Why didn’t I take more photographs? I had all the time in the world. I arrived at the hospital at eight every day: drifted between intensive care, the pumping room, and the canteen. I went home at four then came back after supper to sit in the dark between two incubators, against a backdrop of beeping monitors.
I took a few, of course. When twins lie in your lap and instinctively reach out for each other it’s impossible to resist capturing the moment. When your boy has his CPAP mask removed and can breathe on his own, it’s a milestone you simply have to mark. I took a few, but not many. Not enough.
Not enough to look at now. Not enough to prove to the children he existed. Not enough to fill the gaping hole in my heart that aches so much right now I have to press my hands to my chest to stop the pain. Not enough.
I remember thinking there would be time for all that later. When the feeding tube was out, or the wires removed. When he was big enough to wear proper clothes; when he was stronger; when he came home.
I recall thinking people wouldn’t want to see him like this; so frail and birdlike. Perhaps I didn’t want to remember that either: how could I have known then I would want to remember every tiny details? How could I possibly have known that I would be so desperate for memories that I would lay out on my bed the miniature clothes he wore, and run my hands over the empty cloth. How could I have known?
There is one photo of me holding him. Just one. I held him every day for five weeks, yet because I cannot see it now it is as though it didn’t happen. I can’t remember the feather-light weight in my arms; the scrap of baby in thickly swaddled blankets. I want to see it: I so desperately want to see it.
I shouldn’t need photos to remember my son, but as the years go by, I find that I do. I believed there would always be tomorrow, but tomorrow didn’t come, and yesterday is slipping through my fingers.
