Pulses
Created | Updated Nov 19, 2008
Pulses
The car's stopped at a red light. I'm in the passenger seat and you're lying in my arms all wrapped up in a tiny blue blanket. It must be five hours since you last breathed. Why is it that I'm still
pretending?
It crosses my mind that for all of my life I will remember this
journey. Feel this sharp pain in my ribs, taste these tears that are
stinging my eyes and dripping off my nose onto my mouth. Still hear
the silence.
And sitting here I search for strands of you, relive long ago moments that might help me know the you that is with me in this car. But in
doing so I seem to lose the edges of you. You are no longer finite. I
can no longer differentiate between the you lying in my arms and those
parts of you who I knew before you ever became. Those pre-you's, whose
love became you. On this journey it all becomes you. Like tributaries
coming together to make a river. After this journey the river will be
gone.
I am nineteen and I'm doing an impromptu gig. Not many people there,
But she's sitting at my feet.
Your mother: the girl with the long black hair. She's interesting
looking; sensuous; the most attractive woman in the room. Mine aren't
the only eyes that are swivelling in her direction.
I'm really nervous, having just arrived in this place; the place that
would change my life for ever. Arrived at the place that would break
down what I thought were the boundaries of me, and ask me to cross some
kind of Rubicon. That, of course, is what coming here is all about,
and I suspect that somewhere in my subconscious I understand this. Am
prepared for this. Hence the nervousness.
She on the other hand looks relaxed. At home. Though much later I
learned that she was more nervous than I. Much more. Some people
protect what they do not know they have. Become who they think they
cannot be. Perhaps even then she understood serenity. Or maybe she
didn't know about rubicons.
This journey should only last for twenty minutes, but I think it's
ageing me by twenty years. Journeys are not supposed to do that. On
journeys you are supposed to engage in light conversation. Lose your
way. Ask directions. But there is no one here to ask where this
journey is going, though all of us here have lost our way. And you
have lost much more than that.
When I awoke this morning I was a normal twenty seven year old man. I
was meant to be playing football before lunch. Your father was meant
to be playing with me. He is really good. Juggles the ball on one foot
in a way I can only dream of. But you will never play football. You
will never know how good you might have been at juggling that ball.
When I woke up this morning I had not intended to confront human
frailty. I did not expect to hear the strangled sound of weeping. Nor
witness the sight of a human body bent double gulping for air,
clutching at emptiness, all dignity stripped and all hope shattered.
Especially not a human being whom I once had loved.
When I awoke this morning I was meant to play football.
In three hours I am having lunch with my wife and my three year old
daughter. We have a son on the way. Then, this afternoon, I am
supposed to go shopping. You will never go shopping. You will never
have lunch.
Saturday is not a day for metaphysics; or for uncovering the pain of
being. There is no space in Saturday for the breaking of the spirit.
Saturday is for shopping. Saturday is for football. Saturday is for
celebrating the robustness of children. Saturdays are not for
this. This is, perhaps, for Mondays. At a pinch Tuesdays. But no, not
Saturdays. You should not even do this on Sundays.
And so I confront the unfolding of my own ageing. I examine the
infrastructure of my spiritual constructs. I keep looking at your eyes
to search out some tiny flutter. I convince myself you're still
breathing. That it's quite normal for you to need only one breath
every five hours. But the car does not feel like a suitable venue for
this confrontation. It is no place for the shattering of innocence. No
place for incubating such violence.
So, I am suspending belief. I am refusing to allow. I am building an
emotional cocoon for my own future use. I know that it will be years
before I can permit myself to revisit this journey.
At twenty one I thought that I loved her; loved the woman who would
become your mother. Of course, for me back then, love was a transitory
three month at best encounter most of which was taken up with my
planning my way into hearts. Into affections. Into pants. But we were
close. Emotionally close. There was much more than just longing.
I remember our week in Connemara that summer; together in the
wilderness losing ourselves in the conversations. The hands on the
clock showing half past childhood; the shape of tomorrows still
undefined.
I remember too the walks on Edinburgh's Salisbury Crags. I remember
the taste of her mouth. The softness in her eyes as we talked. The
journey we took to the edges of intimacy. The building of trust; trust
that led me to this car and led me to this journey. The trust that
opened the door to this morning.
And actually for what it's worth, she was my last three month
encounter. Because when I was twenty two I redefined love. I made it
an open ended thing. You might say I committed.
But we did have our moments, she and I. We dismantled a few barricades and peered into each other's eyes. We both thought, maybe not at the same time and maybe not in the same context, but we did both think that there was something worth touching and holding onto in each
other's being. That maybe this would be a redefining relationship. And
I guess, today, that in a way it is because today she gave me a part
of herself to carry on this journey. Gave me the most precious part of
her life. The most intimate love of her soul. Today she asked me to
cradle you in my hands and mind you on your journey.
And I find myself here in this car wanting to tell you this. Wanting
to let you know that this hardly known man, holding you tightly in this
strange car, cared for the woman who brought you into the world. Maybe not that deeply. Maybe not for ever. But cared.
