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| A change in my childhood. | |
| By brook_rivers | ||||||||||||||||
| 24 October 2006 | ||||||||||||||||
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Would appreciated comments on this, especially with regards to the ending. It is still a work in progress so I will update any changes. Thanks!! With juvenile enthusiasm I bounded out of bed to greet the day ahead; only the sticky residue of sleep in my lashes betrayed my recent awakening. One of my Dad’s favourite sayings about me as a child is that when I woke up ‘The sound of laughter entered the house with the rising sun’. I don’t think to this day my Dad realises what changed my sunny disposition upon waking each morning into a struggle to rise from what had once been the comfort of my bed. On that memorable morning the appearance of my mother was the first indicator that something was not right. She, like an owl swooping in the dead of night, was the bearer of bad news that was to impact upon my simple, shelter life in a colossal way. My mum was always well presented: – her dark raven hair carefully curled, her make up precisely applied and a strong smell of beautiful scent surrounding her. But on that particular morning I wasn’t even sure that the woman, who tentatively entered my room, was my mother. She was startlingly dishevelled. Streaks of unhappy tears stained her face, which was deathly pale, and her eyes were large and seemed as though they were bulging from lack of sleep. Most notable of all was the absence of her perfume. I recall questioning ‘Mummy are you okay?’ as my mother gently sat me down on my bed. She gave me a hug and a kiss and then blurted out the uncomprehendable statement ‘Nanny died last night. Nanny has gone to heaven’. I remember sitting for what seemed like hours as my mum held me tightly and sobbed. In a hazy blur I was sent to school that day. For some now forgotten reason my best friend was not there that day. I vividly recall feeling very lonely and saddened at lunchtime as I tried to understand what I had been told that morning. I told my favourite school dinner lady what had happened and she let me sit in the classroom to eat my lunch with two friends instead of in the big hall where everyone usually had lunch. As I ate my cheese and piccalilli sandwiches I thought about my Nanny. Her wide smile, the crinkles that lined her face, and the way that she always prevented anyone from telling me off. On returning from school I found a cluster of adults in the kitchen; an assortment of relatives and neighbours. There was an undertone of conversation in the kitchen but the rest of the house was in extreme silence. My grandfather was slumped in his arm chair not speaking to anyone. I tried chatting away to him about my day at school, sitting on his knee and singing a new song I had learnt, but he ignored me. No one wanted to play games or talk with me. One of my Uncles persuaded me to go for a walk, with the promise of stopping at the newsagents for sweets and a magazine. Before we left my strangely transformed house I caught a snippet of the conversation that was now buzzing in the heart of the house. Just before being bustled out of the door I heard a neighbour proclaim that my Nanny had ‘died in her sleep’. My room had always been a safe, happy haven for me. The wallpaper was a pastel swirl depicting the care bears – lots of orange white and blue, the covers of my bed were matching. My bed was in the corner of my small room. The length of the bed lay alongside the window. To the right was a dainty wardrobe and matching chest of draws. There was also a huge built in cupboard that I could easily climb into and sit in when playing hide and seek. One of my earliest memories of my bedroom is having my newly born baby brother lying in my arms as I sat on the bed. Even at the tender age of 5 my heart swelled with pride. I have a picture of this moment stored in an old photo album. Another vivid memory I have in connection with my room was that my mother used to come and tuck me in at night and we always went through the same ritual of saying goodnight: ‘Night I love you’ my mum would say and I would reply ‘I love you millions’ ‘I love you millions and trillions’ I love you millions and trillions and zillions’ ‘I love you to infinity, goodnight’ and with that she would give me a kiss and shut the door. However that evening my Mum did not come up to my room to carry out our usual routine. On going to bed that night I was extremely frightened. I thousand questions and thoughts raced through my over active imagination. Could anyone die in their sleep? And surely there must be a reason why she died in her sleep? Perhaps my friend’s game about a monster lurking under the bed could be true? On the wall facing my bed there were rows of shelves, all filled with toys. As I struggled to keep my eyes open the air became fuzzy with particles, an indication of my tiredness. I became convinced that I could hear the toys stirring, whispering, and coming alive. I pulled the covers high above my head and made sure that my arms and legs were completely covered by my quilt. Hopefully if I hid, even if the toys came alive, they wouldn’t be able to see me in the darkness. The next morning I was not quite so eager to get out of bed, it was light so I was no longer afraid of the toys or anything of the like, but more worried that I might get a repetition of the previous morning. My fear of going to bed and reluctance to get up in the morning continued. They were accompanied by surreal nightmares, and slowly as the realisation dawned on me that I wasn’t going to see my Nanny again as night time approached I became fearful that I might not see my parents again either. An overwhelming fear that I might wake up one morning, and they would be gone.
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