I wonder what my son will recall of this odd episode of life. As a four year old he was only just beginning to take those first steps into the world, still with one hand firmly gripping mine, yet discovering the width of the worlds potential as life slid into his view. Making little new friends in creche, his first sleep overs, birthday parties, trips to various exciting new places, visiting days with his Father and grandparents, all adding up to a pretty busy life for one so young. The world of possibilities yawning open for him and not coming quick enough for this urgent little youth.
When he was a newborn, in that bubble when you give over all of yourself, your thoughts and time to this tiny new creature, all he needed was me, just me. His needs were so base, my presence was all that was required. He lived on me, mostly in arms, a sling, on the breast or beside me as we slept, but always most content with me. I was his source of food, warmth, love and his emotional regulator, I was his best friend. Our relationship just burgeoning yet our bond already firmly forged. His Father shared that world with us but it was still mostly my son and me, due in some part to another virus, a common cold of some sort my sons Father had when we left the hospital after our son was born. That time was as isolating as this time is to us now. His Father was fearful of passing whatever it was to me or the newborn and he felt the need to segregate from us for a lengthy period. I was however left bereft after that most massive, life altering event of childbirth, devoid of the basic need of a tender touch, arms of support, a nourishing hug. I was left alone in the strange new bubble of care with this freshly born human. I sobbed strange tears as I floundered to understand the emotions during that period. I was metamorphosing into motherhood, and I felt alone. It is a small yet traumatic memory for me and still it left a mark. Perhaps if the time directly after that period of segregation had been furnished with supportive actions and I was met with some compassion for the normal emotions I was feeling, it may only have been a distant forgotten blip on the path to parenthood now, instead it was a foreboding sign of what was ahead for that relationship. The beginning of the end. This small understanding of what the withholding of human contact can add to an already emotionally detonating event, those pivotal moments in life, gives me a little insight into what will be for so many an indelibly staining traumatic blot on their lives beyond the crisis we see at the most obvious level. All those who are in hospital birthing new life, perhaps in the last moments of their own life or grieving the loss of those they have spent a lifetime loving, all without the ability to hold them or anyone, or to be held and bathe in someones loving embrace and feel another’s heart pressed against their own in sympathy, in compassion, in shared humanity. This lack of connection we are enduring on a million different levels, will be part of the aftermath we will have to navigate in the post virus dawn. For all our internet capabilities, for which we are infinitely grateful and rejoice, the human connections, the physical hunger we have as pack animals, is more evident than ever. The term is actually coined as “touch hunger” by psychologists. This is an interesting read on the power of touch under the scrutiny of science. “But after years spent immersed in the science of touch, I can tell you that they are far more profound than we usually realise: They are our primary language of compassion, and a primary means for spreading compassion.”
My sons needs have grown considerably since those newborn hazy days. He is now boisterous and full of light with a thirst for life’s pleasures. Now, as we are forced to recoil from the world again, under the current circumstance, returning to that state of limited contact and isolation, I wonder if I am enough. You pick yourself apart as a parent at the best of times, readily neurotically questioning if you are getting ‘it’ right, wondering if the ingredients for this experiment of parenting a child are measured correctly or added carefully enough for your particular little humans experience. But that inner voice is louder than ever now as my sons world grows smaller, again, rewinding back to mostly just being me. Am I enough? The words ring through me. His needs are certainly more complex these days and mine are too.
I wonder if he will remember me being so tired, endlessly exhausted in fact, as I process my own fears, my own personal assault of emotions rising and falling in waves, waves that can knock me down, fill me with wild tears, the ones that won’t stay hidden or maybe my impatience or shamefully even my anger, when I’ve reached too deep for too long. I wonder if he will remember me crying with frustration as I run out of the last ounce of energy I have for the long days of just us. I wonder if he will remember me yelling as he tries to do any number of acrobatic back flip style actions off the sofa, while I am begging him to put his shoes on for the fourteenth time so we can get out for our allowance of daily exercise (what a strange new world..). I wonder if he will remember my underlying fear, my uncertainty in the face of ‘lock down’ and statistics and so many unanswered questions. I wonder where his memory will go when he’s asked to recall this event.
I hope he remembers instead, my constant hugs, my tired yet ever open arms for our shared frustrations exchanged for warm snuggles, my expressions of love no matter the struggle or fight we’ve had, my open ears for his need to constantly tell me every thought and feeling and imagining that floats through his vibrant switchboard brain. I hope he thinks of our art projects and movie days, our slow walks and picnics in the woods on sunny afternoons. I hope his mind is filled with the happier moments we share. I can not predict what will happen, I can not predict if I am doing all that he needs right now or ever. But I am doing my best, and I hope and pray my best will be enough.
