers and classmates. No doubt you shared it with passers-by as they did a double take at the class of wheelchair users and their carers surrounding the park’s little pond. I’m certain they would have smiled too.
And I wonderedwho was teaching who?
Today you came back to the park. Your pockets still empty, overflowing with untold riches to give away. Pockets filled with wonder. Treasures you woke up with, stored, perhaps, under your pillow? Like some sort of biblical manna, it appears each day. Ready to hand out to those you meet. You are my miniature, giant philanthropist.
I hope you visit the park many more times.
I hope you never hide away. I hope also, that you are never on parade, rather on a par. Experiencing all the park has to offer, as others do, and giving back in all the ways I know you will. Today you were all the things a person should expect to be: surrounded, included, protected, loved, invited, heard, appreciated, present. Though the world may sometimes hold up an Official or Unofficial Sign that says, for the benefitof others and your own, you ought notexperience these freedoms.
Silly sign. You cannot read it. I hope you never will.
Today you came back to the park. And, though I’ve had many sleepless nights wondering if this would ever be the case, you were all those things without me. A walk in the park may be harder for some than for others but there are always sacred spaces to be found, and shared experiences to be had.
And, perhaps in the way you do, I now wonder at it all.
Different posters adorn the walls. Antenatal Word Clouds long since replaced by Musculoskeletal Murals.
And the patients. They are different too. No longer anxiously stroking an unknown bump, nervously avoiding eye contact with others in The Waiting Room as they await their scans. These patients rest their hands on crutches. Or support their sling encased arms with a gentle hand. Waiting for their turn, for their particular trauma to be addressed. To be healed.
They smile at you. They can’t help it. You make people smile. In your pink wheelchair, with your pink hair bows. If they feel pity for you, it soon turns to joy.
You do that to people; I’ve noticed.
Which is good, because right now my stomach is churning. My heart is racing. You see, we’ve been in The Waiting Room before, you and I. And I did not expect to be here again.
That Department has moved, the receptionist said, noting my confusion. Go through those double doors and you’ll find it.
And so we sit here again, some ten years since the last time.
In The Waiting Room.
Your name is called out. You have a name. Everyone here has a name. Of course they do. It’s how the staff know who they are dealing with. It’s how they know who is next on their list to be cared for.
Last time you were here you did not have a name. Last time you were here you quickly became an it to those who spoke of you. Including me. Last time you were here you were not known.
I wonder, if I had given you your name when we last were here, if that would have made a difference?
They said they could deal with it last time you were here. When they found out you might have an extra chromosome.
Imagine if I’d told them your name. Imagine if I’d had the courage of my convictions to have named you YOU back then. I wish I had, but I admit… I was scared. I did not know you either.
Now we sit in that room and I wonder if it’s the same chair. The trolley bed is in the same position. It’s the same room I sat in over two years before you were even born, weeks after nearly losing my life and that of your unborn sister. A room that holds so much trauma for me and, presumably, countless others.
The doctor kneels at your feet. You look down at him from your wheelchair, smiling. Laughing.
He gently wraps bandages around your badly damaged ankles and feet. He speaks tenderly to you, telling you what he is doing. Casting moulds for the support you so desperately need. He says you can have colourful casts if you like. He calls you Sweetie. He also calls you by your name. He honours you. He knows you.
This is not the first time he has treated you. Nor will it be the last. He wants only to make your life better. He knows what you need. He knows because he has met you. He knows because he has cared for many people like you before.
He knows you.
Last time you were here a doctor stood over you, whilst I patted you nervously, clutching your photograph. Many photographs were being handed out to people that day and everyday. You looked a bit like a kidney bean…. I’ve kept it, you can see it one day if you like.
You would not remember. He stood over me, over us. Kindly, gently, yet devastatingly, his words brought trauma to us both. And, moments later in the room opposite which I can see from where we now sit, another kindly professional spoke trauma over us both and even death over you. I carried you, like all the other patients in The Waiting Room that day. I also carried the leaflet they handed me, that told me what they thought I might like to do – about you.
I have no ill feelings towards them now; sitting here. Those feelings have unexpectedly gone; I don’t need to hold onto them anymore.
Instead, I carry a sadness that the Doctors back then did not know what the Doctor who now kneels before you knows. I carry a sadness for every woman, every parent, who has sat anxiously in these rooms and experienced trauma; whatever decision they made, however they made it and whatever their outcome. So much fear, often but not always, of the unknown.
Fear causes stress and stress fractures.
Yet in this unexpected moment, my sadness is replaced by thankfulness. Fractures fuse as the healing process begins.
