Forever Loved
At first you thought I was delusion. Your grief playing tricks on you. I didn’t know enough to tell you otherwise; I was barely five months old when I died.
20250719
Prompt from DailyPrompt.com
At first you thought I was delusion. Your grief playing tricks on you. I didn’t know enough to tell you otherwise. I didn’t know anything at all; I was barely five months old when I died.
I would awake and mewl for you. Confused and alone. Drawn inexorably to wherever you were. Usually your bed, or the couch. Losing me was hard on you.
You’d wrap your solid, warm arms around my ephemeral form. Cradle me against your chest, next to your breathing and heartbeat. With everything as It Should Be my inarticulate distress dissolved and I would fade away. Back to the soothing empty greyness.
Until next time I woke.
I didn’t realise it was you pulling me back, again and again. Your grief and guilt acting as manacles on my tiny soul.
Today I wake to find my room empty. I am floating where the cot should be. And for the first time, the door is open. The house is loud. I distantly recognise most of the voices, memories of your friends cooing over me drifting from the depths.
The noise and change is still scary. I want you, the only comfort left to me. I crawl through the house, around ankles and other, solid babies. I find you downstairs surrounded by my stuff, watching people look through the boxes you’ve arranged.
I crawl to you. Burble for reassurance.
You ignore me.
I call louder. Mewl. Start screaming.
You are trembling but you won’t look at me.
“Oh dear!” Your best friend says, stooping down. “Whose are you, little one? Let’s find your-”
Their hands pass through me. They aren’t you.
You’re just staring. Shocked by the realisation that everyone else can see me.
Everyone also saw the hands pass through me, and your friend jerk back and start screaming, and the panic ripples outwards until the whole room is in uproar. I try to bury my face in your leg but it doesn’t work everything’s too fuzzy but the noise is clear and I want it to stop-
You bend down and scoop me up. Stare into my squinched eyes.
In that moment you understand, and therefore so do I. The confusing, lonely mess of the last few… weeks? Months? Straighten out.
You plant a kiss on - and slightly inside - my forehead. Cradle me close against your chest, where your heart is pounding. Whisper “I will always love you”.
It is the tenderest goodbye.
Around us children scream and babies wail. Adults are crying or loudly trying to shush. But all I care about is you.
The deep grey is waiting for me, with eternal patience. I don’t know what’s on the other side but I know it’s time to find out.
I smile up at you, one last time. You return it, blinking back tears to watch me until the end, humming a tune I’ve known longer than I’ve been alive.
Amidst the chaos, I fade away peacefully in your arms.
Prompt was “Write a story that ends with the line, 'Amidst the chaos, I fade away peacefully in your arms.’”