Slán

September is over. It's Thursday.

We got a photo ready to send with you, and a cross, and medal from Rome. I wrote this on the back of the photo:

*

We named you Daire, for a girl or a boy.
It means fruitful,
like the raspberry bushes outside our house
that we picked fruit from this morning,
the first day of October.

It's also a divine name.
And you are divine;
have given our lives beautiful meaning.

Thank you for being part of what we are.

Love,
Mam Dad Éabha Caomhán Aifric
xxxxx

September

Then today, Daire, this second last day of 'our' month, at about five o'clock in the evening, I was standing at the window of Room 115 in the Seagoe Hotel, Portadown, Craigavon.

I was just standing there, looking out at some mowed grass, with fallen leaves on it - leaves from a mature oak tree that sloped up from the base of a railed, high, spiky-topped border fence of the hotel - a fence whose purpose was to mark out and protect territory, compound-like, in this northern land of borders within borders.

I looked up at the tree - tall and proud and oblivious to its political setting. I was straining to see if there were any acorns, it being the season for acorns, when suddenly, out of the bottom of my eye, I noticed a grey squirrel, perched purposefully at the base of the trunk, scanning the grass and the fallen, dead leaves for any sign of the same fruit.

- He knows where to look, I thought.

Then he came to ground, and fidgeted around, foraging, finding, picking and nibbling, but never wandering too far from the great oak. This lasted for all of half a minute.

- Éabha and Caomhán would love to see this, I thought.

Then, all at once, a lively, large golden labrador dog bounded along the public path outside the fence. And though he was completely oblivious to the little creature on the grounds inside, the squirrel was gone! Like a flash. Taking no chances, he streaked up, first the large trunk, then off right to a long branch, then darting back left, and higher again, along a smaller branch, and so on, away and up, changing direction every time, even moving eventually to a neighbouring ash whose branches shared the air-space high above the gaze or reach of all of us weary, heavy, clumbsy dogs or people, who merely inhabit the ground.

Two or three seconds was all it took for him to be perched again, but this time looking back and down at us from far away. Two or three seconds more he was planning his next forage below. Beautiful.

*

I'm away from home this evening, Daire. But it's nice here. Nice weather - overcast, but a nice peaceful end to September.

Nice people I met today too.

And that woman from the hospital rang - Anne. About the time for Thursday. 2.10, she said. Very precise. See you then.

Love, Dad.

Celebration

Daire, (because that is how we will now spell your name - your mother said it to me here in this bed one morning - just said it, that that was how she'd like me to spell your name at your resting place in the Plot of the Angels...) I never liked the twenty-third of September, or the twenty-fourth, or so on for a few more days, because these were dates that were drifting mercilessly past the twenty-first - the day of my birthday. Leaving it behind. For another year at least. It's always made me sad.

I've had a birthday you see, Daire, since my last - our last - little conversation. We celebrated it really last weekend - your mother and your sisters and brother and I. We all went walking on a beautiful road by the banks of Lough Corrib. Really beautiful. It was sunny in the best possible September way. Yellow sun in a deep blue sky. And the lake was deep blue also. Picture all of this as a background to green and brown hedgerows, fields, trees, all laden with the fruits of autumn - red rowan berries, rose hips and blackberries - a picture of the defining beauty of nature in my mind.

Well we walked along a grey, winding and hilly road - more a bótharín than a road - that cut its way like a viewing viaduct through this beauty. And Caomhán had his stick. And Éabha had hers. And Mammy hers. And me mine. And Aifric was looking at all of us, and at this beauty, from her perch high on my back - in a kind of rucksack-type frame that holds her stable and erect and comfortable for the duration.

How Éabha, Caomhán and even Aifric took to the walk with gusto! And how we looked at them with joy and prode! Mammy took a photo of us all with our walking gear and sticks. She used her mobile phone. Nice colour, and a cool pose. She put it on her phone as wallpaper.

It was a beautiful birthday.

During that walk I thought of you, Daire, and thought of the sad contrast of me and my birhtday, being celebrated for the fortieth time, with you never having been 'born' to this world to give us the same cause for annual celebration. I thought about this also on Monday when I was in Dublin working, on the day of my 'real' birthday. It made me pause. And made me a little bit sad. But then, on each occassion, I breathed something like a prayer, and thought of the beauty I had seen in you. And this was strength to move on.

So thank you, Daire, for that. That's all. We will always think of you here. In this family. I know that now. Because you are in all that beauty which surrounded our walk today. As we walk through days like these, in celebration, you are there, part of the beauty we see, part of us, part of our every celebration.

And I am certain (as certain as I am that you have some hand in this) that there will be many celebrations, enjoyed together by this family - your family.

By the way, today I wrote a letter to our Auntie Carmelita. She's a nun - Poppy Tom's sister - who lives and works (still - even after her sixtieth jubilee!) in Gulfport, Missouri, USA. She had sent us a card to give us comfort in losing you. She is lovely. I wrote to her and told her things - more about me, and loads about you. I'll post the letter tomorrow.

