Nothing he just looked on, void of any emotions, just a completely blank stare. I tried to feel for his pulse but it was strange one second, I could feel it beating then it was gone. I thought my finger had moved but then I felt it again beating really fast.
“Thomas, Thomas baby please can you hear me?”
I could feel something wet on my cheeks but had no idea if it was my tears or blood from Thomas. I cuddled into my boy.
“Thomas please can you hear me.”
“Mummy” I heard him whisper.
I look down at him and blood was leaking out of his eyes and one of his ears, I tried wiping it away but more just kept coming.
I knew then I would never make it to a hospital. I couldn't believe I was really losing my baby. No this couldn't be happening!
“It’s ok darling, mummy is here, mummy's right here. I’m not going anywhere; do you hear me.” I soothed.
I picked myself up with Thomas still in my arms and walked back to the house. The whole walk back I tried to comfort my baby boy but each step closer to the house I got, the lighter Thomas became and the heaver my footsteps felt. I could feel with every step I took I was losing my boy, I could feel him slipping away. I stopped where I stood and look down at him.
“Please don't leave me, Thomas, please don't leave me alone. You are strong, you can fight this.” I begged. “I know you can.”
But even as I said the words, I could see the light fading in his eyes and the last thing I wanted, was for him to know how much he was loved instead of pleas to stay here, something that was beyond his control.
I sat down on the ground and lifted him up so he was comfortable in my arms and so I could kiss him.
“Thomas, I want you to know how much I love you, how much daddy loved you. You are the most important person in my life and you have given me so much joy.”
I looked at his face, I wanted to remember every part of him. I knew I was heavily crying and tried to stop, I didn't want my boy to see me like this but I couldn't help it, the fact I was losing him, that he was dying in my arms I couldn't take it. I saw he was clutching tight onto the star that Alice had given him.
“Thomas darling if you can hear me, I want you to remember the sun, do you remember what I said, the sun is the brightest light in our sky, think of that darling, if you hear that voice you ignore it ok and just think of the light, just picture it shinning all over you, do you hear me.”
I didn't know what he was experiencing, what voice he was hearing but the fact he was holding on so tight to that star told me he was still holding on to a belief that it would help him with whatever it was he was dealing with. I just wished it was me and not him going through it.
I stayed like that rocking my baby, telling him how much I loved him, how special he was to me. He was my light, my very own sun making my day brighter each and every day. I could see he was nearing the end and as hard as the words were, I told him that it was ok to leave me, that daddy was there waiting for him and to always remember how much I loved him. When he took his last breath, it seemed peaceful like he was finally at rest but at that moment I broke down, everything I had been holding onto let lose. I screamed and screamed.
Chapter 8:
Isat outside with Thomas in my arms for a seemingly endless amount of time in shock in pain. I only knew it had gone from light to dark in every sense of the word. Every part of me, every fibre of my being was in total contradiction with itself, on one hand, I felt as dead as my baby boy in my arms no life in me, no reason to go on, but on the other hand it felt like somebody had taken my heart and every one of my nerve endings and had attached it to an electrical cable, they had flipped the switch sending wave after wave of pain instead of actual electricity.
I couldn't move was rooted to the spot where I had felt Thomas's final breath, it hurt to breathe, to think but even so, the same thoughts ticked over and over in my mind Why had it been Thomas? How was it that he had got sick and not me? I had touched his skin, kissed his head, breathed his air, how could it be I was still ok? I wanted it to be me lying there not my baby boy. He was my everything, my sole reason for being. In 7 days, how had I gone from a perfect family with loving husband and son to this, sitting here a widow with my handsome precious boy dead in my arms?
Looking at him with blood all over his face was making me furious. I didn't know what I was going to do with today, tomorrow or the rest of my life, didn't care but right now staring down at my little boy's bloodstained face, I found strength in that anger. I needed to clean up my baby I was not going to leave him like this. The end of the world (because let's face it that's what it was. I was in the middle of a full blow fucking apocalypse) had taken everything from me, ripped out my heart and stomped on it for good measure but it was not about to take the last memory of my Thomas too.
I got up with a purpose, small as it was, it was the last thing I could do for my little man. I could clean him up, make him comfortable. Thomas weighed almost nothing in my arms he looked so tiny, so innocent. I opened the front door to find Bert on the other side he took one look at me with Thomas in my arms and started to smell us, with that he let out the most earth-shattering howl so high, so sad. I had never heard anything like it before in my whole life. It was clear Bert knew Thomas had died. The sound of pain reverberating through the air was echoed with my own pain.
I laid Thomas on the sofa in the living room and covered him over with one of the clean blankets from the ottoman. I went to fetch a bowl of warm water and a clean flannel to wash him over but Bert stayed behind he was sat in front of Thomas alert, not taking his eye off him.
