A Christmas Present by Aedín Collins
Aedín Collins is an aspiring author living in the west of Ireland with her partner and two small children.She currently writes for Ramp.ie and blogs at Mini And Mum where she explores themes such as pregnancy,parenthood,raising a child with special needs and the road less travelled. You can follow Aedín on Twitter.
Last minute shoppers bustled hurriedly by me as I made my way home. The darkness had enveloped the town hours previously yet there was an energetic buzz in the air with people striding purposefully about finishing up various tasks before the big day arrived.
I left them to it. At 39 weeks pregnant, my waddle had become so pronounced that I resembled not just a penguin, but a giant inflatable one, lurching from side to side at a painfully slow pace down Grafton Street, while other more mobile humans nimbly side stepped past me.
Out of breath with the effort of hauling my swollen form through the masses, I stopped to join a swelling crowd to listen to some carol singers huddled together outside Brown Thomas. It was there that I caught sight of her.
Cascades of shimmering, glossy blonde curls fell gracefully around her elfin features. Dressed in a soft cashmere coat I could only guess at the price of, the streetlights illuminating the exquisite emerald drop earrings in her delicate ears. This woman had been my competition for the last eighteen months. Now neither of us was the victor.
Unless you took into consideration the pint-sized human currently taking up residence in my womb. An unwanted lodger at first-children had not been part of the plan. But a niggling doubt gnawed at me from within. It wasn’t this baby’s fault she had a cheater for a father and a mistress for a mother and the more I thought about it, the more I realised I couldn’t take the decision to stop a life coming into this world without first discussing it with the other person responsible for it-something which had been a total no-go.
So I made my choice.
“Final call for Ryanair flight FR32 to Liverpool. Will all remaining passengers please make their way to gate 46 where your flight is now boarding.”
I had stood there, crumpled boarding pass in hand, and waited until the last passenger had gone through, until the flight attendants had locked the door, until the plane had hurtled down the runway and ascended into the dusty pink, early morning sky. That was the first day I had bought clothes for the little one inside me- one of those ridiculously adorable fleece onesies with cutesy little ears on the hood-so that the baby would look like some kind of bear cub. Because despite all the uncertainty of what the future would bring, deep down I knew then I wanted this baby.
The crescendo of hauntingly beautiful harmonies brought me back to the present. Not wanting to be seen by her, I swung a sharp left, well as sharp as my skewed centre of gravity would allow. I longed for a snug in a random old man’s
pub, somewhere I could sink back anonymously into the shadows in front of a flickering fire with a hot whiskey in hand but I wouldn’t find that here.
I wasn’t sure where I was heading anymore. Thoughts, regrets, worries about the future all swirled in my mind creating a cacophony of dark brooding. Disorientated, I stumbled into the first refuge I found, which just happened to be St.Teresa’s that little church tucked away down a side alley, set apart from the glitz and glam of Dublin’s Champs Elysee.
I paused just beyond the entrance, drawn to the candle stand. I had loved lighting candles as a child, when I was still very much captivated by the Catholic Church, in simpler, more ignorant times. What would my local priest think of me now?
I dug into my handbag, fished out my wallet and located a shiny one-euro coin-quite a difference in price from the 20p of my youth. Placing the coin into the slot, I made a small sign of the cross, something I hadn’t done in years, before pressing the dinky black switch to illuminate the tiny red candle.
For my baby-a light for her in this world. The future was uncertain, but by igniting this tiny flame, I felt I could somehow carry it with me in my heart where it would grow and only become stronger.
A mother’s all encompassing love; the most important present I would give my child that Christmas. Buoyed by this single act of tenderness, I made my way outside, to once again embrace the harsh, cold world but this time with my head held a little higher.
I left them to it. At 39 weeks pregnant, my waddle had become so pronounced that I resembled not just a penguin, but a giant inflatable one, lurching from side to side at a painfully slow pace down Grafton Street, while other more mobile humans nimbly side stepped past me.
Out of breath with the effort of hauling my swollen form through the masses, I stopped to join a swelling crowd to listen to some carol singers huddled together outside Brown Thomas. It was there that I caught sight of her.
Cascades of shimmering, glossy blonde curls fell gracefully around her elfin features. Dressed in a soft cashmere coat I could only guess at the price of, the streetlights illuminating the exquisite emerald drop earrings in her delicate ears. This woman had been my competition for the last eighteen months. Now neither of us was the victor.
Unless you took into consideration the pint-sized human currently taking up residence in my womb. An unwanted lodger at first-children had not been part of the plan. But a niggling doubt gnawed at me from within. It wasn’t this baby’s fault she had a cheater for a father and a mistress for a mother and the more I thought about it, the more I realised I couldn’t take the decision to stop a life coming into this world without first discussing it with the other person responsible for it-something which had been a total no-go.
So I made my choice.
“Final call for Ryanair flight FR32 to Liverpool. Will all remaining passengers please make their way to gate 46 where your flight is now boarding.”
I had stood there, crumpled boarding pass in hand, and waited until the last passenger had gone through, until the flight attendants had locked the door, until the plane had hurtled down the runway and ascended into the dusty pink, early morning sky. That was the first day I had bought clothes for the little one inside me- one of those ridiculously adorable fleece onesies with cutesy little ears on the hood-so that the baby would look like some kind of bear cub. Because despite all the uncertainty of what the future would bring, deep down I knew then I wanted this baby.
The crescendo of hauntingly beautiful harmonies brought me back to the present. Not wanting to be seen by her, I swung a sharp left, well as sharp as my skewed centre of gravity would allow. I longed for a snug in a random old man’s
pub, somewhere I could sink back anonymously into the shadows in front of a flickering fire with a hot whiskey in hand but I wouldn’t find that here.
I wasn’t sure where I was heading anymore. Thoughts, regrets, worries about the future all swirled in my mind creating a cacophony of dark brooding. Disorientated, I stumbled into the first refuge I found, which just happened to be St.Teresa’s that little church tucked away down a side alley, set apart from the glitz and glam of Dublin’s Champs Elysee.
I paused just beyond the entrance, drawn to the candle stand. I had loved lighting candles as a child, when I was still very much captivated by the Catholic Church, in simpler, more ignorant times. What would my local priest think of me now?
I dug into my handbag, fished out my wallet and located a shiny one-euro coin-quite a difference in price from the 20p of my youth. Placing the coin into the slot, I made a small sign of the cross, something I hadn’t done in years, before pressing the dinky black switch to illuminate the tiny red candle.
For my baby-a light for her in this world. The future was uncertain, but by igniting this tiny flame, I felt I could somehow carry it with me in my heart where it would grow and only become stronger.
A mother’s all encompassing love; the most important present I would give my child that Christmas. Buoyed by this single act of tenderness, I made my way outside, to once again embrace the harsh, cold world but this time with my head held a little higher.