I think I’ve taken a little step backwards this week… Or perhaps I’ve just allowed myself to pause… Not to stop, but pause. If I ever actually stop, I’m not sure what will happen. I’m resigned to this new life now. The one where I think but don’t dwell…
It’s always hard when my husband’s parents are visiting. Every time they come to stay with us in France, it makes me feel the pain of my parents not being here, even more acutely than usual. I think of what they’d say if they saw my studio, and what I was doing with this new life… all the dreams I had, slowly coming to fruition. To think they will never see this house, to see what I’m doing here… When I was a child I desperately wanted a house with a swimming pool, and if they knew I had one…well! (Not that I use it, I’ve no interest in swimming now). There is so much I want to share with them, it cuts to the core to know I can never do that…
First of all I want to talk about their funeral with them. I want to know they were pleased with how it went, that it was what they had wanted. Does that sound a little mad? Perhaps it does, but it would means much to me to know they approved… Mainly, though, I want to show them all I’ve achieved in the past two years, especially the past year, with my sewing holidays and workshops. I want to hear my Dad laugh at the way I’ve yet again turned my love of “messing, making things” into a job. I want my Mum to turn my sample projects inside out and check the finish… I want Dad to complain at the number of windows, as he sets to, cleaning them for me, as he always used to, happily muttering under his breath… I want Mum to polish the light switches the way she used to, to banish the dirty fingerprints I never seem to have time to remove…
My husband said, last night, that when his parents return to the UK at the end of this visit, he’s going to make more of an effort, more often, to “get a cheap flight” to visit them. That’s the phrase that set me off. Possibly because in my mind they ARE up there somewhere, in the skies, in a child’s idea of Heaven… I HAVE to believe they are looking down, that they can see my life, that they are close by… Suddenly, when he said that – the thought of flying off to see them hit me.. If I could do just that; fly up there to visit them. I’ve never wanted “just one more day with them” like I’ve heard others say, but right now, this week… Oh! How I would love just that… A cheap flight up to Heaven to see my Mother’s smile, hear my Father’s laugh, see them dancing together…
And then, for the first time in a long time, as I cried into my pillow knowing this was not going to happen, I felt again that I’m just waiting now, waiting to die. That this is all just passing time, until the moment comes when I can join them. I hope this feeling passes because the irony is, they would be so sad to know I felt this way…
And then I remembered this quote, which I came across earlier this year… And I started to smile again…
And on the darkest days when I feel inadequate, unloved and unworthy, I remember whose daughter I am and I straighten my crown!