Day 167

Girl and spray.
Boston Tea Party Ride at Canobie Lake Park.

A lovely day with grades 6 and 7 at the roller-coaster park.  Roller-coasters probably relieve stress, you can scream your heart out, feel that adrenalin rush and the endorphins that follow.   For me, teaching Matthew and Nick to drive is scary enough.

Another auspicious day, another daughter's birthday today!  28 years old, good grief!  So again, thoughts of this child all day, thoughts of her birth, and all the years of her growing up into the strong passionate woman she is now.

Jessica - my second daughter.  She was not keen to be born, this one, so she was induced, (which makes for a rather painful labour) and when she at last slid out into the world, 4.3 kg fat, looking like a little old man, in that strange squished-face way of all newborns, my heart just expanded with love, an almost physical feeling.  I told my mother how astonished I had been, that I could love another person as much as I loved Emma, that we have this amazing capacity.   Of course she knew about that already.

The nurses said, "Ag shame, another little girl.   Well, maybe you'll get a boy next time." but I was thrilled with my little girl, I had not even contemplated a boy.

When Jess was only six weeks old I had to go back to teaching, at Jongilanga High School, which was about 25km out of East London at Kwelerha, in the middle of the bush.  I expressed a little milk at each feed so that there would be enough for a couple of bottles for the baby while I was away at school, as I had to leave her with the sweet nanny Eunice, on whose ample back the little baby spent most of her day while I was not there.  As soon as I returned home I would greet the 3 year old Emma with lots of kisses and hugs, give her something nice to do next to me, and then take the usually pretty hungry Jess and sit down with her to feed her.  I remember us staring into one another's eyes, euphoric, animalistic, both creatures in need of one another, the bond secure again.
 
When Jess was about 3 months old I took her to the doctor because I was afraid she was retarded.  All she did was drink and sleep and smile.  (Emma had required 24 hour service to her desires, from birth, and I had willingly provided everything, with great devotion and love.)  The doctor reassured me that this was how babies were supposed to behave and that I was actually very lucky to have such a baby.

We were at the Rhodes pool one hot Grahamstown day when Jess was nearly two and a half years old.  She ran along the smooth wet concrete that surrounded the pool, slipped and fell flat on her back, hitting her head hard.  I ran to her but she was gone, a limp rag doll lying pale in my arms.  I started running frantically, I'm not sure where I was going, and Tim said calmly, "No, put her down," and laid her out on the grass, my dear girl, my baby.  He knelt down reverentially and breathed life back into her, breathed the pink back into her skin, breathed the little lungs to work, inspired the dark eyes to open, the limbs alive and clinging to me again.

I remember walking across the dunes to Shelly Beach at Kenton, the four year old Jess and I trailing way behind the others.  I looked around to see her setting her feet down erratically over the flat rocks and scattered vegetation, bravely marching along on those skinny legs, peering at the ground.  I asked her what she was looking at and she beamed up at me, "Look, the flowers are all smiling, Mom."  They were little hardy purple vygies (mesembryanthemums) that I hadn't even noticed.

In time she has grown into a feisty passionate woman, a kind of animal whisperer, who has worked with tigers and lions and now cheetahs, who is brave and strong and true, like the song.

So happy birthday to my other darling dancing girl, who made me a mother for the second time, showed me how much love I had.  Thanks for 28 years of love, of drawings and discussions, sunshine and shade, and for pointing out to me how flowers smile!

This collage I made for Jess when she left us last time. We are all hugging her still.