A Present... from his Mother

This week's session with my client (Mick - not his real name) who has brain injuries and his mother comes along - she wants to fill in the facts of her son's recovery after the accident. It's difficult hearing how, in those first days and weeks following the crash, health professionals thought he would remain 'a cabbage' (the consultant's words, apparently - not mine). Yet here he is, sitting with me each week and telling his story. Some miracles are possible, then.

The talk moves to Mick's father. I already know that Mick felt unable to be with his father as he died, at home, from asbestosis and cancer, approximately  2 years ago. His mother begins the telling of her husband's death; Mick is transfixed, and I realise that this is a story he doesn't know; he hasn't heard this before.

Mick can remember nothing of those early weeks after the accident and he has struggled with feelings of guilt following his father's death. Working with the material later, I make the decision to put these sections into second person - both stories told in this week's session are gifts to Mick from his mother.

They help fill in at least a few of the blanks that Mick's injured brain has written into his life.

Night Garden Part 2

Working with year 7 Charlotte on descriptive writing and, following her excellent evocation of a dream-like garden, next session we focused on controlling description and turning the mood from positive to negative. We attempted an Angela Carteresque switch from the present moment to flashback before returning to the action. I've added the final few sentences of Charlotte's Night Garden Part 1 for continuity:

Snow drops swayed in the humid breeze, catching moonbeams in their wake. Early honeysuckle climbed the aged brick wall, filling the air with its sweet nectar scent. I drifted, moon-dazed.

When I was in primary school, I learnt the moon controls the gravitational pull of the waves; their dip, dive and reverse. I realised how small I must seem to it. Visions of it enveloping me into its vast white circumference haunted me, swallowing my tiny, insignificant body.

                Which the garden seemed to now. The darkness was engulfing me, trapping me in its murky depths. Trees closed in. A vengeful moon slipped beneath the clouds. A single moonbeam shone down, illuminating my pathway. Instead of being magical, it was the complete opposite. A strangulated cry escaped my lips and I started to run. My heart was pounding in my chest as the once delicate grass turned and snagged my feet. Leaves plummeted, creating a trap for my sore feet. If that didn’t work, holly leaves littered the path I had once carelessly skipped on, the prickle that usually irritated now a white hot, stabbing pain in my feet. Crying now I encountered the next horror of the night.

Charlotte, May 2017

1) Sadly my horticultural knowledge isn't sufficient to be able to comment on the legitimacy of snowdrops and early honeysuckle being in bloom at the same time, but who cares? Great writing, Charlotte!