5,742 days by Cockburn Anne-Marie

Author:Cockburn, Anne-Marie [Cockburn, Anne-Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Infinite Ideas
Published: 2013-12-11T16:00:00+00:00

Thursday 12th September: Day 54

I’ve started to live my life in segments. I break a little piece off and digest it; today’s segment is entitled ‘starting to clear my home’. I look at her coat hanging by the kitchen door, put my hand in the pocket and find some sweets – they’re luminous yellow tiny balls called ‘millions’. We had a pick ’n’ mix table at her funeral party and had all her favourite sweets laid out along with little paper bags for everyone to select what they wanted. There were Flying Saucers, heart-shaped jelly sweets, Smarties and Drumstick lollipops as well as Tunnock’s Teacakes and Jammie Dodger biscuits.

I inefficiently move piles of framed photos from the kitchen table to the living room; I restlessly place them around the room without any consideration to order or sense.

Yesterday was a good day, I was back at home and felt safe again. My chest is more at ease, despite the permanent pain in my heart. I went into town with a couple of friends. St Giles Fair was being cleared up. This is a two-day long fair which takes over the wide road of St Giles in the heart of Oxford. My little Martha set up and ran the St Giles Fair Facebook page for about the past four years. She was like that, she did it of her own accord and would start a countdown – ‘5 days to go people … can’t wait’. There were over a thousand followers. She’d go every year after school on the afternoon of the first day. One year her friends were being funny with her, so she went by herself – I loved the fact that she wouldn’t let this deter her from enjoying herself – and she had a great time regardless.

The good thing about being an only child is that you can entertain yourself quite happily, but Martha also thrived in a family environment and loved going to have dinner with friends in their family homes. She’d always eat more when sitting around the table with other children, rather than when it was just the two of us eating at home.

Over the past few days various strange thoughts have passed through my head such as should I have another baby? Would this child be held back by what’s happened to Martha; would I worry myself sick and make this child’s life hell? I was 26 when I became a mother; you need so much energy to bring up a child, so this was beneficial. I was so looking forward to going out as mother and daughter for dinners and to share a glass of wine or two as grown ups.

Is forty-two too old and do I have the energy to start again? I know you can’t replace one human being with another, but I can’t help these feelings as being a mother is such a natural thing for me. Admittedly, I was more prepared to be a grandmother at some point in the next fifteen years, than a mother again.

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