Below is a recount of the dream I had. The events thankfully did not happen to me but I do wonder, just how many of our children are victims of violence within the home...?
She had no recollection of the event. Had blocked the tragedy totally out of her mind and woke to a stream of sunlight on her face. For a moment, all seemed normal; of course, why wouldn’t it be?
It was Sunday, no need for an early start. She could hear her parents in the next room of the bungalow, busily making breakfast.
The clock to her right read 8.05am, she stretched out and glanced beyond the bedside table. Her eyes rested on her beautiful daughter, eyes closed, resting peacefully.
She felt the familiar maternal pull to hug her child as she did every morning and kiss her forehead as was the regular morning routine.
This morning, the urge to feel her daughters’ warm embrace was stronger than any other. Climbing out of bed she took the one solitary step necessary to be by her daughters’ side. Slowly she reached forward with a careful hand and moved the stray wisp of blond hair that had covered the child’s peaceful face. The lock of hair came away in her hand, long and soft as it had always been, although now, it no longer smelled familiar.
The skin revealed underneath was porcelain pale, not even the blush of youth touched the child’s face although it had been there once, not that long ago, and as recent as only yesterday.
Leaning further forward, until her lips touched the child’s forehead, she placed a soft kiss. Cool skin, lacking that familiar bed warm feel, greeted her. It was no shock, not really, not now, now that she remembered.
She knew her daughter would not wake, felt it in her heart and tasted it on her own lips. Moving the blanket down a little, she mapped the scar with her adult eyes, the eyes that knew who had put it there and why.
Autopsies were always so impersonal and crude but then so was the bullet that tore through her little girls’ body, extinguishing her light, lightening fast.
In her mind it was unnecessary, she already knew why her little girl would not wake up today or the next day or the many that followed; this was the pain, this was the knife in her heart, this was real; this, a severed thread, was death.
It was the last thing the father could ever do to his child, the last act of control that he could exact and so he did, with cruel precision.The more she watched the peaceful child, the more convinced she became that she had moved during the night; maybe her head, just a little. She scooped the girl up into her arms and held her close for a moment, leaning the child’s head against her chest and stroking her long blond hair slowly, watching with each loving stroke of her hand as more fell away onto the pillow.
She remembered how it felt when they used to hug, when those small arms would wrap around her so tightly and they would rock together slowly forward and back, this was how her daughter used to fall asleep.
Glancing down, she expected to see a pair of sleepy oceanic orbs staring up at her but, as she dared herself to look, she saw her daughter’s head slip from her chest and rest, cradled against her arm. No ocean blue innocence looking up and her lips wore no trace of a smile, their redness fading into a lifeless grey.
Gently she lowered the resting child back onto her pillows and pulled the blanket back up to cover her shoulders.
Was it time to make phone calls? She wasn’t going to be in work today. Looking back just one more time before leaving her bedroom, she saw the child had not moved. Already she knew that she would check again later, perhaps that is what was needed, perhaps her daughter would move when no one was looking just as she might have done when everyone else was sleeping.
There was no need to make phone calls yet; not if she wasn’t sure, not if there was a chance. She couldn’t go to work today. Nothing would be done today; no service arrangements, no flowers ordered, no tiny white caskets browsed; not until it was absolutely necessary not until there was no doubt in her own mind.
Day passed into night and the child had not moved. It wasn’t disappointment that ran through her body, it was melancholy. Her heart ached. She had hoped beyond all hope that there would be some movement, some life sign, some alteration of this wretched path to lead them both from the nightmare.
There was no need to change the bedtime routine, not now, not yet. Perhaps that was the missing link to break this spell. There was nothing unnatural about the way she tucked her little girl into her bed that night as she had done so many times before. A kiss on her cool blush-less cheeks and a slow sweep away of a stray lock of hair she felt sure had not been there before.
Too old for stories now, she whispered for her daughter to sleep deeply and have sweet dreams.
She wished the dreams would come to her daughter, wished so hard for the dreams to carry with them the chance of movement.
The next morning the child had moved. She knew without getting out of bed that there had been some movement that night. The child must have moved because now she was in the same bed.
Not daring to move incase it was a cruel dream, the mother lay still, barely breathing; just watching her daughter laying next to her. Moments later the door to her bedroom opened and her own mother looked around the door. Quickly she put a finger to her lips and bid her mother to be quiet not wanting to disturb her daughter’s rest. Disturb it however, is what she did.
The child rolled over onto her back and opened her brilliant blue eyes with a smile.
For a moment she believed her own heart had stopped beating as she watched her daughter wake from what seemed to be an incredibly long sleep. She had been sick and was now well again although her skin was still pallid and the scar still ate into her chest all the way down to her belly button. Patches of hair still fell like golden feathers onto the pillow as her head moved to look at her mother. A tiny child size hand reached up to the face of her mother and wiped away a tear that had fallen as she whispered to her mum not to cry. They were happy tears, relieved tears, each one that fell carried away the intense pain and replaced it with immense joy at hearing her daughters voice again, of being able to look into the azure pureness of her eyes and to have her core melt at witnessing that heartbreaking smile again.
The alarm clock on the bedside table began to buzz, quietly at first then getting increasingly louder. Through her girly giggles the child cupped her mothers face with her hands and smiled into her mothers’ eyes.
‘I have to go now’ she grinned. ‘I love you mummy, I love you all the way to the moon and back.’
She woke in her bed alone, her cheeks still wet from the tears she had shed only moments earlier. Sunlight streamed in through the crack in the curtains. Slowly, she climbed out of bed and sat on the bed next to her, the one where her daughter lay still and silent. Leaning down, she kissed her beautiful girl good morning. Her forehead had a firmness to it and her closed sunken eye lids betrayed the lifelessness that lay beyond.
‘I love you more.’ She whispered.