Reflections

I remembered when they first came to take me. I don’t remember much else before that but I remember that day crystal clear.

I remembered how the sun was so warm, I wanted to spend all day playing outside.

I remembered the smell of waffles in the kitchen when I woke up, I knew it had been my birthday, my parents would only make homemade waffles on my birthdays. I was turning 5, this was a big day for children, I knew that I would finally start school. What I didn’t know was that I wouldn’t get to spend the day with my parents like I usually would on my birthday. I wouldn’t get to open my presents and invite my friends over to play because soon after breakfast they had come for me.

I remembered the way they looked, like the military men I had seen in movies. They had knocked on my front door and I had known something was wrong from the glance that my parents shared as my father let them into our house without hesitation, he had called them ‘The Guards’. I looked to my mother in confusion but she had not met my gaze, she just continued with the dishes as if nothing was wrong. I felt confused when two of the Guards had come to stand beside my chair. I had looked to my father for assistance but just like my mother, he was not meeting my eyes, he had only stood by the open, awaiting door.

I remembered voicing my confusion and concern, but was only told to stand up. These men were in uniforms which meant that they were important so I didn’t want to disobey. I had been told to respect people in uniform, but I hadn’t known these people. What could they have wanted from me?

I remembered them leading me to the front door and when I had protested they grabbed my arm, not as gentle as I would have assumed someone would grab someone as young as I was. I had lashed out, confused as to why they were taking me and why my parents weren’t doing anything about it. Why did they just stand there? Why hadn’t they helped me? I had called out to them, and finally when I had hope that maybe they were going to help me, their own daughter, I lost that hope. My mother hadn’t been heading my way to help me, no she came to say goodbye. She had dropped down to my level and placed a small toy into my hands, a birthday gift, a heart pendant on a silver chain with a picture of our family on the inside. That was a goodbye, a goodbye that I had never anticipated.

I remembered looking at my house for the last time as The Guards managed to get my squirming body in the back of a car and drove off as if the last five years of my life there hadn’t mattered at all.