That's it. (See you tomorrow-week, of course.)

Good night, darling.
Dad.

Miracle

You are only one day old to me today, Daragh. I have only known you for one day as I write.

This morning Aifric's rummaging woke me a little bit before the half seven alarm I had set. (Yes, I admit, I did fall asleep at some stage. Peace descended here in The Bailey too, as well as on that nice room where your mother slept peacefully.)

But yes, also, Aifric, your full-of-life sister was on the march early, sounding out what has become in here, her trademark rattle of the plastic colouredy, Little Tikes menagerie of noise.

I could tell that poor Caomhán knew his sleep was coming to an end. He was hearing Aifric's cacophony too, and I could see that mature nature in him kick in - feeling like a responsible adult would, that he'd have to forego a preference for more sleep in favour of rising to respond to the needs of the infant.

I chastise myself sometimes, Daragh, for being too straight with you all. Like this moment. Why does little Caomhán seem so mature? Seem so full of responsibility? Why can't he just not care - not have a 'care in the world'? Should I have told him about you ... when it seems to burden him with care, and worry, and a need to take on the unrest of adults?

But then I think of you more. And reaslise it cannot be any other way. Sharing the burden in whatever way comes naturally is part of being a family. We don't hold important things back from each other. We share the truth in the most loving way we can with you, our children, as much as your Mam and I share with each other. That is how we go on: sharing, loving, healing, nurturing.

Thank you Daragh, for another wisdom with which I can proceed. For coming to me as the purest friend; a soul mate for life to whom I can tell everything, without recourse to coloured arcs of words or language.

I digress with too much waffle. Enough of coloured arcs - life is much more simple. I need to tell you more about your family.

It was a school morning in here, so, you see, we all had to get up for school. So that's what we all did this morning before I made my way in to see you for the once and only time I would ever lay eyes on you.

With Éabha and Caomhán (to make a long story short) safely delivered to their classes (Aifric came too, in my arms - boy does she weigh a bit after a walk over the hill to the school!), and after Yvonne came to look after the same Aifric, I drove to the hospital to see you, and to take your mother home.

I bought her some flowers - your mother - nice ones: lilys and roses, because that's what all Dads do when they're going in to bring the Mammys and babies home. I know, becasue I did it before with Éabha, Caomhán and Aifric. So it was no different with you, Daragh.

I walked up the long corridor leading to the babies' section in UHG. That corridor has seen many new young lives through to the big world outside - a big world that you will never need to worry about, Daragh, but may need to watch over for us.

In the nice room in St. Monica's, your mother was folding her clothes to leave. She seemed very much relaxed with the world. (She told me later that she had woken at 6am. Someone had opened the curtains a bit after that, and she had just looked out for ages at the lovely morning, sunny and fresh as it was, with more nice cleansing showers.) It was like an ordeal was over, and someone had already quietly and lovingly started a long process of gently cooling and cleansing her pain. It was like that someone was sent by you, and you were everywhere and you were everything that we were.

I gave her the flowers, and, you know, it was just like a day (or the three days) before, when we were bringing your brother or sisters home...

The nurse, Mags, then took you down for me to see you.

*

Daragh, you were beautiful. Just as beautiful as Éabha and Caomhán and Aifric were the first day I saw them. Just as wholly present, and confident in your skin as they were when they were born to life. You were not alive to the world, but you were alive to us as we admired the miracle of you.

Your head bowed, your back curved, your arms, so tiny, held into your chest; your legs, so tiny, crossed and held into your belly. Your tiny, tiny, perfect ears, your eyes closed, like your whole body was in prayer - praying as if in celebration of being part - a very whole part - of the grand descent of man. QED.

And your toes. My God they were Caomhán's toes - long like they'd play the most miniature of pianos to delight the ears of some faery world. Tiny toes with tiny toenails. And look, too: tiny fingers with tiny fingernails! My God, my God, my heart ... myself!

I stared at you for all of ... five minutes, I suppose ... and could not take my eyes off you. In those five immeasurable minutes today, minutes which, if summed, arrow to infinity, I learned, I felt, all of nature's secrets - everything was explained to me by you, Daragh - the final pieces of the mysterious puzzle of everything that is, just fell somehow into place. For this enlightenment I feel privelidged.

*

And so we left, your mother and I, with her bag and the flowers, hand in hand, back to our world. Our walk was not one filled with sadness, but rather with some kind of new relaxation, renewed strength - a strength that you have given to us by your modesty.

I said to Grace on the way to the car that it was a lovely day today too for a walk.

- Yes, she replied, but yesterday was better - that drizzle, when it came, was like snowflakes to cool your face when you'd be too hot.

And that is how it was.

The nurse in St. Monica's will take your little body now, along with the many others that have bravely and proudly represented the march of man and woman with no less passion because your weeks were confined within the womb. They will take you with armfuls of sacred compassion and prepare you for the place they call the Plot of the Angels. They will call us, your mother and father, to come and see you one last time along your way.

