Love, in three embraces

This morning my boy drew himself into bed, exhausted after his share of caring for the twins in the night and with hot coffee on the bedside table for me to awake and to take over care. He held me close in his hot arms and spoke softly in his low, deep tones to me about love, our love, in the terms of kindness that are habitual for us. The safety, the intimacy and the feeling of the pieces being put together. This is it, for always, all at once familiar and new, exciting and reliable, home and adventure. For all the scars we carry are held as jewels which led us to this very moment, every moment.

On a morning last week my first-born, my golden haired girl, crawled into that same bed, afraid and frantic from a nightmare, having quietly scaled the stairs up to our room in the dark. I brought her close to me and whispered words of comfort to her, intertwined with threats to the spectres of the dark, from the burning ferocity of maternal love. As she melted into safety, into my concerned but tired embrace, we fell asleep in the dark, my heart held in my arms and swept over by the honeyed sensation of knowing she is safe.

Twenty-four years ago, sitting with my arms around my grandmother as she wept, having fallen in the hospital toilet in what turned out to be her last months, promoted from 12-year-old to the first familiar face of comfort in a moment of fearful realisation. She told me not of her pain but of her shame. The love and protection she always had given me became a well to draw upon to quench this sudden, terrifying need for reassurance. I held her close and spoke words of love which I hoped were enough.