New Granddaughter: Sophie Rose Kuriger

Just after midnight we got a text from our son-in-law, Andrew, with photos of our new granddaughter.

Here is the poem I wrote for her mother, Julia, at her 21st birthday in 2002:

JULIA

 

BIRTH

 

I remember watching a birth,

In a warm midnight,
In a small room, before electricity,
Where doctor and nurses, some Indian and some New Zealanders,
Helped Judy into the world,
While, seated at her head,
Out of the way of the professionals,
I wiped her mother’s brow,
And every now and then,
To keep the light bright,
Climbed on my high stool,
And pumped up the kerosene pressure lamp,
Which was perched on top of a wooden cupboard,
At the head of the operating table.

Julius Caesar was a Roman leader.

From his family name, Julius,
All the Juliuses and Julias and Julians of the world
Are named.
Calling himself Julius
Meant he was claiming
To be descended from the gods
And not just any god
But the Father of all the gods.
So Julia means Daughter of God.

And from his last name, Caesar, we remember

That his mother died in giving birth
By that operation that in those days was fatal
To the mother if not to the baby.

I did not see your birth,

Your mother drugged, and Paul Dempsey
Performing the operation, safe now,
That is famous because of Julius Caesar.

But I saw you, new-born,

And I remember your strong chest,
And your contented face,
In spite of an awkward mouth,
And your warm body,
As we danced in the recovery room,
Next to the theatre,
In our modern hospital,
While they zipped up your mother’s abdomen,
And gently woke her from her dream,
To the stark reality of pain,
And you, and me.

We talked, later, of our first reaction:

I do not want this baby!
Not one that looks like this!
But our second reaction came a split moment after it:
I will protect this little life,
Imperfect though she may appear.

My father must have looked like you

When another earlier Julia brought him
Into the world.
She told me once how she had been afraid
Of what Fred’s reaction might be,
Coming home from work
To see his son for the first time.
She said he took her hand
And comforted her (she was 35 at the time)
And promised they would take special care
Of the little boy.

We named you after her,

Partly,
And you have her spirit,
And that of her family.

When she was a girl,

She belonged to a Temperance group

That pledged never to drink alcohol,

And tried to persuade others to do the same.
She went home to her old grandfather, Daniel,
And told him she wished he would
Stop drinking his ale with his dinner.
He never did, so far as I know,
But in this land the WCTU
(Women’s Christian Temperance Union)
With her as a member,
Won the vote for women in 1894.

And I remember how they used to vote

On local body election day,
Guarding their hard-won right to have a say
On who should govern their city,
Their harbour, their schools and hospitals,
And their trams and electricity.

They were enthusiastic about the idea

Of freedom, that generation;
Fred’s sermon, the year he was President
Of his national Church conference,
Was called: A New Zealander’s Free Church.

I remember holidays spent with them

Swimming at Milford Beach
Playing in the sand
Or at the Mini-golf
Walking the dusty road home to the bach
Under the pohutukawa trees
Where at night we went to bed with a candle
And hid under the bedclothes from the mosquitoes.

Julia’s father had brought his family

From Kettering to Auckland,
Because he had not won the vote;
Perhaps New Zealand might be
More democratic than England
Was proving to be!

And he was right in one way,

Because his nieces in Kettering
Did not get even the sniff of a right
To vote until 1921.

At sixteen can you see her?

Sitting on a coil of rope on the deck of a sailing ship

A pretty, dark-haired girl,

Talking with rough sailors

Who are bringing her from England to Auckland

While the long slow waves roll past,

The masts creak, and the breeze whistles

In the rigging.

They told her sailors’ yarns;

I wonder what her parents thought

At the time;

I guess she was a strong person

As I remember her;

They knew she would keep herself safe

In those circumstances.

She told me these stories, and more,

In the evenings, by a roaring fire,

In her Edwardian living-room,

Half listening to the radio,

While her caregiver, my aunt,

Was out for her one break each week

At Bible Class,

At 55 years old.

          *        *        *        *        *

I always love the vision of you

In the back yard at Hobson Street

With a background of rusty corrugated iron

Dressed in a polka-dot navy dress

And a bright pink felt hat

Holding in each hand a full-sized white shoe

That will not stay on your foot

While you totter around the lawn.

Look at this! Christmas Day in Queenstown

And you are going swimming,

Your long, slim legs and arms unsure of the temperature

Of that glacial lake.

You always were a water-baby;

I can see you yet swimming up through the water

Of the swimming-pool at your first lesson

Of Aquatots:  your eyes are open looking at me

Bright and eager to reach my outstretched arms.

You had just jumped in to the pool

Well over your six-month-old head in depth

With no fear that you would find any difficulty

In getting back up to Daddy.

But of all the pictures I have of you

Perhaps my favourite

Is taken at Waignaro Springs

On holiday when you were barely a year old.

You are walking up the path

Holding Matthew’s hand

Launching out on the long road

To an understanding

With your big brother.

DEATH

I watched your sister die;

Not the actual stopping of the breath --

That was on Olwyn’s shift.

But I saw her body slowly wilt,

Her spirit dying by degrees

Under the crushing force of that pitiless disease.

I have known fear, despair, and rising hope

When she seemed to rally and regain some of her lost skills.

I watched her struggle to knit a pair of bootees for her baby cousin,

Four or five times she tried to make her fingers

Put the needle into the stitch

Before she succeeded.

I remember like it was yesterday the moment

When she dropped a cup of tea

Because her hand would no longer do

What her brain told her

And I knew that looking after her

At home by the sea at Paihia

Was no longer possible.

 At the end the doctor,

One of the best in the country,

Said she should have died a month earlier

Her heart was so strong it kept her body alive

When everything was really dead.

I had had a lot of experience of being

In and out of hospital wards, and doctors’ rooms,

And X-rays, and theatres,

Before you came along, so had been well trained

To help you over your first few hurdles.

          *        *        *        *        *

Ten days before she died she wrote her last sentence;

Trailed off into a meaningless scribble

After three or four words

And from then on a flicker of recognition

Or a faint squeeze of the hand was all.

She did not “go gentle into that good night”,

Her body fought violently,

Racked with spasms in the final hours.

Three months earlier she knew

She was dying, said so to me,

And worried how I would cope without her.

And it was hard. I grieved more or less for two years

And for years after that I talked about

A Judy-shaped gap in my life

Until you reached the age she died at

And since then I think of her less often.

I do not want to, did not ever want to

Burden you with the weight

Of my sorrow and the struggle

To live up to my idealised picture

Of Judy the beautiful girl, Judy the brainy,

Judy the sensible, Judy the friendly,

And Judy the (pretty) good.

But you have surpassed the ideal I had

So it is no longer a weight.

You are Julia the beautiful woman, Julia the brilliant,

Julia the sensible, Julia the popular,

Julia the musical and Julia the good.

I am incorrigibly proud of my two daughters.

                        --30.6.02