The Visit

A short story about a Mother's love

The moon hangs low in the star speckled sky. Every now and then a shooting star flies across the inky blue blackness leaving just a formless memory of its passage. Standing under the big oak tree I look to my house. As expected, there are no lights on. It is after two am and everyone is in bed.

The door opens easily and I am back in my home once more. The moonlight pours in the windows lighting the black velvet darkness with a blue tinge.

Shelly’s door is open, drawing me inside. I kneel down beside her bed and gaze into her sleeping face, drinking in the picture of her beauty. Soft blond curls brushed across her pillow. Her eyelids flicker in her own dream world.

Little has changed in her room since I left. We had redecorated it together for her last birthday, her sixth. As usual it is tidy and her uniform lies across her chair ready for school in the morning. On her bedside locker is a newly framed photo of us. I trailed my finger down over our faces remembering the moment captured in time of us sitting in the back garden last summer.

I creep to my own bedroom. My husbands Gary’s gentle snores guide me towards our bed and ever so softly I lie down beside him. I looked into his sleeping face. He looked pale and seemed to have lost weight. Cupping his face softly I cry for the grief I am causing him. Yet I know I had no choice.

Unsettled, I go to check on my baby and lean over the cot edge looking at little Angela called after me. She is my final creation, my gift to this world. The pregnancy had been rough and labour had been long and painful. Finally I held her in my arms bonding with this new soul; this part of me. Her beautiful blue eyes looked into mine with untold hidden knowledge.

2.

I was getting a headache and feeling dizzy with it. The noise from the labour ward around me faded into silence as a brilliant white light surrounded me. A tall figure materialised in the brightness. ‘Angela,’ he said, ‘it is time to come home. I have come to help you cross over.’

‘NO!’ I felt myself getting lighter and lighter floating up towards the ceiling. I looked down; a thin silver cord was holding me to my prone body. The young doctor who had delivered my new baby daughter was pushing down on my chest calling me back.

The monitor flat lined and the silver cord began to dissolve. The white light began to pull me into it, sucking me into a long tunnel that went on and on. Finally I began to slow down and stop totally. The light then swirled around me like a mist. Voices in the distance drew me towards a beautiful garden. A dog was running towards me. I knew this dog! My old pet Bobby. He threw himself at me whimpering and baying with excitement. I picked him up and he licked my face with delight.

Again I heard my name being called. I looked up to see Mum walking towards me and found myself embraced in her arms. How many times in the past had I wished for one more hug and here I was getting my wish. I sobbed against her, ‘Mum, my baby, I cannot leave her.’

‘Its ok Angela, I have been taking care of her here before you gave birth.’ My mother held my face in her hands. ’Come the others are waiting for you.’ She held my hand and I felt myself total surrounded by love.

***

So here I am trying to help my family from Heaven. As my angels have showed me, I gently place my forefinger on Gary’s temple as he sleeps and join him in his dream.

3.

He is sitting on a grassy hill overlooking a favourite beach of ours. I can hear the sound of the surf being washed again the shore and a sea gull screeching high up in the sky.

‘Gary, I am here, look at me.’

‘I can’t..look at you..my heart is broken. My love, why did you leave me?’

Sitting down beside him I catch his hand and he holds on tightly. Tears slipped through his clenched eyes washing down over his face. A beautiful sunrise lights the sky. Together we sit we watch the new dawn and a new beginning for us.

‘Gary, time will go so quickly for you until we are together again. You are such a good Dad to our beautiful daughters. Give them loads of cuddles from me and tell them that I am so near. I am always here for you.’

***

The weeks pass very quickly for me and it is my birthday. I walk with my small family to my final resting place. Gary is carrying a bunch of red roses in one hand and holding baby Angela cradled against his chest with the other. Shelly is walking beside him tightly holding another bunch of white roses.

Sitting down on the little wall that surrounds my now flower adorned grave, Gary my soulmate, my beloved tells our children the story of us and how Mummy had to go home early.