TRANSCRIPT

 

Darling Gracie,

It’s me.

Mum.

I know that’s annoying, because who else would it be. 

 

Although, sometimes you used to mistake me - well my voice anyway - for Nannie Peggy. 

It’s the rich timbre….. goes with the button eyes.  

 

Listen, I wanted to write to you.

Yes, I am doing that thing I did for Joe.

I’m sending you a voice note. That’s what it’s called isn't it? 

See.... I am not that bad at technology.

 

Yes, I did one for Joe first. 

I was waiting for the right thing to say to you to come to me.

So, now it has, 

And I want to talk to you about how it is going to be when I die.

 

Oh don’t panic now. 

That’s set you off on a thing hasn’t it.

Look, I’m not dying. Not in an accelerated way. Not any faster than you.

Really, honestly, as far as I know,

I - am - fine.

 

It’s just that I was thinking about something Nannie Peggy said once.

 

Your Dad and I were just leaving the farm,

This is recently, maybe sometime around two springs ago. 

When Nannie Peggy was still with us, and her dementia was really kicking in. 

 

Your dad and I had been staying for a week, just looking after Grandpa really. 

You know, giving him a break, 

doing all the cooking and cleaning into the awkward corners. 

 

We were standing on the garden path, on our way to the car,

When Nannie Peggy suddenly gripped my hand and whispered,

“I didn’t know you’d be going so soon”. 

I mean we’d been there a week- and it was suddenly a surprise to her that we were going.

 

When Nannie Peggy got dotty we had a lot of dancing with invisible men

and some quite waft-y hand waving. 

It was so unlike her. 

She was like, razor sharp; observations slicing into that secret thought that you didn’t want her to spot. 

 

On Sundays I dreaded doing the potatoes with her because the thing I didn’t want to confront she always made bob to the surface. Suddenly it was there- visible, skinned and unavoidable in the cold salt water pan amongst the peeled white vegetables. How did she do it?

She never missed it. Like spotting the only face you knew in an impossibly large crowd.

 

And then on the garden path I thought, “How did we miss this?”

 

How did we miss that moment, that moment when we should have checked, 

that day when we should have called the doctor? 

 

Could she have told us?

Did she feel when her spleen shifted to the right, 

to make way for the massive tumorial bloom on her lower intestine?

When everything rolled over but nothing fell out. 

Did that happen one morning? One particular teatime in May?

​

And for Peggy,

Which day was it that the cause happened that kicked off that particular effect?

That one effect where her mind became like seeds on a dandelion clock

- ticking away, as if some giant had huffed and puffed the sense right out of her head.

 

It’s easy isn’t it, and tempting, to blame a thing, an action of others, a great upsetting. 

But the cause of Nannie’s wifty wafting was probably being born. 

If we’re really going to put a big pointy finger on it, it’s there.

Birth.

In at the beginning. 

 

Then, a life waiting for a loosening of brain muscles, a hardening of blood vessels,

a tangling of shattered plaques to clutter the railway lines,

finally tripping up the signals, blocking the points.

 

The thing was buried deep like a seed waiting for water.

In her all along. 

No trigger at all, except time.

No blame except lifespan. 

She just didn’t know she’d be going so soon.

 

So, on which day would I put my finger and say, 

"On that day, that Monday afternoon, that was when I should have made that call?"

 

And of course, Gracie, the answer is, none of us know do we?

And I’m sorry, that when it comes, we won't know, and then those calls are probably going to be your calls.

It could be any of you three children, but thinking about Jo and Len, it will probably be you.

 

So Gracie. My love. 

What to think about before I die, 

Or before I waft away and you begin to hate me for no longer being the person you love. 

Before you take it as a personal insult that I have left a vague, angry stranger in charge of my brain. 

 

Think about now, how lovely I am now- no, stop laughing. Try it.

Think how lovely life is now with us both fully doing it, really in it.

 

Think about learning to swim in Wales. 

You and me in our wetsuits, standing in the sway of the cold, cold salt water, taking our feet off the sand.

Me, buoying you- rigid, lumpy disbelieving. You would not lie back.

How you were sure I was doing something else more clever, more secret when I floated on my back.

You would not have it.  Rough neoprene on one hand supporting your wild spine.

On my other hand your little stronghead - your crazy brown curls wet, swinging like weed in the water.

Nothing but us two in that moment- grey sky, warm wind, that beautiful briny.

​

“Lift up your legs- push your bottom up and your chest- everything up. Look into the air. Can you see a seagull? Lie back Gracie I’ve got you.” 

 

Then, a nudge from a swell and your watery little body pulsed, pushed, went with the instructions. Suddenly understanding you could.

 

I took away my hands and letting the sea take your weight, 

You spread out like a starfish and bobbed.

Physics, history, love, trust, seawater I love it.

And that is what it will be like when I die.

 

You will float free again,

No hand under your back and yet always there.

No explanation of the days, of those moments or of the why, of the cause or the effect.

Just these moments my love.

And in this moment you will become the one, the swimmer and I will be no more.

 

All my love, stay you Gracie,

 

Mum