As children we played in the magic garden unaware of the power that was held in the blossoms, plants and trees. The garden loaned itself to an enchanted childhood. If only I had remained here in the garden forever a child I wouldn’t now be standing heartbroken at the old garden gate.
I returned to the place of my childhood to hide away from the world, to nurse my scars both physical and emotional. As I looked into the garden my vision was overlaid with the image of children running, shrieking and playing. We were so innocent, little knowing that when we stepped out of the garden we would lose that innocence in a hard and brutal world.
I dedicated my life to love, a good, strong man and a beautiful child. With them I thought I had everything I dreamed of. Now I had nothing. My heart continually wept at the image of their broken bodies on the insides of my eyelids. With every blink I saw them in my mind’s eye.
As I wandered through the garden my mind drifted. Back to the morning of the day that changed my life forever. Bran and I woke slowly and moved into each other’s arms with a soft morning intimacy, a kiss lead to a dreamy urgency of physical pleasure, we drifted apart when we heard the stirring of our little girl waking up to the day of her birth. It was a special day we celebrated her day with a ride on the merry go round and squeals of delight at the fun rides. No one expected a terrorist to target a fun park.
My eyes become blinded with tears as I remember the explosions, the colourful rides coming crashing down, the screams, the fire, the staccato sound of gunfire and my scream that echo’s endlessly in my head as I see the blood splattering across Bran and Bronwyn and the pain as the bullet smashed into me. I fell clasping my baby to me. The fire started nearby it crept across me and took my little girl forever from me.
My wandering steps took me to centre of the garden and through blurred eyes I saw the diaphanous sheen of the water flower. I loved the pellucid gleam of the flower in the dim green of the garden, I always had. As a child I wasn’t allowed to touch the flower, my mother told me that the water flower would steal me away from her if I touched it.
At the water’s edge I knelt down on damp ground and reached toward the shimmer of the water flower. I heard my mother’s voice saying “It will take you away from me”. That is what I now wanted. I wanted the flower to take me away from me. As my scar covered hand grasped the flower stem I felt the drift begin. The mazy sense of leaving my body behind took over my mind and the world disappeared.
