Another blackbird
This one dropping like a stone from the flat roof above the kitchen,
having been gusted to death against an upstairs window,
then blown to the edge
then lifted and dropped as I lunched.
No longer animate,
black beanbag once-was-bird
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Friday, 4 February 2011
Sunday, 19 September 2010
Arrogant and bloody-minded
In the moments before my life ended I was arrogant, opening my eyes and looking with curiosity at the doctor who had just pronounced “there is no blood pressure ... and the pulse is fading fast.” I thought to myself “he looks Egyptian ... silly man, sounds as if he thinks I’m dying” and I closed my eyes again, hoping to work out for myself what was going on.
My next thought saved me. I had just given birth to a son, and on the way to the hospital we had passed, driving in the opposite direction, my regrettably little-loved sister-in-law who had, two days previously, given birth to a stillborn son, full-term but throttled by the umbilical cord.
This second, bloody-minded, thought – which began only mildly incoherent and ended with a scream at least as loud as the initial pain of my rupturing uterus – was “motherless child ... childless mother ... tidy solution ... NO! ... I do not want her to have my child.” And it was this which arrested my death and which enabled my GP to speak of me as a ‘modern day miracle’ since the charts which I saw later confirmed that yes, I did, in fact, have only minutes left – maybe as many as three.
[This originally appeared as a Thinking Ten piece]
My next thought saved me. I had just given birth to a son, and on the way to the hospital we had passed, driving in the opposite direction, my regrettably little-loved sister-in-law who had, two days previously, given birth to a stillborn son, full-term but throttled by the umbilical cord.
This second, bloody-minded, thought – which began only mildly incoherent and ended with a scream at least as loud as the initial pain of my rupturing uterus – was “motherless child ... childless mother ... tidy solution ... NO! ... I do not want her to have my child.” And it was this which arrested my death and which enabled my GP to speak of me as a ‘modern day miracle’ since the charts which I saw later confirmed that yes, I did, in fact, have only minutes left – maybe as many as three.
[This originally appeared as a Thinking Ten piece]
Friday, 7 May 2010
“A modern day miracle”
This being the third I knew immediately that the transition from first to second stage wasn’t usually accompanied by pain of such screaming quality. The surrounding babble of voices made it impossible to concentrate on identifying what had gone wrong, their exhortations to “push, mother, keep pushing, you’re doing fine” annoyingly intrusive. “Here’s a foot Mother, sit up and you can feel it” – they pulled my hand down to touch, but I was unappreciative ... eventually it was born: “What is it?” “A boy, you’ve got a lovely boy.”
... washing my thighs with warm water ... no, it’s blood, my blood ... “It’s the afterbirth breaking up” and someone tried pumping up and down on my stomach to expel it – my screams must have stopped her although I thought I’d simply said “don’t, please don’t”... “What’s her name? ... Sandra! Sandra! ... there’s no blood pressure and the pulse is fading fast.”
... opened my eyes “He looks Egyptian ... silly man sounds as if he thinks I’m dying ... that’d be a tidy solution – a motherless child and a childless mother ... no – I don’t want her to have my baby ...”
... someone groaning ... pink room instead of green, clock above my head telling an incomprehensible time ... Steve’s laugh outside (that was what had roused me) ... dark blue dress bustles in “I don’t know why you’re making that noise – we’ve just given you some painkiller” ... just like in the books, the groaning was ME “Then it doesn’t bloody work” ... “and you’ve had eleven pints of blood so you’ve no cause to complain” - “eleven???????????? something wrong there.”
[Comment: on the way to the hospital we had passed my sister-in-law coming the other way, she having just given birth to a still-born son]
... washing my thighs with warm water ... no, it’s blood, my blood ... “It’s the afterbirth breaking up” and someone tried pumping up and down on my stomach to expel it – my screams must have stopped her although I thought I’d simply said “don’t, please don’t”... “What’s her name? ... Sandra! Sandra! ... there’s no blood pressure and the pulse is fading fast.”
... opened my eyes “He looks Egyptian ... silly man sounds as if he thinks I’m dying ... that’d be a tidy solution – a motherless child and a childless mother ... no – I don’t want her to have my baby ...”
... someone groaning ... pink room instead of green, clock above my head telling an incomprehensible time ... Steve’s laugh outside (that was what had roused me) ... dark blue dress bustles in “I don’t know why you’re making that noise – we’ve just given you some painkiller” ... just like in the books, the groaning was ME “Then it doesn’t bloody work” ... “and you’ve had eleven pints of blood so you’ve no cause to complain” - “eleven???????????? something wrong there.”
[Comment: on the way to the hospital we had passed my sister-in-law coming the other way, she having just given birth to a still-born son]
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