basement of dreams

Back, briefly, to the basement of my brain.*

The basement is the area in my brain that I store my emotional baggage. I like to think of it as compartmentalised, and that I can visit it and deal with it when I need to.

well, that's what I would like anyway.

Molly resides in this basement. Ex boyfriends, traumatic life experiences like Sunday nights being driven back to boarding school, watching my aunt die of cancer, that sort of stuff, is also housed in there.

It's my basement of broken dreams. We had so many dreams and expectations for Molly. 

I'm having panic attacks at the moment. The sharp sting of grief is still prevalent, but mostly now I am angry. Very very angry. Frustrated. Frustrated as fuck, if I'm honest. Frustrated that Molly is already forgotten, angry that I carried her for 8 months only to result in an empty hole, angry that this has actually happened - that I had a daughter, I had one for 8 months, that I never met.

We see little girls running around the common at the end of our street. Wearing little summer dresses and pink, sparkly shoes, pigtails flying. And I wonder what it would be like.
I look at my little boy and wonder what they would be like together. We had a photoshoot gifted to us and I wonder how beautiful the pictures would've been with them together.
He is so beautiful - I am in awe of how much I love my son - so imagine if I had my daughter to hold too?

We were special, we were chosen by nature or by the universe, however you look at it, to have twins. So who the fuck thought it would be RIGHT to take Molly away?

At the moment I am grappling with guilt. Molly's body is sitting at St Thomas' hospital in Waterloo. This is where her post mortem took place, and where she lays - in the mortuary - until her funeral in 10 days time.

I can't help but think I should go and 'visit' her. It's the last 10 days her body will be as it is, in it's entirety. It sounds macabre, and maybe it is, and I know her soul is elsewhere and all that, but that is really the only tangible thing there is. Her body.
The only proof she was. In her memory box we have bits and bobs but nothing is really tangible.

I have to get her teddy back. The one we left with her. It's the only thing that's been with her that I can take back and keep.

Otherwise we have her tiny little footprints and handprints. And the scans. That's it. Throughout our photoshoot, I rummaged through her memory box, desperate to add something to Seb's photoshoot that symbolised her, or her presence. We have a teddy, a bracelet and necklace given to her by her aunt and the Dove.
Otherwise just trivial stuff.

This frustrates and angers me beyond all reasoning. As deeply as I dig into that box, I can't be closer to her, I can't find anything to be really close to her.

I stare at the photos we took of her. I recount how I held Seb and they wheeled in her little cot - and how it was so cold and lifeless. The only time I was with my twins together in one room.
The next time I'll be with both my twins will be at her funeral.

I can't help but think I need to arrange a time to sit and be with her body again. So that's just what I'm doing. The funeral people may think I'm mad, but I need to at least try.

I think back to my pregnancy all the time. All the little things that pissed me off - how heavy and round I was, how I would waddle through the common to the tube, huffing and puffing and sometimes having a morning cry about how we would cope with two babies.

Well, I wonder how I am coping with one ** truth be told -  Christ it's hard - but we would've done it knowing we had our perfect little pair.

I see double prams, twins, all around me and I feel like everyone else. No one knows. I read the blogs of those who have lost and have to cose them, as the pain is too much sometimes. Some describe their experiences and it feels too real.

Sebastian is so special to us, but I wonder if we would've been better parents if we had our two. Less anxious, less scared, more go with the flow and letting things unfold as they should because we would've had to with two. We would've had to just wing it by the seat of our pants.

How it could've been. How Seb is growing so quickly, now out of his micro nappies (they're the size of my hand) to real newborn size nappies. How his little head gets bigger and how he has developed a double chin.
How he lives life. With us. How it's meant to be.

I'm sure everyone is getting sick of me harping on about Molly. Even my mum and the Brit to an extent. Although my Brit has his moments and it breaks my heart.

One of my friend's at home set up a moment of silence on Facebook for Molly on the day of her funeral. Such a wonderful gesture, and so touched by those who have joined. It may seem small and silly, but to me it meant the world.

Below is a random photo of Sebastian on my shoulder, but when I look at it, my whole being just melts. He has a way about him, he frowns sometimes. His expressions are my favourite. Here he is wearing a chunky knit someone actually knitted for him.

I think he is the most beautiful creature on this Earth. Even if he isn't, to me he really really is. 

It's my favourite picture. 

* Ironically, or unironically, I am having a lot of dreams about basements. Freud would have a field day; have been told before that houses/rooms/basements symbolise the self and the processing of demons/stuff thereof. I have a lot of scary house dreams during times of strife, so must be an element of truth here.

** Kind of thought being a parent would be kind of like owning a high maintenance cat(s). It's not.