Anniversaries tend to creep up on you and 'boo!' you - especially when they are not happy memories.
My dreams are being plagued by an image.......and I have managed to pin down why.
It is 25 years this year since a 12 year old boy died in my arms, bleeding out his lifeblood on my clothes.
I don't know the exact date, but it was about now in 1985 because I was job hunting. I got off the bus and as I prepared to cross the road a small boy darted past me to run across the road.
To this day I know I could have grabbed the hood on his parker and stopped him before he ran into the path of a lorry.
But I didn't react quick enough - or didn't want to grab a strange child - or was preoccupied with trying to find work - stressing about an interview I had scheduled the next day.
No excuses; I could have grabbed him and I didn't - and he died.
There is an advert on TV at the moment about drinking and driving and to drive home the message a man is seeing the image of the crumpled child he is responsible for wherever he goes.
My image is not the boy dying in my arms, his body pulped and his skull smashed.
My image is a blur of a child running past me into the road........
He will live with me until the day I die.......
cq
8 comments:
I do hope you don't blame yourself. HE chose to run across the road without looking. You could have gone to grab his hood and still missed.
We make split-second decisions... His was to run across that road. No excuses; he could have stopped and looked, but he didn't.
Saying that, it's easy for me to see this in black & white, but please don't beat yourself up over it.
I beat myself up with guilt and grief for years over this little boy until I admitted to myself that it really was not my fault.....
But he remains my constant companion and lives on in my dreams...
cq
WE can't see the future and we react to the dangers we see.
I am sure if you would have known what you have happened you would have stopped him but you didn't.
Such a haunting thing, CQ. I ubderstand why that is the image that stays with you. I think it would with me, too...but, (And I know you know this)..you had no way of knowing something was going to hit him....Still....I can completely understand feeling the way you do. If only, If only...!
Glad you stopped by, my dear, and I am glad you got the calander and like it. I am very glad to know it got there....!
CQ... first, it was such a JOY to see you in my comments today! And 2nd... I'm glad you KNOW that his death was not your fault. I would imagine he lives with the driver too... but it was this child's chosen day to go home to God... and there is NOTHING you could have done to stop it. I will pray for you to have complete peace with this.
There is nothing you could have done to avoid this, and the boy found your warm hands for his last minutes here. You were chosen for this, cq, so that the boy wasn't alone on the cold pavement. I hope too that you find peace with this, cq...
that is sad. but things like that just happen. no sense to it
its bad that you were too close - so close and so far away. we live each day knowing it could be our last. there are no guarantees
Post a Comment