Question:

This woman has reappeared again.

The almost harassing phone calls had suddenly stopped recently. Messages were not being left so frequently. I heard nothing pretty much straight after I posted last time about the situation.

Hmmmmmmmm....... she rang last week and I absent-mindedly (read: stupidly?) answered the phone, deep in thought working at the computer. That sounds harsh, now I read it back; I don't mean that in any other way than, I simply haven't the energy to allow her to bounce off me at the moment. I find her abrasive on me now, almost cold-hearted (though she's not, I know it's a heeeeeuge defense mechanism she's got built up there and good on her for finding one if it got her through her life, that's not my business) in her drilling for information. Actually.... thinking about it some more, I realise now that the feeling I get is kinda like she's cheating on her homework and looking to me for the answers she's been stuck on. I almost feel protective of divulging my 'stuff' about healing regarding Ella with her, as if she's trying on my answers to see if they fit her and I don't know why that makes me hostile, but it does. Perhaps because I don't hear anything back from her about her feelings. She won't go there. I will, and the fact that she won't and I do is fine, but I draw the line at her pressing me to offer up what she won't give me in return.

Anywho, it started to slowly dawn on me that perhaps she's back around for a reason. Seems a bit more than a coincidence that she's been virtually hounding me, albeit because she's probably wondering why I'm avoiding her calls, since I've started really getting stuck in to my writing.

I don't know if I mentioned, but she too lost a baby. About 20 years ago now, I'm aghast to count. I can still remember asking my friend (me being the biggest baby-crazy adolescent around) where her little sister was because I knew her mum had had her and that she was in hospital but that's all I knew and it had been weeks and weeks that her mum was back but no baby. Always no baby.

She'd been the same gestation as Ella, born in the same hospital, died in the same NICU. Bits and pieces have come out over the conversations I've had with this mum over the past few years and I gather that she was being told by "them" that there was no brain activity (she used a rather more vulgar term, I guess it's her way of thumbing her nose at life in general, and possibly to buffer the hurt of the knowledge of the brain damage), due to complications during the birth process - botched, but I can't remember specifics - and she emphatically swears she knew there was something behind her daughter's eyes. For three months, she waited and paced. And then they switched off the machines. It gives me chills to think what she went through and what she saw and heard, especially if she knows (as a mother does) that "they" were assuming to know more about her daughter's condition than she felt she could stand up to and disagree. I know all too well what it's like to advocate for your child and her best interests, so soon after giving birth and coming to the realisation that it's not all warm and fuzzy and Kleenex and Huggies with all newborns, and trying to appear unfrazzled and coherent enough to argue with the white coats about best interests. Oh God Oh God Oh God.

Back on that night, my friend said simply, "Baby (name) died. That's all there is to say and we don't talk about it." It was an instruction, not a sharing of information. She was telling me not to ask any more questions. I think I must have just said "Oh" and kept eating. Her family were all there, as I recall we were all sitting round the table as her mum was busy in the kitchen, within earshot.

How sad for them, as I think about it now. I had never seen my friend's mum as anything but positive, light-hearted, fun (though I was assured it wasn't 'fun' to have a mum who was seen as fun... I think I understand that now), trippy hell yes but very big-hearted. And since losing Ella, I see her as so much more fragile than I ever did before. The mum, not my friend (I don't actually see my friend, haven't in so many years I don't think I'd recognise her).

Her mum was supposed to come to Ella's memorial. She was a no-show. She phoned some weeks later and gave her apologies. She'd been so matter-of-fact and "You've gotta celebrate! Have fun! Rejoice her life!" Bit too much yee-har for me but I just took it on board because that's what she has always been like. But when she didn't turn up to our not-so-whoop-whoop celebration of Ella, I wasn't all that surprised. She told me when she called that she was all ready to come but when the morning came, she just couldn't do it. No big revelation there. So the good-time fun-girl can be serious after all??

It was after this that the conversations, rare thankfully, when she phoned started getting weird and unnerving. Hence why I now try to avoid contact with her. I don't think she is grounded much in reality (well, not mine anyway) and has been hit pretty hard between the eyes with things she probably couldn't or wasn't given the space to deal with over her own daughter's death, after I lost Ella. It's a gift I hope she has found useful but I don't know.

And now, back to my point *rummages through brain* Maybe I'm supposed to utilise her reappearance again after a couple of years of silence. I'm going to be sitting quietly with this one and really asking the Whatever, am I meant to seize this chance to work with a mum who lost a baby all that time ago and ask her some questions relevant to my work and possibly quite healing for her? Is that it?

Cos otherwise, it's about as useful as having a mozzie in your tent.