A mother watched her baby sleeping.
His two tiny feet were kicking the air, his hands holding
his blanket, his little mouth the shape of a perfect ‘o’. He had a birth mark
under his left eye and a small amount of wispy ginger hair; he had rosy cheeks
and adorable sticky-out ears. He was barely the span of her two hands in
length, so astonishingly light – and to think all adults were once this
small.
She found herself doing this more often than she thought was
normal – just staring at him, drinking in his chubby face. She would catch
herself and go back to whatever she was doing, but she’d always find herself
back beside his cot watching his little chest rise and fall.
It wasn’t as though she worried for his safety – not really - she knew it wasn’t worth it to play those games in your head. She thought perhaps she feared his genuinity, because he was too perfect to actually exist. She felt she had to keep her eyes on him at all times, because then she had evidence of producing something so beautiful – it had to be believed. He was there. He was hers. Her gorgeous, helpless baby.
25 years later she waited anxiously at the airport,
scratching her fingernails up and down her arms in anticipation; she’d waited
two long agonising years for this moment.
She cried into her husband’s shoulder at every letter and prayed to a
God she didn’t believe in more times than she could count. ‘Please, let him come
home safe. Let my baby come home safe.’ She felt bad about the war, and she was
proud of everything her son was doing, but the selfish side of her just wanted
him back. Her motherly instinct wanted him away from everything and anything
that could hurt him.
As the men in their uniforms started to pour through arrivals, running into crying girlfriend’s arms and throwing squealing children into the air – she waited. Her husband lay a hand on her arm as the line of soldiers started to trickle – he could feel tension radiating from her like heat. He said he was on this flight – where was he? Where was her baby?
Then, around the corner, pushed by another burley soldier,
came a wheelchair – in it was her son. He only had one leg. A mix of
emotions flooded through her – he was alive, he was okay…he wasn’t okay. He was
in a wheelchair for life. The war had broken him…how dare they send him
somewhere so dangerous, how dare he be such an idiot for going! She saw him as
she saw him in his cot: his hands holding the sides of the wheelchair, the birthmark
under his eye, his ginger hair, his mouth the shape of a perfect ‘o’ when he
saw her tearful face. But there was only one foot swinging in front of him.
He was a man now. His hair was in the short back and sides
of a soldier; his eyes reflected war crimes he’d never forget, scenes to wake
him at night in years to come, screaming about things he could not
change. There was stubble across his
lip, and a cut on his cheek. Others would never think of him once being so
small. When he grabbed her hand and
explained how he hadn’t wanted to tell them about his injury…hadn’t wanted to
worry them…how others had lost their lives and how lucky he was…she’d held on
for dear life, staring at him, never wanting to let go again, never wanting to
look away.
