Mother's Day

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and I can even hear fledglings peeping in their hedgerow nests. It's Mother's Day and later I will be taking along a card and gift for my Mum and having lunch with her and Dad, which I'm really looking forward to.

This morning as I was lying in bed listening to the radio I heard a request for a song to be played for 'All those mothers who no longer have their children with them'. This of course applies to many situations - mothers whose children are being raised by someone else (children adopted, fostered, or being raised by their father for example) - but I think the person making the request was thinking more specifically of mothers whose children have died. One doesn't of course, stop being a mother or feeling the emotions of a mother just through separation or bereavement.

For the first time this morning though, I realised that I too fall into that category. I have mentioned here before my unfulfilled desire for children of my own, but what I haven't written about is that I did bear a child.

He was longed for and the pregnancy - after many years of trying - seemed like a prayer finally answered. Unfortunately, complications developed during the pregnancy and Peter was stillborn.

Losing a child at any age is unbearable, but losing a child before he is born puts you in a strange kind of limbo. Many people seemed to think it was kinder just to brush over the whole episode - "least said, soonest mended" - but in my experience I would say being able to talk about Peter, being allowed to hold him and spend time with him after the birth and then being able to give him a proper funeral was what gave me peace and closure.

The strange kind of limbo comes in the years afterwards. Do I count myself as a mother or not? What do I say when people ask if I have children? I usually just say no and leave it at that. It's mostly too complicated and painful to explain. But occasionally when I say I have no children I see the immediate assumptions being made. Oh, career came first. Oh, doesn't like children. Oh, chose to live the life of Reilly without the inconvenience of kids. That stings, even worse when it comes with the slightly judgemental, 'Oh, didn't you want a family?'

I suppose what I am trying to say this morning is that Motherhood - and Fatherhood for that matter - comes in many shapes and sizes. Women have children, have miscarriages, have stillbirths, have abortions. Children are adopted, fostered, raised by other family members; are abducted, run away, die. Shit happens, and we don't always have a choice in how things turn out. And that doesn't stop us being parents, or experiencing the love and pain that that involves.

So next time you ask someone if they have children, please don't make assumptions based on a 'yes' or 'no' answer. The story is almost always more complicated than that!

Happy Mother Day to ALL the mothers out there. Including me.

Sad, Sad News

The goslings have been growing almost visibly over the last month, their baby fluff almost entirely replaced by feathers. They are almost as big as their parents, and sometimes I have to look twice to tell the difference.

But today I came home from picking my Mum up from the station (she has come up to attend the Summer Gathering) to a horrible shock: something had killed one of the goslings.

It must have happened while I was out, otherwise I would have heard the commotion. Almost anything sets the geese off shouting, and an attack on one of them would have caused a huge uproar.

When we got back, I took the afternoon grain ration down to the chickens and geese, and knew something was wrong immediately by the silence - the sight of me bringing food always causes a hubbub of excitement. The geese were nowhere to be seen, the chickens strangely crestfallen. I went immediately into the goose run, anxious as to what I might find.

The buzzard flew up as I approached, but vegetation obscured the view until I rounded the pond. By now I could hear goose murmurs from their shed, and my first thought on seeing the pile of feathers on the bank was that the buzzard had killed a pigeon in the run and the geese were freaked out and hiding. But as I got closer it was clearly too big for a pigeon. And too torn up for me to identify which goose it was.

I went to the shed, and found Angel, Buffy and Sunny huddled together. The victim was Snowy. I immediately decided to shut them in for the night with their grain, while I (a) cleared away the corpse and (b) checked the fences for breaches - at this stage I wasn't sure if the buzzard had been merely taking advantage of left-overs from someone else's kill (e.g. a fox).

