When Lily was two, she lived in a children’s home. I arrived to photograph some of the children there. They gave me the most difficult ones to find families for.
I walked into her group and saw a little girl with a sullen, twisted, almost ancient-looking face. “What an odd, unattractive child,” I thought. But then I started taking her photo. And in that moment, I saw her. Through that immobile, cheerless mask, she seemed to come alive.
It’s so hard to catch the gaze of a neglected child. But this strange girl stared straight into my camera lens, unwavering.
Suddenly, I saw her soul. Completely alone, utterly abandoned, suffering. Not even hope, really. Just the first moment in her life when someone noticed her. Noticed her soulrejected, all-knowing. So much like my own. Then she looked away, and her eyes filled with tears.
I asked the carer, “Tell me about Lily, I need to write something.” “What’s there to say?” the carer replied. “Well, what can she do, what does she say?” “She can’t do anything. And she doesn’t say anything. Just sits in the splits and rocks until she touches the floor. When she rocks, she whimpers. There’s really nothing to say about her. She’s nothing special.”
Two months before meeting Lily, we’d lost our youngest daughter.
Our wonderful life slammed into a brick wall at full speed and simply ceased to exist. But we did not. We carried on, living in this odd, new AFTER. We kept going, tried not to show our despair to the children, tried to give them hope when we barely had any ourselves. I wondered, “Will anything ever make me happy again?” I’d drive to assignments crying in the car, then step outside, rub my face with cold water, and pretend everything was normal. Speak with an ordinary voice, smile. All of it was pretend.
I didn’t want another child to replace the one we lost. I just wanted somehow to survive. And then there was Lily, with her loneliness and her despair. Not as if I hadnt seen a thousand lonely children through this workchildren waiting. But it felt as if this was mine, chosen specially to find the key to my heart, this loneliness…
At home, I said to my wonderful husband, “I dont even know how to begin this conversation… I met this girl today, I know it sounds mad, but I just can’t stop thinking about her… Maybe, maybe, could we consider her?” And John replied, “Are you out of your mind? What girls? We’re barely breathing.”
“Yes, I know Im not myself. But maybe I never will be again. We have to learn to live as we are.”
We went to the childrens home to meet Lily. The carer brought her to us. She was tiny, with that same twisted little face, hobbling along awkwardly, almost sideways. Under her nose, a green streak that had hardened. Goodness, she was quite a sight, I thought. Like a failed attempt at a person. What on earth had I seen in her?
Lily touched the toy we brought her, fell onto her bottom, spread her legs and started rocking quickly, touching her forehead to the floor.
While she rocked, the head consultant gave her opinion: “Look, this child doesn’t even have mild learning difficulties! These are severe. There’s no hope here. She’ll be referred to social services. You understand? She’s severely impaired, unteachable. I respect you, truly, but this is a social services case. Lilys been rejected by families seven times. She cant do a thing, doesnt do anything expected for her age. Just rocks in the splits. We call her Olga after Olga the gymnast.”
And then my husband, whom Id been afraid to glance at through all this, said, “Actually, we quite like her. We’ll take her.”
I asked him afterwards, “Why did you say that? I thought you didnt want to?” And John answered, “I realised she needed saving. And no one else would, except us.”
We adopted Lily, leaving the home staff bewildered.
Lily was deeply depressed. She had no trust in the worlda world that had ignored and failed her for her whole two years of life, a world she couldnt influence. She didnt know how to ask for things. She couldnt play. She tore things up and broke toys. She was frightened of everythingbroke down easily and rocked, sometimes to the point of passing out from hysteria. She only ate mashed potatoes. She barely walked, was terrified of water, the potty, her dad, lifts, wind, or cars.
Inside, I was howling from my own grief. Outside, so was Lily. I now understand why taking in another child while grieving is so strongly discouragedyou simply dont have the strength. Every scrap goes into holding yourself together. And children require so much more. That strength has to come from somewhere. I drew mine from our sorrow.
I told myself, “Your pain is nothing compared to the suffering of this poor child. You lost a daughter. But you still have a son, a daughter, a husband, your mum, friends, work you love, and your home. Lily never had any of that. Nothing. Its so much harder for her.”
You know, what happened to that frail, gloomy, broken, endlessly whimpering, depressed creature we brought into our family, when we felt almost out of our minds?
She became our wonderful daughterour Lily. Easy to tell the story, harder to live it Now its been nine years since she came home.
Lily grew into exactly whom she was meant to belighthearted and joyful, coquettish, kind and always ready to help, gentle and sensitive and incredibly forgiving, a pretty little girl. Shes in a mainstream school, in a speech therapy class. Shes taken up diving. Diving!
She says, “Mum, this time I managed to breathe properly and swap my mouthpiece underwater straight away…” At moments like that, I cry.
Right now, Lilys at a diving camp in Cornwall. She flew there on her own. Shes eleven now. She rings me up, chatting away: “Mum, its so beautiful here! We went swimming, but there was a storm so the sea turned freezing! But its warming up, our wetsuits just arrived, so tomorrow well go diving! For dinner there was cod, but we fed it to the catstheres loads of cats! You know I cant stand fish! But I had the mash. We climbed a hill, thirteen miles, thought my legs would fall off its gorgeous and there are rare trees! Ive made friends with some lovely girls! Oh, and I bought crackers with the pounds you gave me and shared them round. Weve been swinging in the hammock I miss you!”
Because we saved her. We saved her. And in doing so, we saved ourselvestogether, on this raft.
