the best day, the hardest day

Today is the birthday of our daughter. The hardest day of my life, the most beautiful day of my life, the best day of my life. (I have written about it here.)

This morning, we woke to frost and a dusting of snow, so we wrapped up well and went for a walk. Every year on this day, when we share memories, it's different. Today, R talked about how he feared we were close to death, how he thought we would die, our premature baby and myself, how he tried to stay calm. And I remembered his shaking, cold body when I tried to lean against him, his white face, and that I asked the midwife to look after him. I remember watching blood running down my legs and trying to think why. I also remember signing my name under a short note I wrote in a shaky hand (when this is over, never again) but no note was ever found. I remember roaming the house all night, shouting and laughing and roaring. It has taken me years to speak calmly about the nuns and the nurses at the hospital where S spent two weeks incubated in a brightly lit room, where we had to fight for access, had to beg for my milk to be fed through the gastric tube. So on this cold and grey day we walked full of wonder how it all turned out, how we are all sane (?) after all. And at one stage, this girl was walking towards us, maybe six, seven years old, on her way home from the school down the road. She was deep in an imaginative play, gesticulating, hopping, whispering, not noticing us or anything else. And R looked at me and smiled, wonder what's her story, he said.

 

And I will raise my hand up into the nighttime sky
And count the stars that's shining in your eye