His hand was pale, with a youthful plumpness and soft, dimpled knuckles like a baby’s and yet he was 20-years-old. My “special little boy” as I had always referred to him as a toddler. As I slipped my hand into his and stroked his flawless, satiny skin, his fingers that were tipped with blue-tinged nails seemed to curl around mine in a reciprocal gesture of affection. I pleaded with him to open his eyes and speak to me, to tell me that it was all some sick joke, devised as a test of my love for him, but he didn’t respond.
Apart from his head and left arm, the rest of his body was covered neatly in a white, latticed hospital blanket, identical to the one in which the midwife had swaddled him on the day he was born. This time, however, he was motionless. He was lying on his back, his eyes closed, concealing the striking emerald irises that were always emphasised by long, dark lashes curling over his eyelids. His full and slightly parted lips looked as though they had been airbrushed with pale blue powder, as did his cute little ears, which still had the same characteristic kink in the top as they had when he was a tiny baby. His nailbeds were also blue and his neck was flushed purple, which alarmed me, but about which I asked no questions. I presumed that this was due to cyanosis, caused by lack of oxygen in his blood. At that point, however, questions like that seemed pointless. His short, neat hair had recently been tinted red and my fingers glided through it with ease as I stroked his crown repeatedly. Why, Kristian, my darling little boy, why?
He looked more peaceful than I had ever seen him, but I desperately wanted him to wake up. I spoke to him softly through my sobs, telling him how sorry I was, how much I loved him and asking over and over again, “Why?” I tormented myself with memories of moments when intense frustration provoked me to scream at him and tell him that if he didn’t buck up his ideas, he would have no chance in life. How I wished I had been more tolerant. I thought about the many times when I had succumbed to his pleas against my better judgement. How I wish I’d been more strict. How I wished I’d done so many things that I thought could wait because I had assumed there would “always be tomorrow”.
His father rejected me almost from the time that I announced my pregnancy and tried in vain to make me agree to an abortion. This I refused, a decision that resulted in having to travel alone on the nine-month long path towards Kristian’s birth. His father appeared again briefly in my life when I was around six months’ pregnant and told me how he admired me for my strength and determination to proceed with my pregnancy alone.
When I first announced my pregnancy to my mother, she said, “You’ll have to have an abortion.” This was not an option for me. Earlier that year, I had endured a traumatic rape and had become pregnant as a result. The pregnancy was terminated without a second thought, a decision that has plagued me with tremendous guilt and distress ever since. I always believed that I would be punished for my crime and my initial thoughts were that I would either discover that I couldn’t have any more children, or that I would lose a child. I desperately wanted my baby, whatever the personal consequences. He would be cared for and loved and raised to the absolute best of my ability. Almost from the moment of conception, I knew that I was carrying a boy and always referred to my baby as “he”.
When I informed my mother that I was going to keep my baby, she told me that I would not be able to live at home and asked what I thought I was going to do. I told her that, if necessary, I would move into a mother and baby home. Her prime concern, I felt, was what other people would think, rather than my well being and that of my baby. A grandchild was surplus to her requirements, so in her mind, the solution was simple and would spare any awkward questions asked by others.
“I felt so embarrassed having to tell people that I had an unmarried daughter who was expecting a baby”, she told me one morning after she’d attended one of my father’s business functions the evening before. She wanted to be able to tell people that she had a successful daughter pursuing a high-flying career, because she felt that would have been a better reflection on her.
Through all this, my father remained silently supportive, even though my mother constantly reminded me that there was no way my father would tolerate a screaming baby in the house. I later learned that this was nonsense and that my mother was simply using a third person to express her own wishes and thoughts.
For the next three months, I endured severe sickness, exacerbated by the stress of the rejection and emotional isolation that I felt. During the fourth month of pregnancy, I travelled down to Surrey to stay with an old college friend, Clive, who had been my soul mate during my first year at VI Form in Sussex, before his family moved to Surrey. Time spent with Clive and his family was always so therapeutic, not least because they were all very spiritual and have since become well-respected faith healers. Nevertheless, I still harboured a deep sense of emotional turbulence. How would I cope with a baby on my own? How would I provide for him? Would he be healthy? What would I do if something were to go wrong? How would I meet people? How could I enter into another relationship? Who would be prepared to accept me with a child? Was I being selfish bringing a child into the world without a father?
Another excerpt from Chapter One, Kristian's Story............
Kristian raced through the Kingdom of Toddlers like the Tasmanian Devil, whizzing curiously from one activity to the next, busy fingers probing curiously at everything around him, rarely sitting still, except to learn and recite, word-for-word, the pages from his favourite storybook; Goldilocks and The Three Bears. Surpassing all other interests was his obsession with cars and the same Thomas The Tank Engine video, which had been watched so many times over that it eventually developed pirate copy fuzziness. His ceaseless chatter would ring in the ears of visitors long after they had departed, all marvelling at how bright and forward he was for his age.
He was a small boy with big dreams and his zest for life showed so much promise for the future that I never had any doubts that he would go far. However, he loved to be loved and would warm to anyone who spoke to him, even those who clearly had the potential to lead him in the wrong direction. I feared that his good nature and desire to be accepted would allow him to be easily led when he was older.
One of my most vivid memories of the time that Kristian and I lived with my Gran, was his attachment to a little wooden chair that had belonged to my father when he was small. My Gran had kept it and it had subsequently been used by my brother and I when we were small and for all the other little people who has passed through my Gran’s house over the years. It had been painted and re-painted and received a few knocks and gouges along the way, but still it remained almost perfectly in tact. When my Gran died, my father took possession of it and it now stands in his dining room. The pain of looking at that empty chair that holds with it so many memories of my Gran and my son is crippling, but the same chair elicits happy memories that can make me smile through my tears.
