Alone in The Night

Can you remember being twelve years old and the excitement that Christmas held for
you? Old enough to not want to still be a child but still young enough to enjoy all the
magical moments that can only ever be Christmas morning?
With your immediate family, possibly some extended-younger cousins for example, all
scattered about the room. Their faces smiling delightfully as their eyes grow round
while each of them awaits the go ahead to dig into the mountain of gifts before them.
You, you're well passed believing in Santa. You already know he's something your
parents did. Or some other relative, perhaps? Yes the chatter and laughter, the
joyous looks and gasps of surprise, you cannot help but smile too as each little one
opens gift after gift. The adults too seem immersed in gift opening and then suddenly
you eyes glimpse beneath the tree. It is bare.
Then, as if all is in slow motion, your head lowers back towards the space, the clear
area before you; there is nothing. Your heart rises into your throat, you can still hear
the laughter around you, a flurry of discarded, torn and ravaged piece of Christmas
wrap. As if to add insult to injury some sharply calls your name and commands you to
assist in picking up all the paper and collecting it as garbage...the reality is obvious,
somehow you have been forgotten.
Its a moment, I don't think any of us would wish any child to endure. It's a moment
that I think most of us, struggle deep within our pockets for some "spare" change or
extra "dosh" as my husband calls it, hands extended to deposit it in the many
Salvation Army balls that are well known throughout the Christmas season. A time
when my young daughter and I book the time to volunteer locally to sort, pack and
distribute food and toys to those families that just need a little extra help to get them
through the holidays.
It is the moment, that changes a child forever-a child already deeply scared having
endured six long years of abuse of all kinds including the most difficult to recover
from; emotional. Who has learned from a young age to accept that life is far from
fair. Abandoned by both parents at age two, raised by one parent's extended family
and reminded daily of the burden that they are. The poorest and most damaged of
self-esteem carefully and painstakingly fostered by those that feel the need to remind
the child that they weren't wanted. "Your mother through you out like a bag of
garbage" How many times was that heard? Certainly daily and as far back as that child
could remember....those being the final thoughts on that dreadfully long day, as the
child lies alone in their bed, weeping quietly into their pillow, wondering if they were
no more, would they even be missed?