Dropped Stitches

7th June 2012 Thursday

Our lovely South African vet says it’s a miracle. He can’t feel the lump in the pussy cat’s abdomen that was there before. He says it’s very unusual for it to disappear so quickly. But  he has to keep taking the tablets or it’ll come back. I think our pussy cat has his own plans. Tonight he’s at the cattery sleeping on a heated pad. At least I hope he’s sleeping in this howling gale, tearing branches off the trees.

On the way back from dropping off the pussy cat in Honiton I drive past the entrance to the grave yard where my parents are buried. I haven’t been there since 18th January. At the grave next to theirs are six floral displays  -  recent fresh flowers  - and an eight foot long word - GRANDAD - made of hundreds of white carnation heads. I stand with an umbrella over my parents simple oak cross which is stark black in the rain. I throw away the six dead roses in the pincushion vase and pull up a buttercup sprawling across the concrete plinth. I hate thinking about them in the ground under my feet even though I know that’s not where they are. 

Tomorrow we are leaving for Wales for a family holiday - gathering in the same beautiful house by the sea that we did at this time last year. A different combination of us this time - some of us were missing then and some of us are missing now. After that holiday my niece who is a poet, wrote wonderful words for us - she gave it a title - For my extraordinary family on the auspicious occasion of uncertainty. 

The first lines are -  

A prayer for this family

As we gather on a Welsh hillside

That we will stay woven together like a bright rug,

Knotted tight in places, loosened with wear and care in others.

I always cry when I read it. And tonight I feel the knots in our family are loosening, feeling their empty spaces like dropped stitches falling through my open arms. Loving them all so much, uncertain how to welcome new life.....