The Word Cloud

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.

It’s 1971 and I’m doing an impromptu gig. Not many people there, but she’s sitting at my feet. Your mother. Long black hair.  Gorgeous body. Interesting looking. Sensuous. The most attractive woman in the room. I’m really nervous, having just arrived in this place. The place that would change my life for ever. 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. 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 a human being I once loved. I was meant to play football.

In three hours I am having lunch with my wife and three year old daughter. We have a son on the way. I am supposed to go shopping this afternoon. 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 children. Not for this. This is for Mondays. At a pinch Tuesdays. But no, not Saturdays. You should not even do this on Sundays.

And so I confront my own ageing. I examine my own 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 to only need one breath every five hours. The car does not feel like a suitable venue for this confrontation. It is no place for the shattering of innocence. No place for such violence.

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.

1973 and I think I love her. Love the woman who will become your mother. Of course, for me back then love is a transitory three month at best encounter most of which is taken up with my planning my way into hearts. Into affections. Into pants. But we were close. Emotionally close. Friends even. I remember our week in Connemara that summer. Together in the wilderness losing ourselves in the conversations. I remember too the walks on Edinburgh’s Salisbury Crags. Remember the taste of her mouth. The softness in her eyes as we talked.  The exploration of the edges of intimacy. The building of trust. Trust that led me to this car. To this journey. Led me to today. Actually for what it’s worth, she was my last three month encounter. Because later in 1973 I redefined love. Made it an open ended thing. Committed.

But we did have our moments, she and I. We dismantled a few barricades and peered into each others’ 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 others’ 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. For the woman who became you. 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 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.

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.