On Sundays & Heartbreak

Today has been a hard day.

Sundays are generally always  hard – there’s something about Sundays that screams “togetherness” and “family” and it’s slowly becoming the day of the week I detest the most. Last night I promised Maisie that we would go to the park this morning – which she took to mean ‘the moment she opened her eyes I would leap out of bed and take her to the park” so I was woken up by a very enthusiastic toddler at 7:10 this morning.

Eventually we headed out to the park and, like most Sunday mornings, it’s Dad’s day.

I try not to let it repeatedly catch me off guard as doting fathers play with their child(ren) and I imagine their spouse with a modicum of free time on her hands. She’s probably cleaning something up or doing laundry and I often have to blink the tears away as I wish, wish, wish she’d just use that time for herself. But I was that mother and I didn’t claim that time. I didn’t read another chapter of my book – ensuring I would get through more than a few pages by week end, I didn’t sit in the bath tub the entire time just because I could and I had forgotten what my hands and feet looked like all pruny and wrinkled. I didn’t just do something (anything) because I really, REALLY wanted to. I might have checked emails, made coffee, maybe even laid in bed pretending I was asleep but eventually I remembered the laundry that needed doing or that dishwasher that didn’t get put on the night before or things that had to be put away before everyone came home with even more things to put away. That’s when its hard – that’s when the reality of being on your own, being solely responsible for a child 24 hours a day, seven days a week roars it’s ugly, heavy, wounded head.

On the way home, after duck watching, muddy puddle jumping & pigeon chasing, she starts to sob. Hysterically. For daddy. For Papa. For him.

I quickly realise that this isn’t the usual calling out for Papa when I tell her off and she wants to hedge her bets on better treatment from another party. This, this was grief. I tried clumsily to stick to the script I discussed with the psychologist before I left, I tried frantically to change the subject, to distract.

Then I just let her be.

I pushed the stroller home while she wailed and gasped for breath calling out for him over and over again. There is nothing I can say or do that will change the situation. And, for the first time since her birth, I am completely and utterly useless to her.

As we continued home, the rusty autumn leaves swirling at my feet, I didn’t cry, I just pushed the stroller forwards, inching us closer and closer to our new home and any sense of warmth and family I hoped was there. When we arrived I took her out of the stroller and into my arms. I didn’t say anything & we sat on the steps as she gasped the last sobs, deeply breathing as her tearstained cheeks soaked through my top right in the place where my heart is.

We didn’t say anything but clung to each other with a sense of mutually exclusive loss.

Once we were inside & dirty boots were put away, wet jeans removed, snacks doled out, we curled up on the sofa together. She put her head on my lap and said ‘Oh mama love you SO much‘; then quickly lost herself in the silliness of Cbeebies and I silently cried.

For not being enough.

And for being everything.

Come back tomorrow for more because I’ve committed to blogging every day in November as I’m crazy as part of National Blog Posting Month!