A River of Tears

We stood at the graveside
Her mother wept.
Her father looked dazed: the comfortless can not comfort.
She was 3 years old, dressed in her favorite frock, a bright pink bow in her hair, her arms crossed to hold her cherished Garfield; the coffin so very, very small.

And still her mother weeps.
For some mothers its like this: you have one shot at motherhood, and one only.
Its 25 years on and she goes to the cemetery and places the flowers every Saturday morning. Love is an obsession: its loss assuaged by a lifetime of tears.

As for us, on that bright Summer's day in the heat of the Highveldt, we, the voyeurs of pain, we went home, and put up gates, and fences, covers and nets, and watched our children: it had only taken 2 minutes: a steady count to 120, to learn that swimming pools are no place to be complacent.