The Dove

I felt really close to my Nana and was naturally gutted when she died. I miss her all the time and wish she was here. I have a photo of her and Pa at Joseph's space, on the buffet next to photo's of him. They're all together.

I've felt her presence since she passed. Only hers. I've never felt the presence of my Pa, or my Grandmother (paternal). She visited often back closer to when she died, but doesn't come around much any more.

The first time I felt her energy around me was not long after she'd died. I was watching TV and could feel her at the doorway to the hallway from the lounge. Stella, our Staffie was making noise and kind of barking while looking up at the doorway. I knew it was Nana, even though I couldn't see her, I could feel her there and I knew that Stella could see her and feel her too. I acknowledged her and said hello and I told Stella it was OK, it was just Nana.

When I was pregnant for the second time, and about 10 or 11 weeks, I had a dream about Nana, she visited me again. I believe that the dreams about our loved ones who have passed aren't just dreams. It's them walking through the void to visit and in our altered state of consciousness, we can see them, feel them, hear them and talk to them. Nana didn't say much in this dream. She was just there looking lovely and sending love to me.

I was talking about this dream to my cousin at a party and he said he also dreamt about her, on the same night. He thought she was there for his Nana (my Nana's sister), but she told him she was here for me, 'to watch over Kate'. We both thought this uncanny, that we both dreamed of her on the same night and it left me wondering why she wanted to watch over me.

Then, at my 12 week scan, there was no heartbeat.

Move forward a couple of years or so and I was pregnant again, with our 5th. We now had 3 boys at home. She came to me again, in a dream. I got the same feeling of comfort and love as the previous dream but on waking I felt ominous. I even said out loud "I know what you're here for, but you can forget it", or something to that effect.

Within a week I miscarried.

With my last pregnancy, with Joseph, I had terrible dreams and much anxiety. There were a couple of nights when I'd wake up in such distress and crying. It was a feeling of such grief. Grief I hadn't yet experienced and emotion I didn't recognise as grief. D and I were having a rough time and I felt we were going to separate. I didn't know how I could cope with this 4th baby and do it on my own. I was distraught and howling, much the same as I howled for Joseph after he had died. It was primal and very, very scary. And I didn't know where it was coming from.

I can't remember how pregnant I was with Joseph when the white dove came. Towards the end but I'm not sure exactly when.

It came to our front porch, which is decked and under cover. It sat there by the front door. I thought 'how odd?'. It wouldn't move when I went out the door, or when I came back in, which is strange. Most wild birds will take off if you get too close, but this one just sat there. It was there the next day, and then the next, and the next. Stupid me thought it might be injured and hungry, so I put it in the empty chicken coup out the back and fed it seeds thinking I was doing a good deed. I left the door of the coup open so it could go when it wanted but it stayed there, in our yard not wanting to go.

I was getting more curious about this dove (actually a white pigeon) and figured maybe it was good luck to have a dove hang around so I started googling and found information I didn't want to find on dove omens. Like:

'Many superstitions have tied birds to the Otherworld and death, and great misfortune is often said to accompany the death of one of these graceful creatures. Indeed, common superstition has held, for millennia, that the death of a bird in close proximity to a person’s home heralds the death of a member of the family. Likewise, a bird’s entry into a home can mean either an immanent death or the arrival of an important message in the near future. However, a bird which does not enter the home has been thought just as unfortunate. Many people still believe that a bird tapping at the window is also an omen of impending death to one of the house’s occupants. This belief, associating the entry or interest of a bird in the home or its occupants, stems from the ancient belief that birds are actually the messengers of departed souls, or the souls themselves, come back to guide those soon to die.'

And lots of other information like this. I was freaking out, panicking that something was going to happen to this baby. I got the bird out of the coup and chased it to help it fly off. It did, but then there it was in the back yard again the next day. I shooed it off again, it flew away but then came back and sat on the neighbours roof. I grew a real hatred for this bird, even shouting at it to 'fuck off, we don't need you here'.

She came to me in a dream again. I begged her to go, to please leave me alone. I told her I knew why she was back but it wasn't necessary, this baby was here to stay. I passed it off as more pregnancy/mother worries and that it didn't mean anything.

My 'official' due date with Joseph came around and we were in hospital with Augie. He had to have a shunt revision because his existing shunt became blocked and he was quite unwell, irritable, crying, headaches etc. (Augie has hydrocephalus). I figured the dove had visited because he was unwell, and that Nana was looking out for us all 'she's just here to watch over him and make sure he comes through the surgery well'. Phew, all that worry for nothing. I really did believe that that was the end of it all. That now Augie was home, recovering and I could get on with the business of having this baby.

Two weeks later he was born. And then he died.

That fucking dove took him.

::

Aoife's post 'Warnings' promted me to write this. She asks "I wonder now about fortune telling, nightmares warning of foreboding doom, intuition… Do these things really exist? Is it another way for me to shy away from the random pot-luck that simply happens sometimes?"

As far as I know, it was never in my stars to lose a child (and in such horrific circumstances, along with my other loss). But, and much as I hate to say it out loud (and I really, really hate to say it out loud for fear of bringing on more loss), there was a forboding with my pregnancy with Joseph. I never for a minute thought that he would die, or that anything would go wrong. It just felt different to my other pregnancies - that ended with a live one in the cot.

I used to look at the 3 little chairs around the little kiddie table and say to myself 'why can't I picture a 4th there?'. I've also always had the family bassinette in my bedroom for the duration of each pregnancy. It was always made up, with a teddy or something in readiness for a new arrival. I felt it bad luck to load it up with folded clothing that I was too lazy to put away. But when I was pregnant with Joseph, I would put the spare pillows on it at night when I got into bed, saying to myself 'that's not a good omen Kate, you're tempting fate.' Then I would rationalise and tell myself I was being silly and everything will be fine.

I am superstitious and I do believe in psychics and tarot readings. I just don't believe in fate any more, or destiny. Because to believe in all of that is to believe that this was fated, all of it, and how can that be? How can it be Joseph's destiny to live in me for 42 weeks and 3 days and then be born and then die 5 days later? How can it be my destiny to have experienced so much loss? How can it be the destiny of the doctors involved in Joseph's death? Are there lessons to be learned? Does karma exist? Do I take karma to literally to believe that this is my karma? Or his karma? I too want to know if there's more coming, because the unknown seems more terrifying than to know if there is more.