Eye Can Write by Jonathan Bryan

Author:Jonathan Bryan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blink Publishing
Published: 2018-06-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

A Family of Haikus

Imaginative

playmate, soulmate, laughing fun –

Pretty Susannah!

Unconditional

loving, singing, full of joy –

Cuddly Jemima!

Intellectual

mantime,cavetime, piece of quiet –

Faithfully Daddy!

Incomparable

mother, teacher, one with me –

Devoted Mummy!

WHAT DO YOU ASK YOUR NINE-YEAR-OLD CHILD, WHO CAN NOW TELL YOU ANYTHING? No need to predict what he wants, no need to try and interpret his smiles for pre-set answers – he can just spell it out for himself. Anything I asked, Jonathan could tell me. As I sat supporting his body on my lap in our playroom, with the girls running in and out, and Christopher cooking in the kitchen, I wondered where to start. Sat opposite us was a carer, spelling board poised – expectant, waiting. Now that Jonathan, the carers, Sarah and I had learnt how to use the board, after nine years of silence, so many of my questions had evaporated into the mists of time, and all I could think of were questions I already knew the answer to.

‘What is your favourite ice-cream?’

‘Choc.’ The spelling was still slow and deliberate.

‘Chocolate. We knew that already, Mummy. Why don’t you ask him a question we don’t know?’ Susannah interjected before skipping out of the room to continue her game with Jemima.

‘I know, Jonathan, how about this one. What is your earliest memory?’ Again, I felt I probably knew the answer, but I couldn’t be sure.

‘Susannah out of you,’ Jonathan replied.

(Transcripts of this conversation and others like it read now like someone who is learning a foreign language, where the meaning of the words is present, but the syntax isn’t quite right. A child’s attempts at conversation from the land of silence.)

Ever the diplomat, Jonathan evened this out by answering the next question (what did he remember about our previous home?) with a mention of not having ‘kind sister Jemima’. In the very early stages of my pregnancy with Jemima, Jonathan had once again been very ill, and so – partly as an incentive to him to pull through, and partly because if he didn’t, I wanted him to know about her, even if he never got to meet her – she had become our shared whispered secret. When the secret became a real baby sister, he was as delighted with her as he had been with Susannah. In the early months Jemima and Jonathan would often fall asleep together, with Jemima lying on him, or next to him, but usually with their faces turned towards each other.

General memories seemed a good line of questioning for Jonathan. What he could remember from his early life was illuminating in showing how his past experiences had shaped the present.

‘What can you remember about being in hospital, Jonathan?’

‘I have to get better,’ he spelled out.

‘What did he say?’ It was hard for Christopher to follow the conversation from the other room, above the noise of sausages spitting in the pan. ‘I know.’ Daddy’s turn for a question now. ‘How did you feel in hospital?’

‘Ill,’ was the response.

We all laughed, as Jonathan managed to convey in a single word that silly questions get silly answers.

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