Unfortunately, as I went to get the grain, the bereaved family chose to follow me out, perhaps sensing that it was now safe. They immediately saw Snowy's remains. It's hard to imagine that a goose has facial expressions, but believe me, I saw Buffy's face as she looked at the torn and broken body. And in her eyes, I saw her heart break. This is the moment that keeps coming back to me. Not the clearing away of feathers, flesh and bone. Not the search for evidence of fox involvement (there was none, no breached fences, no paw prints). Not the resigned quiet of the remaining residents of the goose shed, or the hysterical clucking that erupted from the chickens when I finally got around to feeding them. Poor, poor Buffy. Somehow, I feel I have let her down.

Sometimes I regret that I have not been able to have children of my own. But sometimes, very occasionally, I get a glimpse of the unbelievable pain of a bereaved parent - and I think perhaps, just perhaps, I am lucky that I will never ever experience that depth of grief.

Sorry, Angel, Buffy and Sunny. And Rest in Peace, Snowy.

(The photo shows Snowy and Sunny together in happier times. Snowy in the foreground, Sunny behind her).

Confessions of a Fairy Goddessmother

One thing I always knew I wanted was to have children. Unfortunately, my body had other ideas and it wasn't to be. After 16 years of trying for a baby and now aged 44, barring a miracle it seems pretty unlikely that I will ever actually become a biological mother.

For many years my unfulfilled broodiness left me frustrated and depressed. Every menstruation brought a sense of failure and disappointment. I had my eyes so firmly set on the thing I wanted - a successful pregnancy - that it never occurred to me that there could be another outlet for my maternal instincts. Life, however, has a way of presenting new possibilities if you are only open to them.

I can't pinpoint exactly when my perspective changed - there wasn't a light bulb moment as such - but at some stage in the last 16 years, my childlessness became less of a source of pain to me. That fact is almost certainly due to our beloved friends, Kevin and Ann, who have generously allowed us to form a close bond with their three wonderful children. We have been around, babysitting and doing the aunt & uncle thing since their first daughter, Rachel, was born. When their second daughter, Charlotte, was a toddler, I had given up my stressful job (in an attempt to increase my chances of getting pregnant), so I spent a lot of time looking after her while Ann was at work. And then I did the same with their son, Michael.

We became extended family and spent virtually all our spare time together. I started using the term 'heart family' to describe our relationship to each other. We have watched with awe, pride, joy - and at times anxiety! - as Rachel, Charlotte & Michael have grown into amazing individuals. We have shared in the tears, the laughter, the scraped knees, the food fads, the treasure hunts, the birthday parties, the bad dreams, the endless questions (why?), the hilarity of water fights, the magic of Christmas, the walks to the park, the bedtime stories, the games of hide and seek, and of late, the teenage hormones, exam jitters, first romances, and initial steps into independence and adulthood.

Through all this we have been in the unique and privileged position of part-parent, part-friend, part-confidante... but it has been hard to define our relationship to the children using existing terminology. We aren't blood relations, so we aren't really an aunt and uncle. Kevin & Ann have asked us to be listed in their will as guardians of the children, in the event that something should happen to the two of them. But unless that should happen - and I pray that it won't - we aren't the children's guardians. We aren't Godparents, as we aren't Christians and have never been asked to fulfill that role. And yet we do and don't meet some of the criteria for each of the above categories. As there really doesn't seem to be a widely-used term for the nature of our relationship, I have started to describe myself as their Goddessmother. It kind of fits and I like it.

Although we now live miles apart, Rachel is currently at university nearby, and this weekend Ann brought her back to Wales to start her second year at Uni. It was so lovely to spend the weekend together, and we effortlessly slipped back into the easy friendship between us, even though we don't see each other so often these days.

Somehow, despite my inability to bear a child, I've been lucky enough to find a way to express my maternal instincts. I'm blessed to share in the lives of three wonderful young people, and I hope I can be there for them whenever they need me. Life has a way of presenting new possibilities indeed. I'm just glad I looked up from the path I was on long enough to notice. And I'm so lucky to have friends generous enough to open up those possibilities in the first place.