I am thankful for this room, for these other patients, for this Doctor who knows…who knows you. I am thankful that we have come to The Trauma Clinic today for it is a place not only of healing but of redemption.
What’s that phrase…. the one when a writer gets stuck for words? You know, when they can’t put pen to paper or find the words that, at other times, flow so readily….that. No, I can’t remember either.
Whatever the expression is I’ve got it. Had it. Still have it. I haven’t been able to put my thoughts down in print for a while now. Apart from one short article for the Down Syndrome Research Foundation, I’ve drawn a blank. Is that the word? No, no, but it’s something like that. Begins with a ‘b’, I think.
I last properlyblogged in July. By a lake. In a spacious and peaceful place.
A pause
A pause in a year that has drained me of words. And of so much more.
Oh, this isn’t a lament about how hard life has been in a pandemic. Truth is, I don’t have the words for that particular story. And, even if I did, I know there are so many others who could tell their own difficult story; families like mine, who’ve had their vital support networks pulled, whose tired faces and weary, worn out expressions say it all; dreading the prospect of schools ever being closed again should the need arise. Teachers who (for me) have been the unsung heroes of 2020, continually being asked to go above & beyond what is expected of the rest of us and yet often criticised from all sides. I haven’t even mentioned all the other frontline key workers. People who haven’t spent months at home baking cakes, crafting, doing DIY or bingeing on box sets. And I’m not having a pop at anyone who did those things, but, you know, honestly? Jealousy is something I’ve battled with this year!
No. They don’t need to read my story and neither does anyone else. I’ll keep my thoughts about the last eight months to myself, at least for the time being.
For now, I remain lost for words. Unable to adequately communicate my deepest or even shallowest of thoughts.
Like Hazel.
Hazel is my daughter. Hazel has Down’s syndrome. Hazel is the clearest communicator I know but her language is an unspoken one.
So, likeHazel, I think I’ll laugh out loud at whatever I find amusing, whenever I find it.
Like Hazel, I think I’ll stare intently at shiny things, bright things, beautiful spinning shimmery things.
I’ll stare at pictures I like, photographs I’ve taken, faces I see. I’ll smile at those.Like Hazel. She smiles at people. Often. Even if they don’t smile back (but they usually do).
Like Hazel, I think I’ll run my hands over surfaces or textures that I like; the pebbles we collected in a brightly coloured bucket on a Devon beach, one July day. Seaside stones that now form a kind of miniature sculpture on my patio. A shadow of their former glory as the surroundings have changed; but I still like them. They make me smile. They cause me to remember a very happy day spent by the sea after many not quite so happy days in lockdown.
Hazel smiles often. I think she remembers often too. More than most people, perhaps. I’m convinced she regularly deposits joy for herself in her memory bank and withdraws it on a daily basis.
Like Hazel, I will explore my surroundings. I shall reach out and feel silver sage leaves between my fingers or inhale the scent of fresh mint picked from my little herb garden. I say garden, it’s no more than a pot really, but as it exists in my garden that alone brings me joy.
Still, no words needed.
Hazel is nearby. She has a stick in her hand and fallen leaf litter at her feet. She will always choose the opposite textures to me. Sand over stones. Sticks over sage. And leaves. Leaves are her favourite. Especially if they are falling around her. I know she loves them. Once upon a time she would say so.
“Leeeeeaaves“
As I hold them above her head and let them fall.
Her face lights up, arms stiffen and hands wave.
“Leeeeeaaaves“
Now, there are no words. She has lost them. Autism, or something, has stolen them. A gradual lockdown, of sorts, in a part of her brain. Not of her making or choosing. It came without warning. No one can tell me if or when the restrictions will be lifted. It’s hard to find the words to describe how I feel about this too. There are some losses, some experiences, that cannot be put into words because words are not always what a grieving soul needs to hear.
Hazel accepts what is with a peacefulness that passes all understanding. She is truly a mystery. Marvellously so.
She still loves leaves and the leaves still fall as they’ve always done. Hazel is thrilled by that, just as she’s always been.
If Hazel feels any sense of loss, she does not show it.
Somehow, the words are not needed. At least not for now and not in these moments. For now, I will take a leaf out of her book. Literally. I’ll hold it the way she holds it. I’ll feel it, turning it over and over in my hand. I’ll marvel at it. I’ll shout with glee as the leaves fall around me.
Messy and colourful; swirling noisily around me.
Like Hazel does. Like Hazel is.
She was born in the Autumn. It was messy back then too. Hard. The Great British Bake Off was on the television screen in the NICU restroom, in only its second season. Strange, the things you remember. And I remember there were lots of leaves. A carpet of them right outside the hospital entrance. Such a beautiful swirling mess.
Downright Joy 