And so I remember her on this journey. Remember her then. Remember her laughing. Remember her beauty. Remember her serenity. Remember her
this morning. Remember her bent double bent double gasping for oxygen.
Remember the deadly silence as I finally carried you out the door.
Remember the leaving. I will always remember the leaving.
I look across the car at the driver. I've known him since I was
thirteen. He was always the life and soul of every party we ever went to. I wish you'd known him. I really wish you'd known him.
Inside, I'm back in Boston. Christmas 1972. Bunch of us over here
seeing the sights. Six in all, and we're looking for Santa Claus. The
snow's falling on Copley Street thicker than Lagan fog, and there he
was - a big twenty year old in grey shorts and school cap with a
satchel on his back. Making us laugh and attracting attention. It's
funny the things that stick in your head on a journey like this. I
wonder what's sticking in his head this morning. He doesn't speak a
word. Then again, neither do I. He just drives. I just sit here numb,
holding you tightly. It's moments like this that make up a life it
seems. His life. My life. You have no life left.
We've used his car before, he and I. Many time, way back in those days before we grew up. Did we ever really grow up? We used to go out from Ulsterville Avenue together in 1974 – he would drive. Then at around 2am I'd hear his loud stage whisper coming through the ground floor window of the University Hall of Residence... 'My Boy!' ... He always called me that back then. The chauffeur had completed his own
nocturnal activity and had come to terminate mine. It's more than just
your nocturnal activity that's been terminated today.
We also used his car to drive me to my wedding. Just him and me. I
trusted him to get me there on time. I trusted him to mind me that
day. To ensure that there'd be no accidents. No hold-ups. No break
downs. Today I am trusting him to mind me again. To mind you. To mind
all of us.
It is 1974 and a crowd of us are spending a year in Belfast. Big terraced house just off Ulsterville Avenue. You lived there too; well the man who became your father did. The tributary that flowed into you. Ten of us. All men. Rats in the skirting boards. Rotten food in the fridge. Couple of bare wire sockets. We're having parties every other night. We're having the year of our lives. Everybody should have a year in Ulsterville Avenue. You will never know what a year is.
I'm searching my life for one story to tell you of the man I knew in
that year. Of the part of you that I knew. Of your Dad. I'm gouging my
depths for one memory that I can whisper to the you that is now. To
the you that is lying in my arms. To the you that is not breathing.
I'm trying to dredge up one glimpse of his soul in you that might give
you some idea of how it might have been. How it should have been. How
you would have been.
I've got it now. Remembered. My mind stumbles for a moment,
recollecting it all. Pulling together the truth for you.
I'm in bed one night and wake up at 3am violently ill. (Later I am
diagnosed as having severe food poisoning.) My room is in the attic.
The bathroom is three floors down. I won't make it. In fact I throw up
over my bed. Over my floor. What a night. I am too ill to care.
Except that he comes up the stairs and shows no disgust. The man who
became your Dad. He gives me his own bed. He insists. Then he cleans
my room himself and uses it as his own for two days until I am better.
He minds me. That's him. That's you. That's who you are. Who you could
have been. Who you should have been. I just wanted you to know.
There are more stories I am sure. More glimpses I should be able to
give you. More insights I could share. But my mind is numb. There is
no place that I can visit inside myself where I can find any comfort.
The journey's almost over. We're nearly there. I never want it to end. I can't wait to get it over. I'm still scrabbling around in my soul to find something to tell you. Something good. Something we can all hold onto. Something that you can always treasure as being unique to you. The driver's no good to me here. He's lost in his own memories. In his own struggle to believe – it's written all over his face. Maybe he'll find something to whisper to you too, but that's between you and him.
I dig deeper into myself. Making myself articulate something. In the
end all that I can say is this:
'Every second of your waking life will be forever remembered.
There is not enough of you to create spaces.
There are no moments that will be consigned to the unknown,
And nothing will be uncelebrated.
Your being can be measured in months not years.
Days, really.
Pulses.
But your reality is in these memories and time cannot take them away.'
It's twenty four years later and I sat at my desk today and thought of you. Remembered that journey. Until today I have never been able to go back. Not once. I've mentioned it in passing. But I've never gone
back. But you deserve more than that. Everyone deserves more that
that.
I do not know this in the car, but we will lose touch; your parents,
those parts of you that are left, and I. For us there were too many
pulses for counting. Perhaps there were too many moments for us to
treasure. Maybe something like this explodes too fiercely into the
delicately blown glass that is friendship. Maybe the best we can ever
do is to avoid being cut on the shards. I'm not sure. I do know that
somehow those strands that made you managed to pick up the pieces and
re-invent themselves. The space you left was pulled back behind
curtains and made private. And though in future we will write
Christmas letters describing our triumphs we will never mention this
journey again. Everything else is a postscript.
Perhaps the size of the moment was too huge to allow for discussion.
To allow for continued existence. Maybe the whole part of my
friendship with them was to come to this journey.
We arrive at the morgue. I hand you over, wrapped in your tiny blue
blanket. I cannot speak. I have no more tears to cry. I am old inside.
You are gone today and a light has gone with you.
