After the flood

On turning 40 in the year 2000 and the comfort of friends

Oct 16, 2024

“You haven’t had a good year, have you? You’ll just have to write it off,” said my dance teacher, after I plucked up the nerve to re-join her adult ballet class, following my fortieth birthday in 2000.

She wasn’t joking. Bad things had come in threes. My baby, Otto, had been stillborn at full-term at the end of August, upending every plan I’d thought I had for that year, or indeed the rest of my life.

A week later, just as my triplet daughters were starting high school, Alex broke her leg slipping on a wet footpath, and was consigned to hobbling around on crutches for months.

Then in the torrential rains of that autumn, as I was about to turn 40, our house flooded.

The chain of events felt biblical. I was battered. Chaos had come for me.

And yet in the midst of it, human kindness stampeded to my rescue, with the most thoughtful birthday present I’ve ever received. My childhood friend, Vicki, who’d emigrated to New Zealand 13 years before, materialised outside my house.

We had been friends since we were toddlers living at opposite ends of the same street. (I mentioned the spooky coal cellar at her house in my piece, Coal Dust Memories, about the miners’ strikes and power cuts of the 1970s and ’80s.)

Here are a few diary excerpts from that tumultuous autumn of 2000.

18 October 2000

One of those hard days when I feel on edge and restless, as if I’m waiting for something to happen. In my Filofax, September 5 was marked as Otto’s due date, along with the girls’ return to school and, since then, every time I write something in my organiser, everything falls flat, because all the anticipation in the run-up to that date was redundant and, while life is pretty full, there’s an awful hollowness to it.

27 October 2000

So dark last night that when I opened my eyes, I could see nothing at all and was not sure where I was. I panicked, thinking that perhaps I’d died in my sleep. But when I turned over, there was the little red light on the radio alarm glowing and I knew I was still here. Though I’ve felt so black sometimes and so useless, it was a relief to know I was alive. I haven’t felt any real inner vigour for a long while, but it kicked in momentarily, the fighting spirit, telling me my own life is far from over.

I went to the cinema with my nephews to see Dinosaur 2000. J sat on my knee so he could see the screen properly. He nestled against me so cosily. Holding his three-year old self – that particular size and weight – I remembered the girls clambering into my arms for cuddles and stories. And I know that Otto never will. I put my arms around J and wept silent tears in the dark.

2 November 2000

I was dismayed on Tuesday, as I upset Alex with harsh words and felt terrible about it.

Strong as we are as a family, much as we love each other, we have been damaged by Otto’s death. When I visualise the wound, it’s messy and it heals unevenly and there’s a lot of scar tissue. No neat lines with tidy stitches here. A big grazed surface with indistinct edges.

Alex’s upset reminded me that I must focus on the living.

Ian asked me how I felt about trying again the other day. I batted the question back at him. He’s very positive. Doesn’t like the idea of childless years ahead as the girls grow older and then leave home. I said I felt very nervous. And I do. My confidence has been shaken so badly. I wonder if I should look for fulfillment elsewhere. I worry about doing further damage to our family if we have any further losses. [I’d had a miscarriage the previous year, prior to being pregnant with Otto.] I worry about becoming more desperate, trying to beat my biological clock.

I would love to have another baby. But I would not want to lose another baby. So, it comes down to how much of an optimist I really am. Am I optimistic enough to risk it?

I had a vivid dream the other night about having a daughter called Poppy (it seems apt that our favourite girls’ name is for remembrance). Is the dream enough to go on?

7 November 2000

What a bizarre time this is.

Friday – [attended a funeral].

Saturday – Vicki materialises in my garage. The most amazing early birthday present ever. I couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d been beamed down by the Starship Enterprise.

Sunday – house flooded.

So my oldest friend has spent much of her visit so far helping us clear up flood damage. What a welcome after 13 years away!

Vicki and Olivia in the flooded kitchen.

Ian kept the secret of Vicki’s arrival amazingly well. Neither of them told anyone who might accidentally blab. Even the girls didn’t know what he was organising. Nor do her parents.

He went to London for a meeting on Friday night and stayed over at [our friend] Max’s. The next day, when I got back from taking the girls to Music Centre, he’d left a message saying he was on his way home.

The sun was shining and I was in the garden when I heard the car pulling into the garage. I went round to greet Ian.

“I’ve got you a birthday present and it’s quite big, so I’ll have to give it to you now,” he said. “Close your eyes and I’ll bring it out.”

I closed my eyes, thinking, Huh? Furniture? In the little blue Ka?

An instant later, I was asked to open my eyes and there was Vicki. It was incredible. I burst into tears and flung my arms round her, not believing she could be real.

About a month ago, when Ian asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I said, “To see Vicki.” But I just as quickly dismissed it as unworkable. The cost, the logistics of childcare arrangements back home in New Zealand, and knowing that she’d have to see all her relatives in Yorkshire if she came, meant it was impossible. So I thought no more about it. I never dreamed that between them they’d make it happen.