As I left the room I heard Bert start whimpering and howling again but it was different, if I didn't know any better I would have said he was saying goodbye. I walk to the kitchen with such a heavy sadness inside me I didn't know it was possible to carry so much pain and still manage to breath let alone walk, even so, I carried on, once I had filled some warm water in a bowl and a got flannel I returned to Thomas. I took my time and cleaned his handsome face free of the dried blood, seeing him lying there like that I could almost pretend he was just sleeping but I knew he wasn't, knew I would never see him smile or hear that infectious laugh again that he had inherited from Ryan.
Images bombarded me with a future we would never have, they floated through my mind as if to further torment me, Thomas finishing school and university, him finding his path with whatever job or career he had chosen in life it could have been a police man, scuba diver, in the navy as he so often told us he was going to be, he could have been anything, I pictured him learning to drive with me and Ryan buying him his first car as a reward for passing, Thomas bringing home his first serious girlfriend and me showing her pictures of when he was a baby, his wedding and the beautiful children he would have had. But that was all gone now, he would never finish school or learn to drive. His children and wife he would never meet. He was forever frozen as my little boy, his life stolen, gone. My only hope now was that there really was some kind of heaven and perhaps this was only the first stop on an everlasting adventure and somewhere up there in the clouds above Thomas was at peace and I would see him again, that he was with his daddy and they would take care of each other.
I laid next to my little boy with Bert sat beside us until the sun rose. I hadn't sept but had just stayed there locked between grief and anger. I couldn't help but think that his death had been my fault. It was my fault. I had laid there and gone over what had happened leading up to Thomas's death a million times knowing if I had just done one thing different he would still be here?
The sun was now radiating throughout the whole living room stinging my eyes so, I got up and snapped the curtains closed, angry at the world. How dare the sun shine so brightly I wanted it to be as dark and miserable outside as I felt on my insides.
As I went to close the last one I turned and noticed a beam of light that shone directly on Thomas it illuminated his whole face, I stood there staring at him and for a brie
f moment he looked whole, his face was full of colour he had a smile on his face and even though his eyes were still closed I could see them, see the light that had shone out of them.
A feeling of calm and peace washed over me but then the fleeting moment passed. The sun must have faded behind a cloud because suddenly the room was as dark and cold as I’d wished it to be moments ago only now I didn't want it to be. I went back around the room reopening the curtains I had just closed. I kept looking back at Thomas each time hoping I would see him again as I just had but to no avail, he looked as cold and dead as ever. I wasn't sure what had just happened but hoped it was a sign that Thomas was at peace.
I sat with him for hours not wanting to let go but knew I had a choice to make regarding what to do with his body. I didn't want to leave him I wanted to stay locked in this room and not come out but seeing Thomas a while ago with the sun on his face and the vision of peace I'd got I wanted to really lay him to rest. I had almost picked up the phone to call the emergency services but the thought of them taking my boy away with a ton of other dead bodies to where? What burn or maybe bury them in a mass grave. The thought haunted me. No way in hell was I letting that happen, maybe I was letting my imagination run away with me but then again maybe that is was they had to do. I had seen the history documentaries of plagues and virus and how the population had dealt with it, had seen it with my own two eyes the barbaric behaviour in my own little village. How far had the world really regressed over the last week? If it was like this here how bad was it in everywhere else? When had they recorded the message on the emergency telephone line? Were two days even still possible? I couldn't leave my boy here for days waiting?
A place I had visited in my time spent here at Susanne and Eric's came into vision. As clear and as bright as if I was there and I knew that's where I would lay my Thomas to rest. I had found it for the first time a few months after getting Bert, winter was turning to spring and I had taken him for a walk in the woods and stumbled into the most beautiful little meadow. It was filled with wildflowers, trees surrounded it on three sides and a river cut off the forth giving it the feel as if it was hidden. I had returned many times over the years. Never seeing a sole there and always feeling a calm and peacefulness inside myself. It would be a perfect spot for my boy. I stood looking at my precious boy and knew what I had to do next was the right thing but knowing and doing are two different things.
I spotted Thomas’s favourite bear laying on the floor beside the arm of the sofa. I picked it up and snuggled it next to him and remembered when he had first got him. Ryan had thrown it at me in the toy shop messing about while picking out gifts for Thomas’s second birthday but I had thought it was cute and super soft and had put it in the trolley, it was silly little thing really just a small fluffy brown bear, no gimmicks or anything on it just a bear with a tag that was no longer attached to his ear with the name Bert on.
Thomas had loved it though and from the moment he got it Bert came everywhere with him, he slept with Bert, that was where Bert the dog had got his name from, Bert the bear even went to Thomas's first day of school.
The weight of the task ahead bore down on me and I worried I wouldn't have the strength to do what was needed from me. I went to collect what I needed and tried to call Sol. His phone went straight to his voicemail again and I tried to leave another message but I couldn't find the words so, I hung up and finished packing a bag.
