Dear Alex, Hedgehog, an unexpected tale...

10th June 2013




Dear Alex,


Wandering around Tiggywinks, an animal hospital where they look after mainly hedgehogs, red kites, badgers and most wild animals that have been injured, I try hard to quash anxieties, rampant and harsh, and be there, strong and present for our kids.

Their innocence, their questions, their naive pleasure at seeing the varying animals is my breath for an overcast Sunday after a hard, hard week. I try not to notice the boy on his father's shoulders clinging to a dad proud and dependently, families holding hands, a couple who have come on a day out. I try and be.

Just be.

I've been sent buoyancy aids, the Most High hearing and responding to my cries with a very best friend coming to stay for the weekend. With flowers from another friend on my doorstep as I arrive back from another turbulent time with you. With messages and thoughts/ prayers sent to hold me and the family in these times...

The guide at Tiggywinks gives a talk (on this occasion), handling the damaged, disabled hedgehogs and a tortoise who have been nursed back to health. A hedgehog appears at his feet,

'Oh, this one has recently been brought to us, he is blind'

Lola pipes up

'How come he is blind, what happened?'

'This is a very special hedgehog, no one expected it to survive, it had a severe head injury, it is now brain damaged, with a paralysed leg and blind too as a result of the accident it had, funny thing is though, it will no doubt outlive any other hedgehog out in the wild, as it is being cared for and is safer than those in the wild'

Take from this what you will, but the day we choose to go, this new addition had finally been placed back outside, the injuries the same as yours to the most part...

I know it is a hedgehog, and no, it hasn't been injured playing rugby! But it felt like a message... A message for us. I wipe my tears, this had to be about the kids and a happy day, but goosebumps and hairs rise.

I feel you will pass through this, that you are protected, and beyond this life, that is what this life is for...

It was a moment of random coincidence.

I don't know when this phase will pass, I can't sleep now knowing tomorrow I will have to survive the day again.

As you are at the moment, no one will know what it is like to be you in this, no one will know what it is like to be there, unable to console, distract. No one will know what it is like for the kids or for me...

I just have to brace myself.

That's all I know.




Me xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Comments

Old posts