dear question mark
2025
Performance, 22 days
Dear ?
I’m not quite sure what to call you, yet.
I’m writing to you by the fireplace in the room where your grandfather died just a few short months ago. And, although you wouldn't have had the pleasure of meeting him in life, perhaps you'll get to spend some time with him now.
It's strange. I was connected to your grandfather post-mortem in a way that I was not, premortem. To be connected to someone in death through new life is quite the paradox. But I guess that's exactly what life is, isn't it? Death is not the opposite of life. Rather, it is part of life.
Your father is at your grandfather's grave as my ink spills onto this page, so I’ve decided to dedicate this pocket of time to mourn the loss of you. It’s a more brutal a loss, I think, than people realize. The memorial I have to visit is quite the undignified one. I am reminded of you most when I sit on the toilet. When I look down at crimson pools. In spasms deep within the core of my body as my womb shrinks back down from the size of a grapefruit. What is the opposite of growing pains?
The NHS website says that you were the size of a raspberry when you left. Your older half-sister was the size of a blueberry. Why is fruit the metric of measurement for everything pregnancy related? Is it some relic of Christian sentiment? An ode to the chunk of apple Eve so selfishly swallowed? But, of course, being a mother is quite the opposite to ‘selfish’. One of the most selfless acts a woman can perform in her life is to give life to another. At least that's what they feed us.
There was a picture of what you probably looked like. Somewhere between human and amphibian. Bigger than I expected. Discernible limbs, webbed hands and feet. A nose and upper lip had started to form, it said, a heartbeat now detectable. I showed your father. He asked if that's what I saw when I'd passed you. “No, of course not”, I replied. And thank goodness.
I did feel it, though. Around 4 hours after the cramps started. They really don’t emphasise the intensity of the pain quite enough, you know. ‘Severe period cramps’, the nurse told me. ‘Bollocks’, I thought. I knew from passing your half-sister just how excruciating it really was. But not even that could prepare me for the pain of losing you. You were bigger than her, and the mind has a habit of inhibiting our ability to recall the lived experience of pain. Not even the codeine seemed to soften its edges this time.
The red-hot hand of the devil rung my uterus out relentlessly, like a dirty rag. Piercing shockwaves reverberated through every inch of my body in what seemed like a perpetual sonic boom. Writhing around like a worm caught in the midday sun on a concrete slab, my screams were an involuntary necessity. My mouth reduced to a pressure valve.
At 10 p.m. last night I crawled to the toilet, surprised at how little blood there had been so far. And then I felt it. The release. All at once. My vocal cords produced a sound altogether unrecognisable. An ancient one. Primal. Rooted not in pain, but in shock. The shock that somewhere in that mass of God knows what, you lay entangled. Curiosity got the better of me and I looked, but could see nothing amidst the crimson cloud. How undignified. I'm so sorry that's where I left you. You didn't deserve that. ‘Was it a relief?’ Asked your father. ‘No, not really’, I replied. ‘Not at all’.
I'm only glad I didn't have the image of the raspberry in my mind in that moment. When I saw it after the fact, the back of my tongue sank to the pit of my stomach. Heavy. The dull kick of guilt permeating the membrane of skin stretched across it.
And then, questions, questions. Why do I feel more connected to you now that you're gone? Had I said everything I needed to say before you left? Did I love you enough? Did I tell you enough?
How inescapably suffocating it was to have to hide you from the world. To have to swallow my suffering, without sugar. To wrestle with one of the most existential questions a woman has to face, in a vacuum. While people at the dinner table make casual remark after casual remark about parenting. I wish none of this were in the dark. It's hard enough to see through salt-stained pupils when the sun's out.
Secrecy’s lover is shame, and they share a bed with guilt. The guilt of knowing that what I did to you is a crime in the country we grew up believing was the pinnacle of freedom and democracy. The guilt of being labelled some kind of heinous murderer by that pro-life leaflet in my letterbox.
And who am I to talk when I'm the one writing you this letter? To some it must seem like a contradiction. To humanize you only to release you. But maybe by humanizing you, I am humanizing myself. If I feel a sense of loss, then surely, I have the right to mourn it. Even if that loss is a result of my own choice.
The point is sweetheart, I am your mother, and I have to make choices on your behalf because you're not quite old enough to make them for yourself yet. And I believe, truly, that there's no one else in the world who is better placed to make them for you, at least while your survival is dependent upon my body. I made this decision because I love you, and because I love myself. To bring you into this world now would mean doing so at a time when I'm simply not ready to dedicate my life to you. My own inner child is still so wounded. I have to be a mother to her before I can even consider being a mother to you. But that doesn't mean there isn’t a part of me that wanted to try. This decision is never black or white. It's grey. There will always be a part of me that wanted you and that's okay. I can live with her. Because I know that the part of me who isn’t ready needs my attention more urgently.
Thank you Poppet, for everything you've taught me. For fuelling my impulse to fight back. I promise to grieve you properly, and to immortalise you in the only way I know how. Mark my words, I will make you a worthy grave.
Remember, the beginning is at the end, always.
with love always,
mummy.
