A
young acquaintance of mine,
and
she types the words,
but
I can well hear
the
outrage in her voice,
says
she cannot believe
this
kind of thing is allowed.
She
is, herself, not much more than a child,
a
young life, like this one,
yet
she has been sick;
she
has battled to live;
she
has suffered;
she
has survived.
And
I, I am glad of it.
I
see her photographs
proliferate
on Facebook:
young,
laughing, lovely;
silly,
sometimes wild.
I
did not know her then
but,
when she was a child,
she
must have been
a
pixie, a darling –
You
must have been a beautiful ba-by
because,
ba-by, look at you now.
I
think of my own daughter, smart as paint,
at
seven or eight years old.
She
had pink ribbons in her hair;
her
eyes were full of light.
What
if this had been her, what would I have done?
I
like to think I might have killed him.
But
then I think: what next, what next?
How
would life limp on?
Beautiful
baby, beautiful baby,
you
were a beautiful, beautiful baby.
You
grew and grew, more beautiful.
You
grew into a wonderful child.
Now
I think of this child,
who
is neither my acquaintance nor my daughter,
who
will never grow to womanhood
and
the mauling of a mother's great love.
I
think of her terror as much as her pain
and
the horror of it all defeats me.
You
must have been a beautiful ba-by
because,
ba-by, look at you now.
Abigail Wyatt