It’s here when we arrive.

I can hear the spin of the rotor blades.

My heart rate quickens as soon as I see it.

I have come to hate that chopper.

It is sunshine yellow, with blood red emphasis on the ‘rescue’ written in serious bubble lettering.

It is the helicopter of hope, of good, of life giving, life saving;

It is the chopper.

I can feel the familiar beads of sweat, even though it is cold this morning.

They form out of habit,

out of fear,

out of memory.

I wish the harsh physical reaction would stop.

It’s well past due.

How long does this post traumatic stress stuff last, anyway?

We have to walk alongside of its landing place in order to enter the hospital.

Ivy chatters next to me and I respond, although all that I can hear is my own breathing.

My mind whispers,

slow it down, slow it down. If you don’t your world will close in on you and that can’t happen, not when you have one of the kids with you.

I gulp in as much of the frost bitten air that I can

and

everything rushes back in multicoloured vibrancy.

Silly, I chastise myself.

Get. Over. It.

We find admissions and  have to wait for the first time in ages.

Ivy is dancing around my feet, spinning in her new ‘spinny skirt’.

Suddenly the gurney is there and strapped to the top

is the humidicrib.

Inside, a small baby.

Tubes and wires and equipment seem to curl around the newborn in a complicated nest.

The NETS team walk swiftly alongside, followed by some nurses and a doctor

and behind the commotion of staff

there is the baby’s mother and father,

arms scooped around one another.

The woman’s face is tear stained, blotchy, pinched but behind that, there is hope.

The man’s eyes follow his baby. They never leave the mobile bed, his chin juts forward, defying the odds, daring them almost.

I feel sick for them.

My world inhales with such velocity, I’m not sure the exhale will ever come

but the admissions clerk calls me back from my own memories and into reality.

Can I help you, she enquires.

Yes, get me out of here, I think but the words that exit my mouth tell of admission for the day.

I fill out paperwork and answer all of the compulsory questions before we start the, now seemingly, long walk to the ward.

As we step into the intestine of hospital, the whir of the blades start up again and I shiver in response to the sound.

I wonder if I will ever be able to look at that helicopter without thinking of the morning before William died.

I wonder if I will hear the high buzz of the engine and feel the anticipation of  help, the hope that those parents had, that David and I once had too

or if this is how it will be for me, forever;

a constant loathing of a machine, unable to fly my son to safety.