I’d like to share my favourite picture (attached) with other childless women. It’s called Night With Her Train of Stars and I found it in a box at a car boot sale about 25 years ago. As soon as I saw it, it seemed to confirm a truth I already felt in my heart but was struggling to admit and come to terms with, which was that I’d never be a Mother.
At first I’d no idea who painted it or that it was inspired by a beautiful poem. I just knew it had significance for me and that I’d keep it forever, which I have and will. Years later when I did read the poem called Margaritae Sorori – it’s about Death but its not depressing and it fitted exactly with my circumstances around the time I was in my early 40’s, because I was experiencing various Deaths, not literally,but symbolic endings and losses .
Anyway, the guy I was with at the car boot sale I’d been going out with for nearly 3 years , we’d both been over the moon when we first met, but by the time I bought my picture, we’d fallen into the routine of numerous break ups and make ups. I have to be fair and say he always tried harder than me to make it work. I’ve always remained single, never married, I was engaged in my 20’s and had a few hopeful relationships but somehow ended up on my own and to some extent I admit I’m a bit of a loner and like my own way. But by the time I met Frank when I was 37 I was really trying to make up for all past mistakes, and totally focused on babies. His divorce arrangements meant his teenagers had opted to stay living at home with Dad (because he let them do as they liked). Hence I stayed in my rented flat hoping to get pregnant, but after about 6 months he admitted , he’d had a vasectomy when he was younger and he’d been scared to tell me because he knew how much I wanted a baby. At heart we both wanted to be together and he was eager to have a reversal which about 6 months later he did – but by the following year it was clearly never going to happen for us.
I wanted to meet someone else but I was in a mess mentally, I’d began drinking too much when I came home from work at night, turning nasty with people during the day and having to face the fact that I’d somehow ended up at 40, on my own with no emotional or financial security. I felt as if I’d no identity, I’d always worked full time, but I’d no money in the bank, no car, no career, no kids, just living from week to week, paying rent on a one bedroom flat. I couldn’t see a way forward and felt ashamed and stupid of my past and for settling for so little in life. Who’d want to start a family with a big mess like me anyway? I’d no confidence, that’s why I kept falling back in to a relationship with Frank even though I knew we had no future together.
So, to explain how my picture signifies to me the end of sexual intimacy, not long after I put it on my bedroom wall, I was beginning to turn almost feral over not having children and I couldn’t tolerate being used for sex any longer knowing there was no chance of it ever ending up with a baby. One night I suddenly started kicking Frank out of bed screaming “GERROFF ME ... I WANT A BABY SUCKING ON MY TITS NOT A GROWN MAN!!!” It was the most hurtful horrible thing I’d ever said. He went into the kitchen crying I went after him and I was crying. It was a relief for us both really. We were hugging each other quietly, but it had to happen, my temperament was different to Franks. He knew I was sorry but we both knew it could never work out after that.
Not long afterwards, other issues between us ended up in a court room. We’ve never seen each other since , but unknown to us at that time, were so many other unexpected losses and endings to come for us both following that night, when, if only for a few minutes, we truly did hold onto each other, in comfort and sorrow - and all those losses and endings are signified in one picture – and it still hangs on my bedroom wall.
Anonymous
Night with Her Train of Stars - Edward Robert Hughes, 1912