Life at the 'End' and at the 'Beginning'

I've been prompted to write by a smell. The smell of Avagard hand sanitiser that will forever be imprinted on me. It's hard to explain the effect it has on me. It's kind of nostalgic and terrifying and it drips down the inside of me in long, sluggish strands. It's hard to shrug off. The smell seeps in and with it trickles memories that don't even have to be significantly vivid in my mind. There's a part of me that relives Charlie's life and death, when I smell that smell, whether I consciously address it or not.

I realised this at my first appointment in the community health centre in my early postpartum. I habitually sprayed it on my hands as I stood waiting at the reception and immediately felt my heart rate rise and tears spring into my eyes. I pictured myself reaching down to touch the rise and fall of his tiny little chest. Realising the potency of the flashbacks, I vowed to never use it again.

Yet, here again I've found myself facing the hospital environment. My beautiful Grandma, has landed herself in hospital after a bedsore infection, blood clots on her lungs and very late stage dementia. We've been facing this for a long time now, potentially the last few years as the dementia began creeping in. She was taken to the same regional hospital as Charlie was initially where she contracted Covid. So, on visiting her, we had to revisit the same hallways that we did when we were there during Charlie's transfer and sanitise thoroughly throughout our time there.

It's brought me to thinking a lot about life and death. It hits home differently having lost my son at 12 days old. I look into my Grandma's eyes and can sort of tell, deep down, that she knows and I know and she's ready to go. It's confronting nevertheless. It's confronting thinking of our own mortality and how, if everything goes 'right,' this will be me one day. It's awful to watch happen and beautiful and profound. The time spent sitting by her bedside in the last week or so, has seemed somehow more precious than all the other moments I've had with her.

I'm not really sure I'm clear on my thoughts yet on this one. Maybe, the hand sanitiser is just driving me to expel the pent up emotion. It just seems absurd in my mind, how Charlie had twelve days on this earth and went and Grandma has had 83 years on this earth and is going and we don't get choice over it. We are blessed if we live a whole life and yet what do we leave with?

Gracie asked me today why I wanted babies in the first place. She asked why I wanted to give her a sibling when we decided to make Charlie. And I think that's my answer. That for me, being able to leave this earth with babies is what will make my life feel meaningful. To be able to impact the world through the future generations that will stem from me, brings me peace. Grandma opened her eyes today to my dad, me and Gracie sitting on my lap and I realised how beautiful, how blessed, we were to have four generations together.

Grandma's value in life cannot be summated in the lineage she produced. She is far more than that but as I sat by her bedside we agreed, that as women, both mothers, being a mother is our favourite role in life.

Addendum:

Grandma died a few weeks ago. She fought for life, like Charlie, until the very 'end,' a determined streak they both shared. I'd been blessed enough to be able to sit by her side as her mind slipped and her body fought. I told her about the beautiful things in life; the full moon, the ocean, the creeks and rivers overflowing. We played classical music and sat by her side to keep her company.

It was uncanny the similarities between the two deaths I've been with this year. There's a huge difference and yet there's not. There's the confusion over whether to stay for just five minutes longer incase 'something happens' and although the monitoring of Grandma was off, occasionally the nurses would come in with their trolley and the beeping would go off and they'd wet her lips with a cotton bud, just as I did with Charlie using my breastmilk.

Grandma's life was 'normative' and yet for those that love her, her physical absence is still so deeply felt. No wonder when we are confronted by baby loss, it feels all the more complex. Charlie had a life but he didn't really have a life. He was ripped from his life but our life is lacking without him too. There's a kind of anger within me that's highlighted. Who chooses who lives a full life and who doesn't? Or perhaps we are to really believe that it is just random? Both of which, feel insanely unfair.

At Grandma's funeral, the first funeral I'd been to since Charlie's, I reflected on who she was. Our relationship changed over the years as we both evolved. Motherhood was something I really connected with her in, my own mother being predominantly absent in my life. She also lost a son to a terminal illness and remained a solid, quietly determined figure. She was matricentric. Always being the confident core of the household. I'll miss her but she, like Charlie, will continue living on within me. In the ways I act, inwardly and outwardly.

And I still hold it within my dreams, that one day, I'll be able to whisper, 'Look, Grandma. You have another Great Grandbaby. It's because of you.'