Ian simply asked Vicki if she’d come and when she said yes, he bought her the plane tickets. So her husband is looking after their two children, with some assistance from friends and neighbours so he can work.

9 November 2000

I drove Vicki up to Yorkshire.

We arrived at her mum and dad’s at 8.30pm. Vicki hid while I went to the door. Pat peered out at me through the glass.

“Pat! It’s me, Wendy!” I said.

She opened the door, dressed in a knee-length nightie.

“I’m just visiting and I thought I’d see if you were in. I’ve got a friend with me, though. Is it okay if I bring her in?”

“Yes, love,” Pat said. “But just let me make myself decent.”

“I’ll just fetch her now,” I said.

Pat thought me terribly rude!

Vicki came out from the shadows and Pat’s jaw dropped and she just stood looking in amazement for several seconds, then said, “Vicki! What you doing ’ere?!”

She said later that she’d thought, ‘Well, Wendy’s friend looks a lot like our Vicki, she really does,’ before it sank in.

So that was one very happy mother!

Big reunion excitement and explanations and then we decided to surprise Keith [Vicki’s dad], who was at the Working Men’s Club. We walked up together. Pat went to find him in the snooker room and said, “Keith, there’s a woman come to our house says she wants to see you.”

Keith emerged looking baffled. Saw me, then Vicki standing behind. Could not believe his eyes. He’d just been telling his pal in the other room about his daughter in New Zealand who hasn’t been home for 13 years. “And I doubt now she ever will come home,” he’d just said, when Pat walked in. Irony!

A very happy daddy!

“Tell Ian thank you very much for bringing my daughter home,” he said. “And if he wants to pay for me to go out to New Zealand to surprise Vicki on her 40^th, he’s very welcome!”

10 November 2000

We did a whirlwind tour of Vicki’s relations and mutual friends. So weird being back in Yorkshire. My accent seeped back quickly. Vicki’s Uncle Terry has the broadest Barnsley accent ever.

“Does tha want a cup o’ tea, luv?”

Vicki and I then surprised my mum and dad at home, before walking round the grounds of our old secondary school and the cemetery and into the old graveyard. I couldn’t find my ancestors’ graves this time.

12 November 2000

Yesterday, I returned from Yorkshire, where I again had to say goodbye to my dearest oldest friend, Vicki, and we cried and hugged, not knowing how long it will be before we can catch up again.

It’s been a precious few days.

11 am. Just had the minute’s silence for Remembrance Sunday. The washing machine was on spin. The rented turbo drier was humming like a jet plane in the bathroom, drying out the flooring. Olivia was ‘debobbling’ her jumper with the little electrical gadget she’d found at the back of the kitchen drawer.

Turned on the TV. Turned off the turbo dryer. Olivia turned off the debobbler.

I wouldn’t normally feel churned up by the sight of those crowds standing silently by the Cenotaph in Whitehall, but this time, with Otto gone and echoes of wartime deaths there have been in our family back through the generations, I felt a connection.

Wednesday 15 November 2000

So much clearing up to do after the flood. Bath unusable – full of stuff.

After ballet, I had to go to the hospital for breast-screening follow up. Repeat ultrasound to check cysts are going down. The doctor – same one as last time – opened the consultation with, “How is your baby?” What a downer.

She apologised for asking such an insensitive question. Said she hadn’t known. But I know it was on my notes, because last time she did know and immediately said she was sorry about the circumstances.

The cysts are reduced in size, so she’s not worried, but when I went to get dressed, I felt terrible and sighed with sadness.

When I was talking to my ballet teacher about the flood earlier, she said, “You haven’t had a good year, have you? You’ll just have to write it off.”

And she’s right. It hasn’t been a good year. But I hate thinking of it as wasted. So many things have happened and lots of them were good… I have a wonderful family. I’m very lucky.

And seeing Vicki was amazing. I already miss her.

Postscript, one year on

11 November 2001, Remembrance Day

My precious Milo arrived in quite a hurry today, three hours and 20 minutes after his waters were broken and I was put on a Syntocinon drip to crank up the length and intensity of contractions. He’s a little surprised to be out, one and half weeks early.

Last year brought intense sorrow and yet such spiritual awareness. And now it has all happened right, with intense joy and life.

Life, Milo, life!

I want to sing something that’s not yet been written to say thank you for Milo.

I was prompted to write this after reading

Ann Richardson

’s piece, The Longest Night, about pregnancy after loss. Thanks, Ann.

And on the topic of floods,

Rebecca Goodall

was caught up in Storm Helene in the Southern US. Somebody Save Me is her powerful account of rescuing a young girl from a swollen river.

Please do leave a comment below if you’ve any thoughts on this piece. I love to hear from readers.

Thanks to everyone who read, liked, shared and/or commented on my piece last week about how I got started at Just Seventeen magazine in 1983. Plus, thanks to everyone who’s subscribed! You are all awesome!

Tip Jar: I’ve been writing this piece during Baby Loss Awareness Week in the UK. I will pass on any one-off donations made via my tip jar this week to Tommy’s, a UK Charity which funds research into miscarriage, stillbirth and premature birth.

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