My first day at school was 61 years ago. I remember crying, and sitting at a table. That’s it. My first day at work was one of the most depressing days of my life. I wasn’t allowed to stay on at school, which I’d assumed that I would be, and my father got me an interview at a job I’d never heard of – Inland Telegraphist (taking telegrams). So I was naïve, not ready to leave school mentally or emotionally, dreading it, and utterly depressed.
The nearest I come to becoming a parent is the night I picked up our first two kittens. I was so excited, got home, we took them out of the travel box, and I suddenly realise that I didn’t know how to handle something so small and apparently vulnerable. Not only that I was responsible for them from now on. I can’t imagine how much bigger that moment is for the parent of a human child.
I did become pregnant once, but I’d been told due to endometriosis that I wouldn’t be able to carry a child for more than two weeks and that turned out to be accurate. However, in those two short weeks I felt something I could never have imagined, and I am so grateful I had the experience, upsetting though it ultimately was. If you have endometriosis, I had it particularly badly, so don’t lose heart. I also had it a very long time ago.
I felt her arrive, I felt the collision, many pregnant mothers have told me that and it turned out to be a truth. Immediately I felt extremely protective. People criticised Meghan Markle for holding her bump, I wanted people to cross the road. I didn’t want anyone near her except Tony. Surprising for someone who never wanted children, and also quite wonderful. It’s a fortnight of my life that I treasure, except the end. We found it so upsetting that we decided never to try again. I was okay with that though.
On a happy note
I’m a childless grandmother. Sadly one of my dearest friends died, and when her daughter was pregnant she realised that her children would have no grandparents on her side of the family, so she did us the unbelievable honour of asking us to step in.
We love her dearly so we couldn’t say no, and wouldn’t have even considered it, but what did one do with these child things? It turned out that you fall completely in love at first sight with all three, now four, of them, and feel like the luckiest people on the planet. Who’d a thought it? Life can be magical sometimes.
Deb xx
Deb Hawken - Amorah 