This week’s post marks the last entry in the Dispatches from New Motherhood series. Over the last year we’ve shared all 50 pieces from the book we made as part of the Arts Council funded pilot programme, building an online library of what it means to be a new mum. You can read more about Dispatches from New Motherhood here. These 50 mother-writers are where Mothership began, and I’ll always be grateful to our original crew for their enthusiasm and commitment – without it, we wouldn’t still be going today.
We’re delighted to share here THE LAST TO GO by Lowri Scourfield, an incredibly moving and tender poem, beautifully expressed. Writing from the point of view of her grandmother, the poet reflects on the generations, the bonds of family, and the power of love.
Lowri says, ‘The Mothership Writers sessions gifted me a little haven of creative space in those eye-wateringly exhausting days of early motherhood. My daughter was about 6 months old when we started, I’d spend Friday morning whizzing about parks and playgroups to try and get a decent nap time for the sessions. I have sweet memories of that first exhale after parking my sleeping baby next to me and opening my notebook to start each session. ‘
Lowri goes on to say, ‘Much of my writing about motherhood became woven with writing about the death of my grandparents. My grandmother died a fortnight after my grandfather’s death. She had dementia. ‘Losing’ her was a long process that started long before her death. This piece was inspired by imagining her voice in those final days, knowing what she might say if she could as a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother. Without Mothership Writers, I wouldn’t have dreamed of putting these words down on paper… but now here they are! Thank you Mothership Writers for showing me the power in writing.’
Enjoy Lowri’s beautiful poem here. And thank you for reading our Dispatches from New Motherhood.
***
The Last to Go
Lowri Scourfield
In memory of Tydfil Wood
I wake,
but my eyes don’t open.
This now familiar darkness
has stolen any sense of night,
or day.
The click of the opening door is
shortly followed by a gentle kiss on my forehead.
It must be morning.
'Hiya, Mami,' Ann says, stroking my hair.
A baby cries.
A fractious, hungry wail.
It makes my body plead to bundle her up,
to press my nose to her honey hair,
to curl her body into mine.
They give us dolls here, at the home,
but nothing’s as intoxicating
as the real thing.
'It’s Ann, Mami. Your daughter.
Lowri’s here too. And baby Gwen.
That’s your daughter,
granddaughter
and great-granddaughter
all together!'
They do this now.
Tell me their names,
what relation they are to me.
They know I forget.
Probably helps them too,
to have something to say.
Especially now I can’t respond.
'Can you believe
you’re a great-grandmother?'
Lowri says as she holds my hand.
I picture the way her other
is wrapped around her feeding baby,
holding her in place.
Gwen. It was my mother’s name.
I will my eyes to open,
to let me be a part of this.
A chair is dragged
from the other side of the room
wrenching any peace from the moment.
That poor baby;
tiny paper-thin eardrums.
Hot panic rises and I imagine sitting,
swinging my legs over the bed,
hurling myself onto the chair.
Anything to stop it.
I almost laugh at the image.
'She told me once
that your hearing is the last to go.'
Ann’s voice is almost a whisper,
'So I just talk when I’m here.
Nonsense mostly …'
Baby Gwen sleeps now,
her breathing changed.
Deeper, rhythmic,
a slight snore at the end of each breath.
I picture her little eyes,
willingly closed
in the haven of her mother.
Is this it?
Or is there something,
a somewhere else?
Somewhere my mother has been waiting for me?
To pull me to the curve of her neck
and hold my heart against hers.
I picture my husband there too,
waiting in his armchair,
smelling of shaving foam and Sugar Puffs.
Ice clinks around his whisky glass
as he smiles contentedly.
So much to tell them both
about this world I’m leaving.
I feel them pull me closer.
Not just yet.
Foggy tendrils reach
into the corners of my skull.
Again.
Probably my next dose.
Maybe.
I hang on,
breathe in their perfume,
soak up the warmth of a hand on mine.
Inhale their vibrance
as deeply as my wilting lungs will allow.
They’re singing now,
the song of my childhood,
my home, my family.
My mind roars the familiar chorus
until it can roar no more.
Until I can no longer hear their soft singing.
I want to tell them that I was wrong;
hearing isn’t the last to go.
There’s something left here now, right at the end.
It’s love.
Love is what’s left.
***
The Last to Go by Lowri Scourfield appears in the Mothership Writers anthology Dispatches from New Motherhood. All 50 pieces from the book will be published here over the year to come, creating an online library of what it really means – right here, right now – to be a new mother.