Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
It was raining but the rain wasn’t making a sound. Nothing was a making a sound because the screaming in her head was too loud for anything else to penetrate. How had this happened? How had this gone so wrong? They waited for the cab and the anxiety was there knotting her insides, trying to compete with the kicking inside of her. And still it rained and still the rain was noiseless. The cab arrived. There was talking, there was noise, but the screaming in her head made it impossible to hear anything else. Directions were given to the hospital but the journey was far too short. It was all too soon. How could this be that the day was today?
It doesn’t matter if you don’t finish but at least you started.
The start had been a complete surprise. The start wasn’t expected. Not at 46. These things don’t happen at 46. But now it was finishing and it was never meant to start in the first place but it had. How has this happened? How had this gone so wrong? The ending was too soon.
He gave her hand a squeeze as the cab stopped. “Are you ready?’ he said. “Are you ever ready for this?” she thought. The panic was rising but the calm still pervaded because the situation seemed so unimaginable.
“I’m not ready for this?…I haven’t yet done those classes?…I haven’t been doing those exercises…. What breathing are you supposed to do?… I can’t remember any of those things?… why now?”
“it’s ok, don’t be scared. We will get through this together” he said. Which was a half comfort. How would anyone understand if she didn’t understand. How would this baby ever forgive her for what was about to happen to him? How would she ever forgive herself? What did this make her as a mother? A useless, half-mother who fell into this situation by accident and now was being dragged into another situation without a choice. No control. No planning. Life happens to you when you least expect it. Life is so much more raw then anyone warns you about. This wasn’t meant to happen, so why did it have to? Could she run away? Could she hide? There was nowhere left to go.