This morning I went down to the garden at the bowling club, where my parents had so much fun — and where I scattered their ashes — and spent some quiet time, remembering, giving thanks... and generally having a natter with Mom and Dad.
When I turned away from my reverie to look at the bowling green where my Dad and I once played a few ends — "Just so you can get a feel for it, Sport" my bowls-mad father had said — I could see him, white teeth flashing in his brown-as-an-oak grizzled face, dancing with joy as his "wood kissed the kitty".
I remembered his flowing banter with his bowls mates, the flirtatious humour directed at the ladies in whites, while my Mom sat quietly at the side of the green, lost in her thoughts and looking forward to tea-time. And how could I forget how their bowls colleagues stood back at post-tournament dances and applauded as my dad, so nimble and dexterous, swept Mom around the dancefloor in one beautifully gracious and seamless movement. Aye, they could dance, those two.
On Saturday, I might get the news that I am, finally, to give them a grand-child they will never see in the physical realm. it will have been two weeks since the first attempt at artificial insemination and Caroline will do a pregnancy test to see if it has "taken".
Ever since I have been in Durban for "The Insemination", I have had children around me, connecting with me, my inner child, the father I want to become. I see the children of others everywhere I go, I have had teddy-bears given to me to hold. I never knew there were so many creches, kindergartens, pre-schools in Glenwood. It is as if I am being prepared for my new role.
When I last had a reading done with "my Spiritualist Woman", she saw a woman, probably my Mom, holding a child spirit, a child which was "waiting for the right time, for me to find 'the how' to enable him or her to come into my life".
That time may be close. Tomorrow I will drive with a very good friend north from Durban to see Verna again, to once again receive spiritual guidance and possibly reassurance that I am doing the "right thing". Afterwards, we will walk the beach where I spent just about every sun-rising morning searching for cowrie shells, once used both as currency and as symbols of fertility in Africa and Asia. I hope to stumble across a special cowrie shell tomorrow, a sign that my dream is to come true.
But, it would seem, as one dream might be born, another shall die. As I have written here before, Susan, the woman I love, cannot handle the magnitude of what it is I am trying to do. It is two weeks since I left her to pursue "Project Egg". We have spoken regularly. It is both warm and strange. Estranged. Much continues to happen in her life. It is, as we exclaim with forced bonhomie, a month of "March Madness". I saw this month coming last year. I foresaw much change to happen in March, 2012. It is happening. It cannot be avoided. As I have said to Susan, I "just could not step around the opportunity to become the father I am destined to be". And, as she has replied, she simply cannot do anything but step away from it all.
"It is too big for me to handle, I cannot join you on this part of your journey. You are beautiful. We are beautiful together. But I must leave you now to follow your chosen path alone."
I wrote a few blogposts ago that, in Susan, I had been given a beautiful gift. I asked if I could dare hope that I be given another wondrous gift, the gift of fatherhood. I wanted both. The love of a special woman, my soulmate, and the love for — and of — my very own child.
It would appear that I have asked for too much. I have gone too far. I'm too far gone.
"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." ~ T.S. Eliot.
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