A few months ago, one of my favourite photos, from when William was born, fell from the wall. The glass from the frame shattering into a million pieces and scratching the photo, beyond repair.
This particular photo and one other of Will, that sits on the third shelf of the buffet and hutch, always had a way of jumping from it’s place.
I have many, many photos lining my walls and on my shelves but only these two would ever tumble down and startle me.
I would pick them up, often rattled and put them back.
The photo, which was of David and I cupping William’s sizable newborn foot, clattered to the ground eerily about a week after his fifth angel day this year.
I admit I was upset and more than a little spooked.
Everytime I walk by the space where that photo should be I think of him.
I think of the day we held that little foot.
It was our first and last time.
I think about reprinting it and reframing it but life is busy and I keep forgetting.
I keep forgetting.
+++
When William died, Dave bought me a gold pendant.
It was a little gold disc with William’s face engraved into it.
For five years I wore it around my neck.
Five years is a long time.
It was a little worn, a little dull.
I fiddled with it when I was nervous, when I was thinking about him, when I was talking about him.
I gave it to the girls on the night that Ivy and Noah were born, asked them to keep it safe for me.
In happy times and in the saddest of times, I kept it with me.
I was running it up and down the chain as I drove Ivy into the hospital two weeks ago, thinking about how life had turned out since that day when I buried my firstborn son.
I was still playing with it in Emergency, as I was wishing the paediatrician would hurry because my girl was sick.
Somewhere between there and the ward though, that little disc,
it fell off the chain.
I realised late into the night that it was gone.
The weight around my neck was not as heavy as it usually was.
When I discovered the pendant was gone, I cried.
Long, deep, hurt your stomach sobs, that I had not allowed to bubble up for a very long time.
It was more than the missing disc.
Of course.
It was everything, really.
My tears came quick and heavy and were hard to keep under control.
As the days went on the pain of losing that little disc did not disappear.
and I am still trying to work out why this pendant, that is wholly replacable, has brought up so many feelings.
In my over tired, unwell (yes, I was sick too) mind, it was William’s way of letting me go. Perhaps I had been too busy, too preoccupied and so he was done with me.
The photos had been warnings but the missing pendant was his final bow out.
Of course, now that I have sleep and health on my side I can look at things a little more rationally.
The necklace must have had some wear and tear over the last five years and the disc came away from the chain.
Both the photo and the pendant are such little things.
Small, materialistic keepsakes of a time that has passed.
I can’t shake it though,
I still feel that a part of me is lost forever.
