Killer shot
Nerves have always been my enemy. Every significant event in my life has caused the same physical symptoms, my first day of primary school being the earliest occasion that I can recollect. I've spoken to friends who don't remember any of their first day of school and they are always amazed by the detail of my recall.
My mum has always been my greatest supporter in everything and that day was no exception. I remember very little about the start of the day, brief flashes, snapshots of showering, eating my favourite breakfast, and the enormous smile on my face as I was presented with what I thought were the most beautiful pair of claret coloured Mary Janes the world had ever seen.
My clearer memories began on our walk through the quiet streets, a ten minute activity that would see me safely delivered into the playground of the tiny village school. We had just picked up the baby mum minded for her friend and she was telling me how proud she was of me, how brave she thought I was. I was too obsessed with my new shoes to listen to much of what she was saying, watching the beautiful dance of the reflections on them with awe, my head never lifting, .... they were so shiny, I really loved them!
"Sydney! Sweetheart, are you ok, you're unusually quiet. Do you feel well?" She worried, feeling my forehead.
I hummed in reply, far too engrossed in the developing love affair with my gorgeous new footwear for conversation!
Reminding me to ' use my words' and not to bombinate she continued to talk. Mum made sure to use a new word everyday, telling me what they meant and teaching me to pronounce the more tricky ones, which were mostly all of them because I was only 5 years old. It's fair to say that my love of all things language has come from her. My desire to continue to learn new words now taking me all over the world with my little book of language!
I paid more attention to the rest of mums chatter because I felt naughty for not listening before. Throughout my entire life I have always had an overwhelming need to please her and I think it is rooted in this next moment.
It all happened in the blink of an eye, but the after effects have remained, every second of everyday since.
Mum was telling me all about my future, how amazing it would be. She described my wonderful life as a successful journalist, wife to a loving, handsome husband and mother to an unspecified number of beautiful children. All I had to do was pay attention, to everything.... sounds, smells, sights, words, and I couldn't fail. That all sounded so marvellous to my 5 year old 'I believe in Fairies' self that I jumped up and down cheering as we crossed the road, twisting my ankle as I landed because my shoe was a size too big, so they'd last longer apparently. I cried in pain as I crumpled into a heap, salty tears stinging my eyes already.
Mum now says her next decision has been the source of many nights awake, but she made the best choice she could in that moment. She rushed across the road and put the brakes on the pram, securing the baby on the pavement behind a parked car then dropping my book bag and lunchbox to return to pick me up.
I can remember mum running toward me with her arms outstretched, the look of worry on her face instantaneously becoming a mask of sheer horror as her eyes were drawn behind me by a loud rumbling.
She ran and scooped me up into her arms mid stride, winding me as she knocked into me so hard. She let out an ear piercing scream and we both fell to the ground, the back of my head connecting heavily with the tarmac, mum silent and unmoving on top of me. The last things I heard before darkness came was a loud screeching sound, a deafening crash .....and then a shrill scream!
I never had the chance to wear my beautiful shoes again after that day!
I spent the following eight months in hospital recovering from the after effects of the closed traumatic brain injury I suffered when I hit the road.
An 'Acute Intracranial subdural haematoma'. A fancy way of describing a collection of blood trapped somewhere within the head that compresses the brain, bruising it and causing increasing damage until the swelling either subsides or is relieved surgically. Due to my age the doctors took the educated gamble that my body may recover well on its own with just a little time and a lot of monitoring, reluctant to drill into my head if possible, the risk of infection raised in this scenario.
Mum tells me I remained unconscious for 16 days. Sixteen days which changed our lives. Sixteen days that changed me.
I recovered fully physically with no lasting damage or different abilities after relearning to walk and speak properly with the help of speech therapy and intensive physio. Again my youth assisted with my recovery.
My emotional recovery wasn't so full.
The frontal lobe of my brain had been severely compressed which has left me with impulse control issues, anger management troubles, very disturbed sleep patterns and heightened emotional perceptions and responses.
It actually explains a lot about me but it's not something I share with many others. As soon as you mention that you've had a brain injury people often immediately write you off as incapable, unintelligent and needy, too much effort to get to know.
How wrong those people are!
My dad had stayed with me for the whole of my time in hospital. Once I woke up my mum left the hospital and barely came back. Dad told me it was because she was having her own treatment, which I presumed was for the two compound fractures, one to each tibia from the lorry clipping her legs as she saved me. When she did visit it wasn't for long, she became distraught everytime she looked at me. I believed that she got so upset because it was my fault that we'd both been hurt and she couldn't bare to look at me. I didn't know until I was an adult that it was guilt.
