WIPW - January Sonnets

While the hearts will be on going I needed a special focus for my second piece.  I saw reflections of my second son, Guy, in the first 4 sonnets.  All my children are special to me but Guy is a special gift.

As a baby, only 4 weeks old, he contracted a virus.  He was one of the first to contract it in our city of Cairns, which is in north Queensland.  It didn't present as a virus, rather  in babies and children it looked like Pneumonia.  He was given a half penicillin injection and almost immediately suffered cardiac and respiratory arrest, he had inherited the autoimmune gene that I have, which we didn't know then.  He was clinically dead for 50 minutes, although was having resuscitation in only seconds, which continued  till they got him on a ventilator.  (This had arrived at the hospital that day and it had to be assembled to hook him up.)   The next 3 weeks, until he regained consciousness, were the worst of my whole life.  But, he lived. 

They told me he would be a brain damaged.  I spent the next years looking for this.  Yes, he had trouble with co-ordination but grew up to be a normal child, if a bit withdrawn.   It did not effect his intellect.  He now works as a Analyst Programmer and has done so since he graduated from University.

I look at that photograph of us when he was given back to me and sonnet No 4 "Thou art thy mother's glass " rings so true.  The section that I have selected reads:

"Thou art thy mother's glass,  And she in thee calls back the lovely April of her prime."

I have an old piece of cross stitch that I picked up on a sale table.  It was partly stitched and my thought was to unpick some of the stitching and use it in a sampler.

I immediately ran into problems.  The original stitcher had not been consistent with her direction of stitch, they went in all directions, were over sewn, pulled tight and just couldn't be unpicked.  The fabric was old and ended up with pulls and lumps.  But I have kept at it and am finishing the leaves.  For the verse I have had to replace the thread with a thinner version than in the image above but kept the same colour.  I intend to make the leaves into a wreath to frame the text.

These first set of sonnets are addressed to a young man and the sentiments and context do not ring true in our modern world.  But, there are sections in every one that are timeless.  I'm sure every mother can resonate with these lines.  As yet I haven't been able to find any embroidery or textile item inspired by this sonnet.

Comments

[Rachel]

Guy looks alert and ready to tackle the world in that photo - not at all as though he'd been so ill. I'm glad that story turned out so well for you!

[Carolyn Foley]

Yes, he had been ‘awake’ for about bit when I took him home from the hospital but the horror of that time is still written on my heart.