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Loss
He stood still and empty but quite calm as he looked unseeing into the night, remembering exactly one year before. It had all happened so quickly. Without warning his world had been turned inside out. He had been driving home one night, having picked up his daughter from the school play. She was wearing a fairy dress, and laughed as she told him how much fun she had at the Christmas party. She had everything to live for, everything to experience.
He slowed down at the traffic lights and stopped, the swish swish of the wipers as they brushed the snow off the windscreen was soothing and his daughters laughter as she recounted what happened was infectious. He pulled away from the traffic lights as they turned green, then, as he crossed the road he saw headlights coming towards him…they weren’t going to stop, then nothing.
He remembered how he had woken up in the hospital expecting to see his daughter, but she was not there. He had asked everyone what had happened to her, but they all said she was fine. Eventually they told him, but by then he had realised the horrific truth.
Accident…the euphemism used to describe the reckless drunk, driving too fast that had resulted in the loss of his daughter. One minute she had been laughing and the next she had been dying, he felt so guilty for failing to be there as she faded.
The weeks that followed had been difficult, empty and hopeless. The driver who had killed his daughter had been let off with a caution, but a few months later he had been involved in another incident. This time he did not kill anyone, just caused terrible injuries and again he walked away from a drunk driving charge. Another life ruined, another reckless amoral individual who would never change.
He looked across the city, the dead of night broken only by the wind that whipped past him. Through the snow he saw the lights shimmering in the distance, people going about their lives, oblivious to his pain. The thought of Christmas without her laughter was almost unendurable.
Looking down he saw the cold water, the reprieve would be final. He had lost the feeling in his hand as it held the girder, he leaned forward as he prepared to jump. He couldn’t help wondering what his daughter would have thought, but then she was not here anymore.
“Daddy” a soft child’s voice spoke, the voice seemed to carry on the wind as it brushed past him.
He turned but couldn’t see anything, maybe it was the wind or maybe it was his imagination. He turned back and looked at the river below.
“Daddy” he was sure he had clearly heard his daughter this time,
Tears welled up in his eyes as he tried to concentrate on the job at hand. Even now on the brink of ending he had his doubts. He closed his eyes, the voice still fresh in his mind, maybe if he turned around he would see here there, oh how he wanted to believe that it was his daughter so he could ask for her forgiveness.
He stepped away from the edge and slowly turned his head and looked through the blowing snow. At the end of the street he could make out a small child standing under the street light, wearing a dainty fairy dress. He wiped the tears from his eyes and looked again, she was still there.
He walked towards her, thinking that at any moment she would disappear, but as he got closer he could make out his daughters face as she smiled at him. All around the snow and wind slowed down, everything faded into the background.
He stood in front of her and dropped to his knees, here was his daughter, as beautiful as the last time he had seen her. He closed his eyes, not able to at look her, the guilt he felt at having not been there when she needed him most.
“Don’t be sad daddy” she spoke softly
During his life he had seen it all, the horrors of war, lost friends, close shaves, but here in front of him was the one person he would have swapped places with in an instant. A feeling of warmth enveloped him as she put her arms around him, tears rolled down his face, he felt despair turning to hope.
“It wasn’t your fault”
He looked up into her eyes.
“I should have…”
“Shhhhhhh,” she whispered, “I don’t have much time”
He wanted to tell her so much, but could only manage a single question.
“Why are you here?”
“It’s not your time…don’t pay for the sins of others. There are so many good things you can do.”
“I don’t know if I can…”
“Daddy,” her eyes pierced his being and looked within his soul, “I will always love you but you have to let go.”
“I don’t want to be…alone” he whispered.
He reached out for her as she faded, his hand passed straight through the space she had stood in moments before. Was it real, was it a dream, he looked where his daughter had been, wishing his life had meaning. Earlier the bridge seemed to hold all the answers, but as he stared across its icy expanse. He realised that ending it so suddenly would hurt others, those in the living world; the snow resumed its race around him, and carried on the wind he heard her voice for the last time.
“You will never be alone.”
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