Meadow Grass and a Mother's Love after Loss

The seeds of new beginnings

I looked for summer and found it in the fields of our farm, on the banks of the River Slaney, at the foot of the Wicklow mountains. Down in Jo's field to be exact. The field where my husband planted a copper beech when we first moved in, on its own, in the middle, before we knew what it was for. I looked for summer, because two years ago, summer and all that it holds was lost to us.

I sit on the timber bench that now surrounds the tree, my back resting against the brass plaque with our baby's name and the date she came and left, 13th July 2022. Two years on from the day I thought our world had ended, I watch the two Herefords grazing, proudly protecting their new babies, one bull calf, one heifer. One cow calling in low tones when her young ventures too far. I understand Mama. These babies must be minded.

They change the way you see things. Babies, I mean. They make you see the things that you have stopped seeing, or maybe never fully saw at all. Since my youngest was born, on 14th July 2023, one year and one day after our baby girl, Jo, came… went… I have spent four seasons walking through the fields, with him attached to me. Now, he is completely engaged in the world around him, completely awestruck by all he sees, head-spun by the sounds he hears and desperate to explore, through touch, the textures of everything. When he notices something new, he points to it and with his urgent little 'ah-ah-ah' noises, leans in the direction he wants to go. I drop to my honkers and pull a blade of grass for him to hold. Before I hand it to him, I run its soft head through my fingers. I don't know when I first learned it was a seedhead, that this is where next years grass lies in wait, hundreds of seeds, pregnant with hope, all that potential wrapped up in this tiny tuft. When I touch it, I imagine lying in a bed of it, it feels like fabric, comfort, softer than cotton. He holds it, waving it. Beneath our feet, I count at least five different types of grass.

I grew up thinking grass was just grass, one type in my village garden and in every garden and field in Ireland. All grass looks the same when it is cut short. Since, we moved to this farm, five years ago, we have endeavoured to do what we can for nature. Part of this involves leaving pastures to grow into meadow. From a distance, they look like a purple haze in the height of Summer. Up close, there is a medley of yellows, greens, reds and purples, a dance of gently swaying limbs, some long and slender with whimsical seedheads, others short and strong, their heads tufty and coarse. I am slowly getting to know each one, by the shade and shape of their seeds and limbs.

In one way, I don't want to learn their names, because I fear that in knowing what they are called, my logical brain will take over on sight, and simply list them, 'meadow fescue, common bent, rye grass, meadow brome.'

Defining things can simplify things but sometimes it can diminish the thing. A name is a word that our brains land on, satisfied. A name can prevent us seeing all the other words that describe the is-ness of the thing. It can take us away from the moment in front of us.

And if I have learned anything these past two summers, it is that I don't want anything to take me away from each moment, or from my baby, as he calls out to one particular blade of grass that has caught his eye and in that moment, when we bend to meet it, we experience all that it is and all that it may become.

Acknowledgement: Memoir written following prompt from

Beth Kempton

’s Summer Writing Sanctuary