I haven’t had any luck finding a nice or funny memory amongst the repressed garbage that I inadvertently unblocked but I have just had a memory flash from a much earlier time, well before my life turned into a battlefield. If this brief story is too sickly for you to believe then my apologies but it is absolutely true and demonstrates just how much I was loved once.
When I was very ill with pneumonia at the age of 8 Mum, who in those days was called Mummy, obviously had to spend an awful lot of time with me, especially when I was sometimes unconscious from a combination of medication and just being very ill. Just after the crisis passed and it looked as though I was going to recover, up until then it wasn’t a certainty by any means, Mummy sat on my bed, pulled me onto her lap and hugged me for a very long time. I had my arms round her neck partly to hold myself up and partly because I loved her and wanted to say sorry for frightening her but she wouldn’t let me say a word and started singing to me…
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make happy when skies are grey
You’ll never know dear, how much I love you
So please don’t take my sunshine away
By the time she finished we were both weeping and I’ve been in tears while writing this. Not because everything went so horribly wrong but because I allowed that memory to get lost in the resulting mess. I nearly didn’t publish this post but now I’ve done it I’m glad, crying does help at times.
It’s too late to say this now but I’m saying it anyway. Don’t think too badly of me, Mum, I did take your sunshine away in the end, but it wasn’t really my fault.
Love
Oh Mac, I am in shock! I used to sing that song to my kids when they were little and sick in bed!!
I loved that story, it wasn’t to saccharine at all. A nice memory found among the dross is priceless! And just maybe you will find others in your dig through your past. And I don’t really see how you took your mum’s sunshine away. It was her and the step parent who did that, you were innocent. As in blameless. Yes, I know you feel your actions might have made things worse, but that is no excuse whatsoever for you to take on any blame at all for your treatment as a child.
hugs and love
biki
I think that this will become my most chersished memories of the better times. It helps to keep a sense of balance when I’m looking at all the ruin.
I think you must be some sort of double or lost brother or something. You’re going to find this incredible and my heart almost missed a beat when I read your post: because I had pneumonia when I was seven. The family doctor was called but missed it the first time, only to rush me to the Children’s Hospital in Birmingham where we lived when she finally woke – because I hadn’t!
Unfortunately, the rules being what they were, first they put their fingers up to give me a good fucking – allegedly to see whether I had appendicitis, apparently! I just rolled over and had to let them do whatever they wanted. So they did.
They either then put me under or I fell into a sort of deep sleep because when I woke it was the ‘middle of the night’ and my parents had been sent home. I was distraught – abandoned.
I spent a week with twice daily twenty-minute visits from my parents, while the doctors pumped me full of penicillin before starting what seemed like heavy physio on my back and chest to try to bring up a load of stuff up which was allegedly in my lungs.
Of course kids were still dying from the disease in our country back then – hence the fears and desperate actions of our parents and doctors, I suppose.
It really is quite spooky isn’t it? I well remember that feeling of “just do whatever you want” even though I never did work out why someone sticking a finger up my bottom proved anything. I was just too tired and scared to care. Luckily we had a good GP at the time who was actually really kind. His test of whether or not I was really ill was to offer me a sweet, when I refused he got worried and a month later when said yes please he knew I was going to be alright
Typical me though, the thing that worried me most was missing nearly a month of school, I didn’t want to lose my place at the top of the class, oh and my best friend wasn’t allowed to come and see me in case he brought more germs in with him so I was completely on my own all that time when Mum was looking after the girls.
All that from catching a cold from one of the boys at school
It may sound like it’s coming from a softie (and probably it is…) but crying actually helps at times. I have a song my mother used to sing to me, whenever I hear it nowadays it really hits me and I have that huge lump in my stomach.
So I can easily picture myself how you’re feeling when reminded about your song.
Love
Daniel
Songs have power don’t they? I really wasn’t sure about this post but I’m really glad I did it now. The memory was painful but in a good way, if that makes any sense.
Love
Mac
Congratulations Mac on finding a happy place. We all need them. I hope you will find more to shield you from the painful examination you are going through.
Warm thoughts to you,
Scottie
I know they exist, Scottie, it’s just picking them out of the dung-heap that takes so much time. Thanks
Mac