Longing to meet you...
Tuesday morning has finally arrived. I’m usually fast asleep until the alarm clock goes off, when I sleepily stretch out my arm to hit the stop button. Today I know immediately it is going to be somehow different and I am awake before the alarm actually bleeps. Rubbing my eyes I swing my legs out of bed and stretch the sleep out of my muscles before pattering through to the bathroom. I feel a frisson of excitement.
Once downstairs in the kitchen, which is the motor of our house and where everyone congregates, I can hear Mike, my husband, plodding around the bedroom in his bare feet.
“Where’s my blue shirt, Haze?” he calls down to me. I smile indulgently and think: honestly!
“It’s hanging on the wardrobe door where you should see it!” I reply, shouting up the stairs, thinking: why can’t men see what’s in front of them? I shake my head, still smiling.
I put the kettle on and put out two mugs, dropping a teabag in each and two spoons of sugar into Mike’s mug. I normally eat breakfast with Mike but today I feel a bit excited. I mean, it’s not every day we prepare to meet a special person: someone with whom we share a special link.
Mike comes thundering down the stairs like a herd of elephants, despite his socked feet, tying his tie as he comes.
“Listen, I’ll not go into work today. I’ll come with you; you know, make sure you’re OK and that. It’s not as if you know Manchester, I mean.”
I’m not shutting Mike out and I know he means well, but really this is something I want to do alone. I do have the collywobbles; for it’s not often I visit the buzzing city!
I only received Amy’s brief letter last week. I’d opened it with trepidation and then my face had broken into a beaming smile. I’d replied immediately, and since then I’ve been unable to visualise how she might look. I think now about her opening words: “After tracing you I hope you won’t mind me contacting you. I’m longing to meet you,” the letter had said.
“I’ll be in Manchester next Tuesday and I thought we might meet up; in the café near Primark, if that’s OK with you.”
The letter had come out of the blue, shocking me. I never thought I’d get a chance to meet her. Maybe I am one of the lucky ones.
Well, time seems to have passed slowly but today has arrived and I am finally about to meet her, this 22-year-old young lady.
My mind drifts back 10 years in time to Carina, dear sweet Carina, who would be coming up to 18 now had she lived.We would probably be thinking of a special present, some kind of keepsake, and a party to lay on for her giggling friends.
I can feel tears forming immediately. They do every time I think about this child, our child, who died while waiting for a compatible heart and lung donor transplant. Just eight years old. It still feels like yesterday; still as clear today as all those years ago.
A decade ago. A decade ago! And I’d thought I’d never survive! But I have. The years passing by like putting one foot in front of another, going, getting there, completing life’s journey – whether or not I felt like it.
All these “if only’s” had kept drifting in and out of my mind. I must have visualised every possible scenario during the passing years; years, like nimbus clouds scudding across the sky.
I recall making that important decision. It wasn’t going to happen to another child if I could help it. No mother was going to go through what I had, if I could help it.
Tears are rolling now, gathering momentum, dripping off my chin. Get a grip, I tell myself, wiping my eyes, for really
The letter was shocking. I never thought I’d get to meet her
I must get on. I’m just doing the toast for Mike’s scrambled eggs when suddenly I realise that I am standing there, gazing into the distance, trying to visualise what she, Amy, might look like, when the smell of smoke quickly returns me to reality – and burnt toast!
Mike’s voice breaks through: “Haze, Haze, hey, stop, whoa! Where are you? I’ve asked you a question twice and you haven’t even heard me.”
I shake my head to free the mirages floating around my brain and smile and apologise. “Sorry darling, what was it you wanted?” I open the back door and then put two more slices into the toaster.
Mike comes over, puts his arms around me and kisses me. I snuggle into his chest. “Nothing really, pet,” he says, snuggling me to him.
I look up into his still handsome face and tell him: “I was… er… just daydreaming, you know.”
He smiles knowingly at me then asks,“So are you getting ready then? I’ll drop you at Piccadilly Gardens if you like.”
I pull away from him, saying as brightly as I can: “You know what love, I’m going to try out the new tram. It stops right outside Primark and it’ll be a treat for me to be able to see areas we never get to see from the street level.”
I know he really wants to come with me, but, well, it’s a personal thing, this. Mike would argue differently,
I’m sure.
I choose my navy cords and pink top and team it will my taupe biker jacket and ankle boots. Smart/casual, that’s me. I add one of these daisy statement necklaces to add a touch of glamour.
Amy had told me to ask at the coffee counter for her. I wonder how she will look, how she’ll be dressed.
After the trauma of always having to be alert when driving, travelling by tram is a doddle and a brilliant sensation: so smooth and no stopping and starting every two minutes, just stopping at designated points to let commuters on and off.Velopark. Etihad.These names are new to me. I feel like an excited child.
The tram duly pulls smoothly into Piccadilly Gardens and comes to a controlled stop. The doors hiss open.
I alight and walk down the ramp and notice that the Manchester Eye has been moved here from the Shambles lower down the town.
I pick my way across the tramlines on the road and make my way to the big store and ask the way to the café.
Then I see her, sitting there. Amy! How I know it is her, I don’t know. Our eyes meet and I think she also senses the connection for she stands up and comes over to me, her face eager and smiling and nodding. “You must be Hazel.”
I also nod, mesmerised. She takes hold of my limp hand and smiles widely at me, her eyes avidly searching mine. “Come on,” she insists, “sit down. I am real. I am – here!”
I can’t take my eyes off Amy. So lovely, so vibrant, so – effervescent!
She leans in to speak to me. “I’ve so, so wanted to meet you. It’s like a dream come true.”
Tears glisten in her lovely brown eyes. Her mouth twitches at the corners as if she is about to cry. “Because of you, my kids have a mummy. My husband has a wife. My students have a teacher.”
She is very emotional now – and so am I.
“I want to say thank you in person, to tell you that I am well and happy and,” the tears come now, “I’ll always be in your debt. Thanking you isn’t enough. Here is a little gift.”
She offers me this tiny box. It contains a gold bracelet, each link a perfect oval, all but one, which is a gold heart! It is exquisitely perfect, exquisitely beautiful. I know I shall treasure it for the rest of my life!
With it is a little card. I open the envelope and read the words: To Hazel. My sincere thanks to you a million times. For without your kidney donation I wouldn’t be here now.
Love, Amy xx