The First Child.

Weep for the child that wasn’t. For the mother who could not hold or kiss that sweet, soft

head.

Black and white, fuzzy film, showing hope and heartbeat. Tiny and faint, but present and

correct.

 “Small.”

Dates may be wrong. Slowly, sadly, realisation sinks heavily  into my knowing heart. Keeping

it hidden, but suspecting, expecting the worst. And it comes.

Apologies awkwardly struggle from the sympathetic sonographer.

“We cannot find the heartbeat...”

Heavy words of stone, hitting my disappointed maternal heart like leaden bullets.

Gone. Never there.

Ever there, in my soul.

Unwilling to leave the safe, beloved darkness of the warm womb,

you were removed, extracted, dispatched. Torn from your mother, my little, hopeless baby;

I knew you only briefly, loved you completely;  a tiny silver speck of spirit, valiantly

struggling to be, to live, survive.

In vain.

“It wasn’t meant to be.” Well-intended, ill-thought words. Was meant to be, with every fibre

of my being.

I wanted you, sweetheart.

Your little ghost will haunt my thoughts until I die, until the day I fly

 through the sky to the stars to be with you again. To hold you, cradle you softly and

welcome you into my arms.