Panda
Panda left my life when I was five. He didn’t give an explanation. He never left a note. It all happened out of the blue. One minute, he’s tucked under my left arm (permanently) his loyal paws nestling into my tiny grip, un-phased by my tantrums, witness to my behind the curtain straining, and tolerant of all my wet beds. He disappeared when my mother, siblings and I moved into what would be home 2 of the 3 homes we moved into within the space of a year. This one was near the Humber Bridge, facing the water but ensconsed in a prison of dark trees and wood. The Cliffe House was made up of apartments and we had the second floor.
We had just been moved from the previous shelter, where we lived above a school called Hessle Mount. The beautiful house still stands tall on Heads Lane, a private school for children of primary age. We had to leave there on a fire safety technicality ( there was no fire safety). In the event we would have to lay low and hope for the best if flames licked at our doors, or if smoke inhaled all our oxygen.
The Cliffe was cold, damp, dark and foreboding. Another big house, as small children my siblings and I saw the adventure in the place. We would run and scarper in and out of the rooms, we would visit the outskirts of the woods, convinced we could see wolves with yellow eyes. We would collect stones and broken crockery washed up on the Humber’s shore. I remember laying out my treasure on the formica table, studying each one with pride.
This was the house of illness. I remember always having bugs, colds, being sick and being forced the take the cod liver oil medicine. This was when I most needed Panda. He had been there throughout my 5 year life, and now, in the midst of another illness, or waking to another nightmare, I couldn’t find his fuzzy warmth. I can remember searching through boxes from when we were unpacking ( we never did totally settle in).
Perhaps Panda could see my future. He got scared, realised he couldn’t hold my hand for what was to come. Too many predators on the horizon, too much movement and chaos. A spiritual animal I have later read, he may have been the lighthouse in my storm, only his light failed just as the lightening was about to crack through the sky. Within six months of losing him, and finally moving into our final home, The Cottage, my mother made her first suicide attempt. Panda was somewhere, turning his eyes away from that little girls horror.
I had to find a different toy, the day the social worker sat at our home, after school. As we walked in to our kitchen, soon realising that our mother was absent, this strange lady asked us to go and collect our favourite toy to take up to our Grandma Roberts house. I can’t remember what I chose. Whatever it was, it didn’t stop the agony of what lay ahead. I don’t think even Panda would have would have able to spare me the imminent grief I would feel as we uprooted our little lives, and school and friends, to be taken 90 miles away. Our heads full of unanswered questions, ones we dare not ask his stranger, who drove us directly to Stockton, where our Grandma lived.
We spent the next 8 months living at 137 Rudyard Avenue, a home blessed with Catholic ornaments, crucifixes, rosary beads, and a huge picture of the pope. Grandma even had some holy water, contained in a vessel which was in the shape of the Holy Mary. Trust me, it wasn’t Holy Water after we got our hands on it. We did replace what we drank, with tap water. I just hope Grandma had all her prayers answered, while we were guzzling what she likely kept from one of her many Holy trips to Bethlehem or Lourdes.
We had to go to Church everyday. We sat second row from the front, adjacent to the isle and next to the giant statutes of all the Saints. There was also a Magnificant statue of Jesus, hung on his cross, with the blood of his abdominal scar. This always made me feel very lose to God, in my innocence feeling that the place was magic and that Jesus was actually there. Grandma certainly created that sense of serenity and safety.
I am eternally grateful for the stability those visits to Grandma provided. There was no alcohol, no parties, no late nights, no strange men. Grandma was secure. She was predictable. She was strict but fair. She was reliable. We were fed, clothed and kept safe. Sadly, another example of emotional distance, we never got affection. We were not told we were beautiful or clever, or worthy. We had to pray for that. We were never cuddled or lifted up or celebrated. I am not critical of this regarding Grandma. This was her way. She did the best that she could with us, at the age of 60 suddenly having three children under 10 to care for.
How she must have felt, when she got the “call” that her only daughter had attempted suicide. I wonder whether she sat down, whether she took to pray after the call, imploring Jesus to send strength. She will have been alone. Nobody to turn to , no shoulder to cry on. Stoic. That was Grandma. What a warrior was she. I never saw her falter, well at least not until we were all grown up and she was nearing her final years. Only then did she reach out to us, expressing her loneliness, the frustration at her failing health.
When we were under her care, we at least had predictability. Routine. Safety. But those did nothing to protect the debilitating hole inside my heart at the loss of my mother. I remember so many times, the avalanche of pain that gave no warning when it tore through my 6 year old body. I cannot find any words for this. But I can tell you now, as I type these letters, I feel that pain. It can be brought back to life as soon as I take my memory back there. Just dreadful. My whole world had been stripped away. I was a floating star, with no moon, no sun and no direction. Just darkness everywhere. Even the presence of Grandma and my siblings did not bring an anchor for my lost soul.
I took this pain and recreated it many times in adult relationships. I was always trying to fill a whole . There was always a thirst, a need, something that wasn’t tangible, the absence of which, kept me in a state of constant in completion. Like a jigsaw. The missing pieces would finish the perfect landscape. Just a few pieces. Lost forever and no matter how you looked at the jigsaw, your eyes were trained on the gaps.
I was reaching out for something that I didn’t know I was missing, directing my own search party for an invisible substance. Relationships started and ended. Friends came and went, a couple have hung on for dear life, by my side. I lived in many houses, moved around, worked different jobs in my nursing and like U2 I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. Luckly I’m not riding anyone’s wild horses, on streets that have no name.
What if a mothers love was my missing piece? And what if I never fill that whole? That six year old little girl began her lesson the day she left Tower Hill, in that social workers car. She learned to swallow the tears. She learned to cry into the dark. She learned not to be celebrated or cuddled. She learned that love was something impermanent. She learned that she was now fractured and lost. And finding her way back to the light was going to be the longest journey she would ever make. Panda managed to jump ship; he knew what was coming. I wish he could have taken me with him.