So we will see you on that day, Daragh. God bless you. X Dad.

Born

Daragh - Dáire - that is your name.

You were named this first by your mother, as she lay in a bed, still sleepy after her kind, caring doctor delivered you, Daragh, from her womb, into this world.

'Daragh' was what she said when we wondered what name we would give you, and she spelled it out that way: 'D-a-r-a-g-h', because that, she thought, was the way to spell your name for a boy or a girl; because we will never know whether you were a boy or a girl - you came to us too early, you see, for us to 'say' (as the kind doctor put it).

And I think we are better off that way - never knowing - so thank you, dearest Daragh, though it likely was not your will, for having it be that way. Caomhán, your brother, you see, was looking forward to having a brother to be his friend. He has a friend already called Dara, you know - another reason that I love your name - like Caomhán's friend Dara.

Two 'r's, I thought there might be, like in 'Darragh' - and I wasn't sure of the boy/girl spelling, so I looked in our Irish Names book (written by a boy called Donnchadh and a girl called Fidelma) and the closest I could find there was Dáire. And you know what? Dáire can be for a boy or a girl too! It means fruitful, or to make fertile - a divine name. There is indeed a divinity that shapes our ends. Your mother has named you beautifully.

*

I would like to tell you a little of the day you were to come into, darling baby.

It rained some showers, but the sun shone too - a lovely day for walking, your mother said, because you could walk along in the sunshine, and that soft drizzle would wash over you for a little while, and then cool you nicely, and you could keep walking on forever.

Your mother cried eventually when she arrived at the kind doctor's surgery, and heard herself utter the words to the girl at the reception desk: 'I have been bleeding ...' Like there was a tear in her heart. Like uttering the words made the fear a fact.

The kind doctor knew our pain when she saw, and guided us through the necessary practical procedures to bring you forth to the cold world where everyhting is dust - a wisdom you were destined to have, far beyond your years, or ours.

Your mother and I smiled alot at one another during the day in St. Monica's. Like we were acknowledging our years of experience of the world, and of each other, and just sharing this sad experience of never seeing you breath or sleep with us, with some kind of calm that made us smile - smiles of understanding of the enduring balance of nature and Her law.

Thank you, Daragh, though it likely was not your will, for granting us that clarity; the solace of that wisdom.

And we held hands too, for long, silent stretches. We were holding hands when we named you. Then the beautiful nurse with the tanned skin told us, if it be our will, that you would be placed in the Plot of the Angels. There was solace there too.

While your mother slept I returned home, to this house that you will no doubt watch over now, with diligence far beyond your years.

Your sister, Éabha, and your brother Caomhán were awake to meet me. They asked about their mother (your mother) and they asked about you.

I told them first you stopped growing; that something inside you prevented you from growing any more; that you had started, like a small seed, to grow inside mammy, into a full size baby, but somehow the growing couldn't go on, that the kind doctor had checked and saw that your growing would not continue, and so you would not become a baby for us, like Aifric, your older sister.

Caomhán hugged me close - sad, and a bit afraid, but mostly sad about not having, as he had so dearly hoped, a baby brother to be his friend. Éabha felt sad too, and felt a great loss. Sad that now there would be no more excitement, she said. My words of explanation were a bit confusing for her too - were you dead, she wondered - was that what it was? (Was that what I was trying to say?)

She wanted to tell Liam (your uncle) and Fionnuala (you auntie), so we all, Éabha, Caomhán, and I went to the kitchen to tell Uncle Liam the news. 'You know the baby mammy has in her tummy? ... Well, the baby is dead'.

Thank you, Daragh, though it likely was not your will, for helping your sister to deal so unambiguously with facts, and establish the clear black and white of situations.

Later she wondered if your eyes grew. I wasn't sure, but said I didn't think so really - your back would have, and your head, and your heart of course, and maybe legs and arms ... We were lucky that we grew as well as we did, she concluded, before turning round to sleep.

Caomhán, later, was much more upset. In a mature, yet also in a very child-like way: Now he would have no friends, only sisters. You could have been a sister, I pointed out. But this led only to a lengthy discussion on the origin of us all: If we all came from mammies' bellies, then who was the first mammy?

I have previously avoided introducing Eve and Adam to this conversation (you know, the theological, creationist first man and woman) so this 'origin of species' discussion heads for the sea, and moves through monkeys, and great, great, great whatevers, and Dublin Zoo, and when we die will we see you, and how, and if it's only our souls, what about our bones and our eyes?

You know, Daragh, I bet you had eyes. I bet eyes must grow early on in the weeks, because they hold much fascination with your brother and sister, far beyond their years.

Éabha's asleep now in her own bed. Mammy's getting a nice peaceful night, I hope, in that room beside the soft rain, and the nice grove of trees. Aifric is breathing out a deep sleep in her cot, and Caomhán is beside me in bed here. Thank you, Daragh, as I am sure is your will, for coming into our world, only to watch over us. I am your Dad, and I am with you tonight - X