Mirror, Mirror

I was 54 when my eardrum burst. I'd had a cold and my ear began to ache on the
way to work and then in the middle of a mid-morning meeting I heard a loud pop
as did the others in my office. I held a tissue to my face as a clear, yet sticky liquid began to run down my cheek onto my neck. An emergency appointment with my GP confirmed what was already obvious and I was sent away with a prescription for antibiotics and a reassurance that it shouldn't interfere with the anaesthetic for the minor operation I was due to have as a day patient a couple of weeks later. The investigative surgery went well and the uterine polyp was benign. I had a sore throat for a day or two but nothing worse.  Recovering from the trauma in my ear took longer (in fact I’m left with slightly less hearing in my left ear).

The polyp removal was deemed necessary following a small amount of postmenopausal bleeding. This, along with the burst eardrum, a raised blood pressure count and other physical symptoms and complaints highlighted, for me at least, the connections between emotional and physical wellbeing and the fact that for many of us grief is an embodied experience. My mum had died just 13 months previously and my husband two years before that. At one of the follow up appointments the doctor said, ‘It’s usually infants who come in with ruptured eardrums, Gayle’. This seemed appropriate for the loss of my mum - who supported me through the early death of my father, my unfulfilled quest for a child, a divorce and a further relationship with a husband who needed a great deal of care (and more, much more) - left me feeling like an infant. 

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Having rested up in bed and on the sofa my first walk takes place three days after the ear popping episode. It's late February and very cold and I pack my ear with
cotton wool and don a close fitting hat. I go into the bathroom for a wee and
look in the mirror and there she is, my mum  - my Dorothy - looking back at me. I am shocked but pleased and I take of my glasses (which I need for long but not short distance vision) to get a better look. It's the way the hat frames my face that highlights the features I've inherited from my mother. I'm usually compared to my father in looks. She's always with me, in my head and my heart but on that day, and from then on, I see her in my face as well.

Gayle Letherby (nee Thornton)