Selkie Sisters
Doley Henderson
In the black-and-white photograph that I find in Mum’s drawer, Baby is already gone. It is 1953 and they wear silk, black-tie, and vacant looks. Mum and dad have dressed up to attend the St. Andrew’s Ball in Montreal, even though it has been only three weeks since Baby died. Maybe they are tired of feeling numb. The obstetrician tells them that Baby could not survive this earthly world but that they still have us–three loving daughters. That doesn’t seem to ease their pain.
I am only two and a half and already tired of being the baby–but now it will be forever. I want a new baby to hold and play with, to explain the world to. In the 1950s, research has not yet solved mother-baby incompatible rhesus-factors of their blood types. I am just a baby sister who wants her own baby sister.
“No more girls,” CJ, my middle sister, tells Mum. “I want a brother.”
Sometimes I pretend my sisters are not my real siblings and I am Cinderella. Time passes and we are busy carrying on, as post-war families do. It is important to be grateful. I hum aloud and dance but Shelley says that is frivolous. So, I hum and dance in my head. I am afraid to ask for a new baby now. Shelley says that Mum will not have any more; she is too old–over forty. I don’t understand. Why doesn’t Shelley notice that Mum is sad and far-away?
My head hurts. I hide in the hammock, study the clouds, and think about Aunty Viv saving me from drowning last summer. CJ pushed me into the lake and I saw a water creature. Shelley makes fun of me when I stare at the sky. Dad stands on the porch, shaking his head and comes to give me a hug. He looks tired. Shelley follows him back to the house, asking what a calamity is. CJ marches by and punches me in the arm, as usual. She wants to be the baby and has been angry with me since I arrived. I wish Baby had lived. These big sisters are the calamity.
More time passes and it is the 1960s. I am a teenager in hospital, heavily drugged after a spinal-fusion to keep my curving-torquing spine from crushing my lungs. My mind spins into space, as I lie on an ironing board called a Stryker frame.
I think about Baby. Mum told me a Celtic myth about a selkie who transformed from a seal to a human. I know Baby was the sea creature, Selkie-sister, who saved me from drowning before Aunty Viv plunged in to grab me. Selkie-sister flipped her emerald tail, back-and-forth, back-and-forth, waiting for me. When the time is right, Selkie-sister and I know that we will meet again in our underwater world.
I pout at the ceiling. It will take twelve months to recover from my spinal fusion. I will wear a plaster body-cast and lie immobile in a hospital bed at home for months. Then I will transition to a walking-plaster body-cast, and then a leather body brace that will dig into my hips and armpits. My class will perform Romeo and Juliet without me because I am immobile at home for the whole first term. So, I read the play aloud to myself instead. I have to pause often to relax my arms from being rigid in the air holding the script.
Selkie-sister laughs, “Who needs Shakespeare anyway? There’s morphine!”
“Ha, ha.” I fake-laugh. Really, I am offended–body and soul–by the whole process. Why me? Why not CJ or Shelley? I know that is mean but I don’t care. Shelley has piano-legs, so that makes me feel better, little shit that I am. CJ calls me that. Little shit, not piano-legs.
Selkie-sister hums and raises her fist. “You’re a survivor.”
I calm down. Mum is the strong one. She breezes in with fresh grapes. I know she feels guilty for gifting me her twisted spine. Idiopathic scoliosis runs in families, mostly in women. Selkie-sister nods, blows me a kiss.
More years pass. It is the 1990s and I am a loving mother of three children, holding and playing and explaining. Then, in the 2000s, I become who I am meant to be. I gather the courage to leave my husband. The kids resign themselves to living in two different homes. Many of their friends are in the same situation; none of them is pleased but they adjust. Then I find and embrace adventure with my soulmate, Stewart.
We stare into the Class-V whitewater of the mighty Zambezi. Eight of us paddle hard, biceps screaming. Turgid waves toss our raft into the air and smash us back down. We shudder, raft and paddlers alike.
Our guide shouts, “Forward! Back! Hold! Down!” as we cascade over boulders and zip through canyons at lightning speed. We have no time to process, only react.
On rapid 7, Mother of Chance, I dig in with my paddle and grip hard. The adrenaline rush makes my heart pound. Immersed in whitewater, I grin and yell, “Wahoo!” My paddle disappears into the mighty swirl that pulls me in too. Through layers of roiling water, I plunge; through globs of ancient goo, I squish, and sink. My swift-water shoes graze ancient rock. I kick and thrash, let go, and bob to the surface. One gulp of air and I am thrust under again. Water fizzes up my nose and sloshes in my mouth. I somersault twice, my wet suit firmly zipped to my body, head to toe. Will the current hurl me downstream to crocodiles waiting to snap and crunch me?
Underwater, I see Selkie-sister in the distance, auburn hair streaming, emerald tail flipping back-and-forth. I tumble over and over, reach out to her through a haze of bubbles. I miss. Is this my ending, here and now? Selkie-sister beckons the support kayaker in Shona, “Mumununure, save her!” She pushes me to the surface and the support kayaker paddling behind all the rafts hauls me to her gunwale. I am meant to survive this earthly world.
More years slip by. It is the 2010s and I am a nerve-pained writer. From the deck of the local swimming pool, I stare into turquoise water. Pain strikes lumbar vertebrae 2 and 3, electrifies my right hip, groin, pelvis; scorches my right quad and hamstring. I need water- therapy and I hate this entrapped-nerve pain. Friends think it’s a leftover from my multiple fractures after our motorcycle crash. I think it’s my spine raging, and more importantly, doctors agree it’s actually my scolio aging and continuing to curve. I am a candidate for a lower lumbar fusion but I politely decline–I’ve had enough surgeries.
