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Imagine no opening sentence, no first break from the white space,
no sharp contrast to the emptiness that came before. Possible — yes — but think of the loss.
The whole thrust of the piece is missing. Without that squalling
birth, that wretched torment, how can there be a second day? How
can we move on from that beginning when that beginning is taken
away from us?
I've seen pictures of my mother. She smiles. She poses. She
flirts. Her hair is not sweat-stuck to her head. Her hands are
not clenched claws. Her back is not a rigid arch. I saw her
just that once for only a matter of seconds, but perhaps I don't
remember her correctly since it was so long ago.
McGregor was a tender man. The nurses rushed him crying from the
room and explained — I hope — that it wasn't my fault. I had
nothing against the woman who bore me. I wished her no harm.
When your first act in life is a dilly, when you kill before
drawing first breath, you wonder sometimes about the significance
of your own life. I wonder sometimes why she's dead.
McGregor was a kind man. He put the events of the day behind him
and never looked back. He acted as though I came from a rent in
his forehead, or that pixies left me in a bed of mushrooms,
wrapped in a dark green cloth.
I'm told some children pretend that they are adopted and that
their real parents will someday return to set things right. I
pretend that I was never born. This is not an easy feat when I'm
stuck in my own body.
McGregor was a taciturn man. He never mentioned Mother. He
never talked about this woman he had loved, the woman I had torn
apart as I came screaming into the world. He found me floating
on a river in laundry basket.
Was my birth so much more difficult than the billions of others
before and since? Were those particular medical professionals in
the hospital that day just too tired, too confused, too new at
their jobs?
I was new at being born. I admit it.
Sometimes I tell myself that Mother thought I was dying and
struggled to funnel her life-force into me so that I might live.
This fantasy doesn't make me feel any better, but there are
thoughts that make me feel worse.
Did she not want to meet me?
Did she think me an embarrassment?
Did she dread?
McGregor was a silent man. He never yelled at me, probably
afraid that he would lose control and say things he would later
regret. He couldn't take them back because they would be true.
Television has been my salvation. There are dozens of perfect
mothers with shiny floors, even white teeth, and the ability to
put together a meal which is both nutritious and glorious to
taste. They are all I have.
Imagine no last line, no static silence.
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