It’s Christmas Eve, 2021. Zephyr just turned two months old. It’s been a week since he completed his second round of systemic chemotherapy and his blood counts are already crashing. We are on a bracing walk around Tooting Common. Zephyr is bundled up in the baby carrier strapped to David’s chest.
He is in a deep sleep, as babies of that age often are.
We start to head home when I ask:
“David - is he breathing?"
"Of course he is."
"Can you check?"
"He's fine."
"But could you just check?"
"He's fine!”
Not an argument, barely a conversation. But now there is tension, emotion in the air.
It’s Christmas Eve, 2021. Zephyr just turned two months old.
He is in a deep sleep, as babies of that age often are. I get that sudden pang - that little burst of fear that happens when you haven't heard your baby make a sound - and all of a sudden it doesn’t feel ok.
It’s like a clock in your body goes off when things seem too quiet or when the baby has been too still for too long. A cold rush passes through you and you go from feeling fine to extremely uncomfortable in a split second. At that moment you NEED to ascertain that everything is fine. You HAVE to check on the baby - and until you do, you feel anxious, queasy, uneasy.
So I ask the question, "David - is he breathing?" Because I suddenly must know. If I am not given the answer, my body will fill with a clammy, scraping, clawing fear.
"Of course he is." It’s a silly question, I know. I know I’m being annoying. I know I seem irrational. Of course, the baby is still breathing.
"Can you check?"
"He's fine." I see David is getting irritated. He probably thinks I do not trust how he put the baby in the carrier. Or that I don't think he's capable of noticing if something is wrong with his own child.
"But could you just check?" Even though I know the baby is surely ok, I need David to reach down and feel that little exhale, the warm moisture against his hand. I need this simple information to be able to reset my fear clock, to feel ok again.
"He's fine!” He must think that I am micro-managing. He must be annoyed because he thinks I am judging him. He can’t see that my question has nothing to do with him.
Not an argument, barely a conversation. But now there is tension, emotion in the air.
I am desperate - why won’t he just check?
I feel he can’t see me clearly, can’t understand my feelings or intuit the motivation of my question.
I am afraid. Afraid of fragility. Loss. Things going wrong. The baby disappearing. I am afraid I won’t get to keep him after all.
More than a year later I ask David about how he felt in that moment during that tiny dispute we had while walking in the chilly December twilight. I am surprised that he remembers it as vividly as I do.
But I am more surprised by his response.
It’s Christmas Eve, 2021. Zephyr is in a deep sleep, as babies of that age often are.
I ask, “David - is he breathing?" David’s jaw clenches. He does not like the question. He feels immediately reactive about the idea that Zephyr might not be ok, the implication that cancer and treatment could make him more fragile.
"Of course he is." David believes Zephyr will be fine, everything will be fine. It’s not wishful thinking - why worry about something before there is a problem? David doesn’t want a defeatist or tragic mentality about the risks.
"Can you check?" It is hard for David to think about how he himself was in danger when he was a child.
"He's fine." The story David has always told himself is that his childhood cancer wasn't a big deal. David has tried not to let it define him; he has never wanted to believe it was meaningful or life-changing.
"But could you just check?" He feels offended on some level by the idea that Zephyr could be weakened. He is taking it almost personally. He doesn’t want Zephyr to be defined by his cancer either.
"He's fine!” He refuses to think of himself or his son that way.
Not an argument, barely a conversation. But now there is tension, emotion in the air.
When I ask him if the baby is still breathing and he can hear the fear in my voice, it throws all of his carefully constructed stories into question, his certainty that everything was fine, is fine and will be fine. He does not want to question his past, nor the certainty he has been relying upon that Zephyr will be ok. Each time I beg him to check Zephyr, it is as though I am poking a hole in something that has held him up for years, and he is afraid he might begin to fall.
What he had been thinking and going through was nothing like I’d imagined.
We both completely misunderstood each other. I was just having a normal paranoid mothering moment - and he was reading everything via the lens of chemotherapy, cancer, and his past. We thought we were having a conversation about the same thing, but we were not.
It was a small, inconsequential moment, but it illustrates how hard it is for people to go through difficult things together. We bring our past - the complex experiences, emotional baggage and coping strategies - with us into new challenging circumstances.
Our imagination has such power, but such heartbreaking limitations. It is the hardest thing in the world to understand someone else fully. Even someone we've known a long, long time. Maybe sometimes especially someone we’ve known a long time.
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Another heartfelt and eloquent piece. Thank you Pacifica. No need for me to tell you to keep going. You are up and flying. Congratulations. Jean
To tell you that men and women think differently would be foolish. You are aware. Eloquent words for basic emotions. Love it and you!