Reminiscing on my first day

Serafina Crolla Guest Blog

Why is it that you do not want to write a novel or poem when one is happy, always with a sad. You put pen to paper, and you surprise yourself at what comes out.

Yes, it is good to write.

It was October, a bright autumn day. My mother was feeling heavy uncomfortable, the pain in her back was becoming unbearable. That morning when she got up to help her husband to milk the cows and to see to the rest of the animals, the pain was then just a dull ache. She has not said anything to her husband when he had left to go to the market to sell their cheese.

She was in the process of heating that morning’s milk to make cheese, it could not wait it had to be done or the milk would go sour, the cheese to sell was their only source of income, she sat on a low stool and rubbed her back, it must be the baby coming or was it the heavy work which was making her back sore. She thought she should send for her mother...

The door, which was always closed so that hens, ducks and chickens could not wander in search of crumbs, burst open. A little fair and two-year-old blue-eyed boy walked in. He was barefooted and bare-bottomed. He ran to his mother and pulled at her blouse, "a suck mummy" he said but my mother pushed my brother away. She went to the door, stepped out and called to her neighbour Catarina.

An old woman came out of the house wiping her hands on her apron. My mother asked Catarina if her grandson could go to her mother's house and tell her the baby was coming.

The old woman took my brother by his hand saying to him, “come to auntie and I will give you roasted chestnuts and if you are really good sugar almonds”. 

Maria, that was my mother’s name, walked back into the house. She looked at the bed in the corner of the room she longed to lie on it, but first, she had to finish the cheese-making. She took deep breaths, rubbing her back when the pain came. When the pain subsided, she continued with the job at hand.

The pain became unbearable. She felt a warm flood and a puddle at her feet, but how could that be? When she had her boy, she was in labour for two days. Then with a chilling scream, she made her way to the bed when I decided enough was enough time to get out of there

"It’s all right, got it," my mother fell on the bed with a sigh of blessed relief, the pain had stopped. 

Catarina had heard my mother scream and had come in just in time to stop me from falling on my head on the stone floor. She wrapped me up and put me in my mother’s arms, but my mother paid me no attention. She was exhausted. I knew this and laid there as good as gold.

My brother was crying as he did not know what was going on. Aunty Catarina lifted him up onto the bed. He cuddled beside his mother put his thumb in his mouth and fell asleep. In jealousy, I let them know that I had a voice. To stop me crying my mother pushed her breast into my face to see if I wanted to suckle. Ha, that's better, I thought. That's more like it, silly question.

The door of the room had been left open. The room was full of hens, even the rooster had come in scratching and clucking as he found small crumbs. A man walked in, he started to kick and clap his hands to shoo the animals out. When he closed the door, it was only then that he saw his wife in bed with two children.

"I have only been away a couple of hours," he said as he passed his hand over her brow and face. "Are you alright?" He asked as he kissed her.

They both looked at me. I stopped sucking and looked back at them. He had blue eyes just like my brother. 

"Look how much black hair she has," he said. "Oh no there goes my hopes of having blonde hair and blue eyes."                            

They uncovered me to look at the rest of me, to count fingers and toes I suppose.

“Look at her she's so chubby, so cute," my father said as he tickled me under my chin. 

Mother laughed (I like the sound of that) "she's almost wider than she is long" she said.

THANKS, MUM!!!

Serafina Crolla