An
otherwise ordinary Tuesday, and Mr M and I and the family, and
associated girl and boy friends, gather for a farewell meal for our
eldest child who is moving far away. He hasn't lived at home
for a year now, but he has been nearby. We eat outside in the
evening sun, and take pictures of ourselves on the lawn.
I
remember nursing my boy in just that spot, under the shade of next
door's apple tree, on a blanket I had spread on the grass. It
would have been this time of year too, many years ago when he was
just weeks old. He would have been feeling the sun on his
little body for one of the first times and I remember him watching
the leaves fluttering above him, and beyond them the blue sky. Now
he's ready to spread his wings and fly away into that blue sky.
My
eyes didn't cry. It was important to make this an upbeat time,
and it wasn't a chore to do so. It was like the sailing of a
great ship; the weather fine, the bunting flapping, the well-wishers
in fine spirit. But as we laughed and ate in the garden where
they had all played as tiny ones, I felt that loosening inside, that
sickening ache as fibres twist and break and big warm drops of
glistening red life start to fall. The living wall of his
original home was breaking down as he left me, like it did the first
time. The ink of my soul starts to fall like rain. Or
tears. Fare thee well and have a good life my beautiful son.
I'm
always relieved when it begins, it's comforting to see my red friend
and break the spell. Next day my hair was curly and my clothes
were right. Women know this feeling. You're effortlessly,
unconsciously at your colourful, bold, coordinated best after days of
pale disordered tension. The hands of the clock click round
imperceptibly, and in a record book somewhere, if there is such a
place, a page turns, my period has begun and my first baby has moved
out.
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