I gently picked up Thomas and the bag up and started to make my way to the spot in the wood I chose. I wanted to be as close to Thomas as I could for as long as I could he wasn't heavy but each step I took was excruciatingly painful, tears clouded my vision, sorrow weighed me down making each step almost impossible to take. I had to keep telling myself to just keep putting one foot in front of the other that I was laying my boy to rest, my poor baby was now at peace and I was doing the right thing.
when I entered my secret part of the wood I gasped it was more beautiful than I had remembered. The side I had come out from was thick with trees but once through, it opened up to a little glade like area with a little river on the other side. Like the little boy, I held in my arms I always felt drawn to water, any water but I especially loved lakes and rivers. My dream had always been to own a small house with a lake or river close by. On the day, I had found this place it was because I had been following this stream, it had started to get wider the more along I went until I reach the part of the woods where the trees were so dense it was hard to travel through, it was almost as if someone had planted a wall of trees with only a now river cutting through. I knew I should have turned back but I'd spotted a little bank on the other side not much but had thought at the time one person could probably walk along it. I had to walk back to where the stream was not to wide and I could jump across with Bert and made my way along the other side when I reach the point of the tree wall I found the pathway I had spotted from the other side it was more like a dirt verge then a path and if I had been any bigger or afraid of spiders and insects I would never have made it but luckily for me I wasn't and it was if something was dragging me, a need had come over me to get to the other end to see what was there. I had walked for about ten minutes and all I could still see was trees and water I was beginning to think that maybe battling along thorns and prickly bushes had not been the smartest idea that I should start turning around and going back but Bert pulled on his lead so suddenly that it came straight out my hand I went running after him as best I could with all the vegetation around me. I rounded a corner and I came smack bang into this clearing, Bert was sitting in the middle looking pleased as punch, I'm pretty sure my face looked much the same.
It wasn't a massive space maybe a small football field size. the stream went through one side with so many trees on the other side, that was all I could see but on this side of the stream it was open with trees around the edge as if guarding this little secret piece of land, it was filled with wildflowers dotting the ground and, in the middle, was a single willow tree. The tendrils of leaves and branches had a silvery quality to them. The trunk looked so old it was twisted and deformed but even so the whole place had a magical quality to it. Peaceful and untouched. It wasn't until my third visit when I had been looking around that I discovered you could enter my secret glade (that was what I had come to call it) via a small path through the trees on the opposite side to the stream. you could only spot the path from this side of the glade once you entered the forest unless you were directly on the path you could not see it. I had followed the path to see where it leads and found it had taken me back to the woods from where I had started only more than a mile or so further down. I had been so shocked as when I had looked back it was like the path had just disappeared I walked back retracing my steps, until I was back on the hidden path it was incredible like it really was magic as soon as I had step away from the dense woodland, the path disappeared again. I had walked around until I had pinpointed its exact location it would be much easier to get to then the river entrance. I think the reason the path was so well hidden was just due to the way the trees had grown but it was almost like they had been planted this way.
The trees here looked like they could be hundreds if not thousands of years old so, god knows if it had been made like this or just the way time had forced them to grow. Many of the trees here were evergreens and so kept their leaves all year round and due to the overgrowth, it was not hard to believe why the glade looked so untouched I was betting that not very many people even knew the path was here let alone the glade.
This was the way I had entered my secret glade today via the hidden pathway and through the dense woodland. When I finally got here I laid Thomas under the willow tree in the cream fluffy blanket he was wrapped in and took Bert the bear out my back pocket and placed him back inside the blanket with Thomas, Bert the dog had come with me, he had not left my side the whole walk here, I hadn't said a word I had just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other if I let my thoughts travel any further th
an that the pain in my chest became unbearable and I thought I would fall down where I was and never get up. I couldn't do that to Thomas I wanted him to be at peace and I could think of no other place more peaceful more fitting for my Thomas than my secret glade.
Bert came and laid next to Thomas and I stepped out from under the silver tendril of the willow tree to look about. I couldn't help but feel a certain amount of peace here with the sound of the river on the other side lapping over the rocks, I could hear a slight rustling from all the leaves as a gentle breeze washed through the trees. Buttercups and daisies sprung up from the ground everywhere giving the grass a soft spongy look and feel to it. I was not a believer in magic but being here in this place, magical was the only word I could find to best describe it.
Taking a deep breath trying to prepare myself for what I had to do next I looked about wanting to find the perfect spot. The sun had come back out while I had been walking but I was surrounded by trees using the hidden pathway to reach my secret glade and hardly any sunlight got through the leaves and canopy, but here the whole glade was bathed in light. I chose a spot near the willow tree but not quite underneath it. I wanted Thomas to have the sun shine down on him at every opportunity and as peaceful and serene as under the tree was, cocooned with all its silvery branches hanging down it was also shaded from the sun.
I started to dig. A new wave of pain and grief washed over me threatening to drown me and pull me down into its dark depths. How had things come to this? The dirt came away easy, too easy and I wished it hadn't I didn't want any part of this to be easy. The thoughts in my head became strangely quiet while digging as if I had shut down and somebody else had taken over my body and completed this horrible task. Perhaps this was the only way my mind and body could cope but in what felt like minutes I stood before a small hole, big enough to fit my Thomas.
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