Afraid

Such a powerful word, Afraid. I've memories of fear and moments of fear and in between inhaling and exhaling there is a nano second that sometimes even now time stops for me and I wonder if I'll ever breath again. I can recount many times I've been afraid which probably stretch back to my earliest memory. 6 maybe 7 I remember being scared going to school because the day before I had fallen out with my best friend and how the hell could I be in school without her by my side....
We were best friends the next day and many days after many arguments but the fear stays with you and you strive to try and never argue again with someone close to you. A million arguments with loved ones later and the fear becomes part of you. I remember being scared growing up because Mammy would get upset with me over something stupid or my sisters would get pissed off with me for annoying them and I'd sit outside some door in our house wondering what I could do to get back into their good books, maybe crying would soften them.... damn now I gotta pinch myself real hard and pinching myself hurts or I gotta throw myself on the ground so a bone or two aches and I'll cry without pinching myself real hard and suddenly they'll love me again and the world wouldn't scare me anymore. Talking of fear, My first period scared me into thinking I was dying enough to admit to every fuck up I'd ever made.... My face was a hell of a lot more priceless than Mams and my sisters when I realised that not only did I announce myself a royal pain in the ass, I'd have to do this period thing once a month for about 30 years..... 30 YEARS!!! The real became more than real after that revelation....
Then my period stopped coming and fear took on a new name.... pregnant. 17 and not knowing how my sisters or Mam would react now I'm swimming twenty foot below fear in a tome of fear that everyone who ever felt fear buried there.... sticky swamps of rejected fear held me down but amazing women came to my rescue. My Mam, My now Mam in law, My sisters, sisters in law and my friends. Women taking care of one of their own.... standing by a fellow female and collectively staring fear in the eye.
And then Jenny died and my world died and I had to rebuild it and then Mammy died and again the fountains had to be rebuilt and I was lucky enough to be surrounded by amazing women while we all lost amazing women.....
And they are my memories, My thank God I've known and been loved by strong women memories, and I can kiss my strong daughter in the morning when she potters into the kitchen and pops the kettle on so we can both have tea... and she'll make it and we sit there sometimes in silence, sometimes in animated conversation which we collapse in laughter at and sometimes.... sometimes something is bothering one of us and we carefully try not to make the other cry and inevitably we fail and we cry....
We cry because life hurts and people hurt and sometimes just because women are able to show tears and she'll be gone again soon exploring the world and I beg the world to protect her and I'll miss her tea and giggles over the kitchen table and it's a frightening time to be a woman in the country I raised her so how can I expect the world to protect her when my own homeland is busy ripping women apart. Women in this country have no control over their bodies, have no right to decide what's best for them, for their children or their husband. Women are not trusted to know what their body tells them and then when it's not enough to beg to repel the 8th along comes amazing women being ripped apart by the cervical cancer scandal....
Women in this country are dying because someone else decided they should die........
How the hell do I quieten the fear of all this while asking other countries to take care of my daughter......
I just want the world to take care of our daughters....

Is that too much to ask.....

Valerie Masters