…has been so needy these last few days, clinging to me like people in a long - time - farewelled embrace.
Her small body sick with fever and infection.
All I can do is love her.
Her high temperature has finally broken but she is restless tonight, in the sweat drenched recovery phase and she calls to me in the dark to come and kiss her.
I pad into the shared room of the girl and her brother.
He is on his belly, arms thrown up and over his head, like the flailing, comic, cartoon figure you might see running from an imaginary monster, legs jutting out in gangly angles.
His soft, round face glows, though, with contentment and peace. His cherubic cheeks and his bow lips pouting out from his profile in toddler boyishness and I straighten him out and cover him over with his blankets, only to have him roll over and assume the same position, moments later.
Awe and wonder filling my chest.
This boy who fascinates in the smallest things, this little man who could talk his Pop’s ear off (and that’s saying something) with tales of cars and “snorts” and baby birds.
He is so real (is he real or is this just a dream?).
He is the polar opposite to his twin.
She is curled into the foetal position, lying with her left side to the ceiling.
Neatly packaged.
Just as she always has.
A creature of habit, I think as I reach down to kiss her cheek.
A small arm curls around me and in her dream she calls…’get off my Mummy, she’s my Mummy…mine’.
My heart contracts and expands.
It aches.
I am hers, wholly and without abandonment.
I would do anything to protect her.
As I would any of them.
I wonder what they think of me, how they get a sense of me.
How am I able to bring them comfort when nobody else can?
A knowledge, so deep and intertwined that, even in half sleep, they know I am there for them.
I’m not sure but as I look upon her, stroke her curls away from her little face, I know the connection is profound with this girl.
I think we have journeyed together before.
Was it like this,with the others, at this age?
I can’t remember.