She chronicles the feeling of guilt as like being trapped underwater, encircled within a murky black whirlpool and being sucked further and further into the depths of despair, desperately fighting for the surface and that life essential oxygen but instead inhaling lungfuls of water. She describes an increasing weight in her chest, pain with every attempt to breathe ...panic rising at her impending death, but it never coming!
A continuous cycle of fear and pain, terror and guilt, that is now 'treated' with prescribed medications, illegal drugs and alcohol. Not a safe combination but she says she needs it all to function so my dad has become her personal dealer and also her 24hr carer to ensure she doesn't overdose!
Poor dad. None of us came out of that period undamaged.
Mum was actually having intense psychiatric treatment, the reason she rarely visited was because she was secured in a facility to prevent her from harming herself, which she had tried to do twice in the few weeks since that day. I'd actually been kept in hospital longer than was necessary for my recovery to ensure that my mums treatment was working before we were permitted to co-habit again.
The day I was collected from the hospital arrived and I was so excited to go home, I felt sure there would be presents and cake since I had missed my birthday. It had taken them 5 hours to placate me when I found that out just a couple of days before leaving for home, one of the new and challenging elements of my post injury personality, or as we refer to it in our house, PIP.
We pulled up outside our house and it felt unfamiliar, different somehow, but I couldn't work out why in the semi darkness of the evening. Dad helped mum into the wheelchair she was temporarily using while regaining her mobility. Her surgeries to fix her broken bones had been extensive and frequent so she was having daily physiotherapy which left her in agony by the evening. Dad lifted me out of the car and hoisted my giggling body up onto his shoulders. I loved it when he let me ride on his shoulders, I knew he wouldn't be able to lift me soon as I was growing like a weed, so I made the most of as many rides as I could get.
We turned to make our way up the driveway to the front door, Dad pushing mum, bouncing on his feet to give me a bumpy ride, my fingers gripping his collar for security, squeals of laughter erupting from my lips.
A woman walked quickly towards us and I recognised her as Mrs Cooper, the lady whose baby mum looked after. She was so cute, like a little dolly, and named that too. I never heard her cry, she was a smiler! I was sad that Mrs Cooper hadn't brought Dolly out to see us, just a small pale boy, I guess around my age.
I smiled and waved at her but she didn't respond to me, instead glaring at my mum and shouting .....
"It's a happy day for you I see. That's alright for some isnt it! You..... YOU... get to bring your child home, watch her grow up, have a life. What do I get? I'll tell you!
I get a weekly visit to a 2ft by 2ft square patch of Earth at Gillfield cemetery to visit my daughter in her GRAVE!!"
She concentrates her cold stare on my face before persisting with her verbal assault. "YOU MURDERER!! You took my baby from me..... I have nothing now, nothing! You ruined my life... and you aren't even paying for it! You're on the streets, a danger to others" she screeches then looks back at mum, continuing.....
"I hope they lock YOU up in that nuthouse again and never let you out, you fucking BITCH!!" then swipes out at my mums face, a huge cracking slap sounds in the otherwise still night as her palm connects with mums cheek. My mum doesn't react at all. She doesn't flinch, blink, move, cry out in pain.... nothing!
Dad stepped in after setting me down and gently grabbed her upper arms from behind and turned her away from mum, wrapping her in his arms and soothing her as she wailed Dollys name over and over.
"Come on Val, let's get you home shall we? I'll just take Sydney and Steph inside, ok!"
She nods and turns her back on us. I call to her and ask if I can hold Dolly next time she comes by and she barks a hollow laugh.
"You didn't tell her!? Why not? She should know something like that right? She should know, how can you not have told her?" she asks disbelievingly.
"Please Val, don't do it, not like this, let us tell her in our own time, tonight... we'll tell her tonight! Please!?" my mum begs her.
"I owe you nothing Stephanie Benfield, nothing! I have no guilt saying what I'm about to!" and she directs her bright and angry eyes at me.
"Sydney" she begins and I smile, not having understood the references in any of the previous conversation, a short lived smile when she delivers her killer shot....
"You can't hold Dolly ever again.... because you killed her!!"
She turns, and grabbing the boy by the hand simply walks away leaving me crying on our lawn, my parents both staring at me with what I now recognise as utter despondency, and I felt it for the first time then too.
Dad picked me up and took me inside, mum wheeling herself in behind us and closed the door.
There was no cake. I never wanted cake ever again.
Welcome home Sydney!
That was all a very long time ago but it has shaped my life completely.
Finishing up on the toilet for the fourth time since I woke up less than an hour ago I wash my hands just as my door opens.
"The police are here to talk to you Sydney. Are you ready? Sure you want to do this, because you don't have to." Daisy advises.
"I do have to Daisy. It may as well be now" and head towards the door.