HEADS-UP: this goes deep & dark before re-emerging wide eyed into the Light, like a prisoner of war rescued from a hole in the ground.
If you’re not ready for that at 7:55am, bail now.
THE BABY
This is our daughter Lyra.
I took this pic then stood transfixed, unable to move.
Not for the first time since she entered our lives.
There’s something about sleeping babies and pets.
If you have either, I bet your phone’s full of pics.
As they snooze away, vulnerability is 10x’d.
Like your love and instinct to protect.
To shield from all that’s ugly in life.
THE OLD MAN
I was in Sainsbury’s a few days later.
As I turned the corner into the snacks aisle (my fav),
the stench of urine hit me in the face like an unwanted brick.
There was an old man doing something by the middle shelf.
Was he shoplifting a multi-pack of nuts into his overcoat?
As I got closer, the smell got stronger. It was him alright.
He was counting coins from his pocket onto the shelf.
Gnarled hands fumbled each piece, muttering away.
By his feet, a filthy blanket in a torn plastic bag.
Even as nostrils urged legs to move faster,
I was hit by a wave of intense sadness,
driven by the memory of Lyra asleep.
Once, long ago, he’d been a baby.
Someone had looked over him,
helpless, loved, protected.
Then Life happened and here he was.
Wrinkled, hunched, counting out pennies.
No-one to tell him he desperately needed a wash.
Or he had nowhere to do so. Indeed, perhaps both?
What did his future hold? How would his days end?
Would Lyra ever find herself in such a state?
Would she ever be so destitute and alone?
That seemed preposterously unlikely.
But once upon a time, so had it been for him.
THE BOMB
Last night I watched a documentary about the atomic bomb.
It’s common knowledge, the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I now learned how many times both could have been prevented.
If only the dice of fate had landed differently.
If only certain people had made different judgements.
If only they’d been driven by other emotions at critical times.
All those lives, obliterated by events they knew nothing of, let alone influence.
Those who perished instantly were fortunate compared to those horribly injured, succumbing after months of agony.
Truly was this hell on earth.
It seems on more than one occasion in the 1980s we were only a couple of decisions away from nuclear armageddon.
Yet here we are.
I felt… immense gratitude – that the world Lyra inhabits is so far removed.
Bundled with its own challenges, but compared to 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵.
☯
So there you have it.
The emotional see-saw of new parenthood.
I project every hardship I see onto what might be.
I’m grateful for the adversities she will never know.
Weird eh.
