Into My Arms

I press my face against yours, trying to take a mould of your dainty bone structure. Your elfin features. 

I breathe you in, let your mole like hair tickle my nostrils, just as I did when you were first handed to me weighing not much more than a couple of bags of sugar.

I trace your minute freckles, wondering if they make a constellation. Tracing my fingers across your still baby soft skin.

I look at the profile of your thick, bovine eyelashes. The way they curl upwards, point to the sky, tall and proud.

Part of your essence left you on Tuesday. The last day I heard a noisy, plastic toy being brought right up to your eyes and pressed repeatedly so you could absorb all your senses.

The day you cried and cried. Screamed. Couldn’t find peace. We weren’t prepared for pain, for anguish and confusion.

Even in the midnight ambulance to the hospice we hoped that with some more tinkering, some better pain relief, we’d see you wake up and have us for fools. Not just scream out.

DD has put toys in your bed, for when you wake up. Because whether three or thirty six, we still hope. Who of us knows more? Me, guided by facts: a syringe driver full of powerful sedatives, no fluids, listening for any changes in breath. Or DD, governed by instinct and a pure observation of what is in front of her.
We are grieving your mind: busy, clever, inquisitive. But we have a chance to observe you as a newborn now, watch your reflexes and impulses and soak in your body. 

The changes that would have set alarm bells ringing- puffy, mottled skin, a crackle as your secretions lay heavy, matter not now. We know where we’ve arrived. Now all we can do is let you know you’re surrounded by love and there’s no need to be scared.

You won’t fly to the heavens, you won’t gain wings. You’ll hopefully just find ultimate peace and live on forever in all of us.

I don’t believe in an interventionist God

But I know, darling, that you do

But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him

Not to intervene when it came to you

Not to touch a hair on your head

To leave you as you are

And if He felt He had to direct you

Then direct you into my arms

Into my arms, O Lord

Into my arms, O Lord

Into my arms, O Lord

Into my arms

And I don’t believe in the existence of angels

But looking at you I wonder if that’s true

But if I did I would summon them together

And ask them to watch over you

To each burn a candle for you

To make bright and clear your path

And to walk, like Christ, in grace and love

And guide you into my arms

Into my arms, O Lord

Into my arms, O Lord

Into my arms, O Lord

Into my arms

But I believe in love

And I know that you do too

And I believe in some kind of path

That we can walk down, me and you

So keep your candles burning

And make her journey bright and pure

That she will keep returning

Always and evermore

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Into My Arms