By the time a sports medicine specialist diagnoses my condition, the nerve pain is well past the temporary timeline of three months. It is now permanent. Of course it is. Why should modern health-care cater to only me? We all wait months and years for medical attention, then a diagnosis, then surgery or specific therapy or both.
Slipping down the ladder, I immerse my tired torso, thrash about, trying to remember how to crawl. How does it work? I know that arms alternate somehow but I cannot stay afloat while struggling to coordinate my limbs. I breaststroke instead. It’s just easier. When did I become such a saggy senior in such a baggy tank-suit?
Selkie-sister cries in Scots Gaelic, “Bi truen, be brave!”
The weeks roll by as I struggle Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays to let my body go, trust the water, and glide. One day I will mirror this as I fight Class-V-whitewater on another continent. I dream of characters in speculative worlds as I plot my stories in my head to the steady rhythm of my strokes. I splash happily, my emerald tail flipping back-and-forth, back-and-forth. Weightless and pain-free, I perfect the double-sided crawl and solve my story-ending.
Then, I become a delirious Nana. It is the 2020s and I gaze at my brand-new grandson asleep in my arms. He hiccups and burps, smiles and squeaks. His tiny toes and fingers curl, his knees bend and his arms fly up, drop on his head, slide off, as he relives baby adventures. In his saline world for nine months, he flipped and nudged, somersaulted and treaded water. Then one day, he swam the birth canal, inhaled air for the first time.
I ask him about his journey. He is an old soul with a knowing smile. I am pain-free holding him and grinning behind my Covid-19 face-mask. His skin is silky-soft, dimpled, and so chewy I want to nibble its perfection. I am soaked in warm love. It pours from me in an endless flow over him and onto his mum–my daughter–lying serenely beside us. She smiles, kisses Baby; he slides into her arms.
In that soft glow, I slip underwater. I tell Selkie-sister that she is now a grand-aunt. I say that Baby survived because doctors have figured out how to treat incompatible blood-factors. He is sturdy and healthy; his mum is fine. Selkie-sister is happy for Baby but I know she is sad for herself and our mum. I tell her, “Bi truen, be brave!” We swim in our world, our emerald tails flipping back-and-forth, auburn tresses swirling over faces and shoulders. Then, we dive deeper.
But I am pulled back to the earthly world. A disease is spreading through Stewart’s nervous system and dementia is creeping into his neurons. It takes months for a diagnosis and then finally we hear the term Parkinson’s Disease. I know there is something worse attacking his body and one year later we hear the words Lewy Body Dementia. I care for Stewart at home, day in and day out, sleepless from waking many times in the night to help him on the toilet. He needs my help to understand what to do and why. Managing him without breaking down myself, I try to navigate the storm of our public healthcare system.
After months and months on waitlists, it is not clear what will happen next to Stewart– which body part will falter and when, which specialist we can see and when. His tests and specialists’ notes and hospital visits are recorded in three different online network clusters and it is not possible to coordinate them. A room in a local care-home magically frees up for him and we begin a new life in two separate abodes. He resides on the memory-care floor, staring into space from his chair while I stand in my living room looking through the window trying to decide on the next step. Kids in the schoolyard across the street run and tumble and spray laughter.
My family doctor tells me that my status is now a grey area, in-between a widow and a wife. Who am I, as we begin the long goodbye? Selkie-sister sings and rings in my head, “Bi truen, be brave!” But I need more; I need her to tell me what to do now, not just be brave but how to deal with all this. I sigh and turn back to my list of what to bring Stewart: diapers, peanuts, hand towels, tissues. I am relieved that he has Personal Support Workers around-the-clock and stronger medication so I can focus on my own wellness. Some days his shaking carries on for hours despite the meds, when he is anxious and trying to figure out what has happened to him and to us. This was not the plan for our seventies. Until now we had been fit and active, coping with minor medical bits, aside from motorcycle-crash fractures. Why has this descended upon us? Because shit happens, plain and simple, and we cannot control disease or dementia.
Stewart likes to tell me that these challenges are meant to test us. Well, I’m tired of the test. What’s the point? I already know how to be patient and be a patient. I spend a day swearing at Stewart’s dad in Heaven or wherever he went, for giving Stewart his shitty diseases. Then I calm down and say to myself that we cannot control these illnesses; we can only control how we react to them. Such a tidy, dismissive phrase. It’s true of course and Stewart and I say it to each other all the time but it’s not easy to accept. He still thinks he has done something terribly wrong in a previous life and this is payback and I still think life is just bullshit some days. Except when I am holding my two squishie grandkids who exude love and joy. When I hug them, I don’t want to let go. But they remind me that they have important work to do. “Nana, we need to save our train. It came off the tracks.” I understand completely.
Meanwhile, how will my selkie-sister save me now? She drifts by, swishing her tail back and forth and swinging her tresses over her gorgeous shoulders. She swirls and twirls, zips and dips. And disappears. I pause, breathing in and out, in and out. Hmmm. She is signalling that I already know the answer and her work is done. But? And then I see. Maybe she has already saved me. Of course. She has given me wisdom and strength over seven decades of adventure and survival. And she has given me a way to respond–carry on and do my best, as I always have. Allow myself to be angry at our diminished life. And admit that I too need care and patience.
And when the time is right, I will tell my kids and grandkids, “Bi truen, be brave.” I will swim out to join my selkie-sister and we will swish our emerald tails back and forth.
Then, we will dive deeper.