Life as a Bittersweet Symphony

An overcast and somewhat gloomy autumn day here in Heavenly Beverley. Every now and again, the sun is trying to break through the heavy curtain of clouds, to add warmth and brightness. Sitting here, watching the boys continue working on our beautiful brick wall, I am once more reminded that life consists of light and dark, shades of grey; love, joy and peace mixed simultaneously with fear or regret or sadness.

A Bittersweet Symphony.

Thirty-one years ago, my third baby (and first boy) was born in the very early morning of Easter Saturday. Nine weeks early, we were initially oblivious to the rollercoaster struggle Christopher would face in his forty-eight days of life. He was tiny, less than one and a half kilos, but once he was cleaned up, pink and ventilated in a humidicrib within Special Nursery, we were convinced all would be well.

I'd had a traumatic three-day long labour that had ended in another emergency caesarian section. Thus I didn't see Christopher for the first whole day of his life. Wheeled down to view him on Easter Sunday, paediatrician Ronnie Hagan had placed an Easter chick inside his humidicrib. I remember Ronnie reassuring me that we would be taking our baby home in three or four weeks.

Easter Monday was our descent into Hell. Changes that occur within a neonatal heart, switching cardiac vessels and chambers on and off from its foetal operations created havoc inside Christopher's body. As that awful day wore on, diagnosis after diagnosis, a transfer to the Children's Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and the strong possibility that he would die caused my world to collapse.

But he fought, with every fibre of his battered little body. Red haired, fierce and cranky, he hung on through every crisis thrown at him. I held him, finally, on his eighth day. He weighed almost nothing. He was unable to gain any weight throughout his short lifetime. He had a monstrous combination of cardiac defects, premature lungs and a metabolic disorder. Eventually, I realised that he was going to die, having denied this possibility until his very last day.

Detached from every bit of technology except his ventilator, I held Christopher in a comfy chair in his corner of Neonates. Outside, the winter rain raged, weeping with me. As soon as Christopher's Dad arrived, I handed him over. And so our baby died.

Fast forward to present. I have three fantastic adult children. I am married to the love of my life. I am shortly to become the Mother of the Groom. We are living in a beautiful new house, whose exterior is starting is bursting into flower. Michael has his first ever new car. And we have just taken delivery of our stunning caravan.

Memories that are rich and precious. Lives that start out in a particular direction and then change paths, with or without warning. Gain and loss. Roadblocks and detours. Surprise and disappointment. This is what shapes us, nurtures us, defines us.

Without the dark, we never appreciate the light. But when the light returns, we should embrace it wholly, and feel its warmth envelop us.

The bitter and the sweet.