If I’d Have Known

A lifetime of love and loss, joy and sadness, play out through the jigsaw of brushstrokes etched onto your hands,

Wrapped around warming cups of tea, brushing a playful hair away from your freckled face, subconsciously turning the pages of your favourite book,

I’d take hold of those hands, grasp them hungrily between my own, my connection to another life,

If I’d have known.

That mum in the school yard, dropping off her children but keeping the weight of the world on her shoulders,

I often thought about stopping, to ask how she was, to see if she needed anything but instead I would offer a quick smile as I raced off to the next thing, and the next and the next,

I’d have stood with her, chatted about the day, taken the time,

Before the playground rang out with silence, the squeals and shouts of excited children just a faint whisper in the wind,

If I’d have known.

The broiling waves, smashing, tumbling, rumbling as they race to the shore,

Eager to envelop their sun-soaked sibling in a chilled embrace,

Smoothing away the imprints of day tripping sun lovers, snuffling dogs and emboldened birds swooping to the sand in search of a chip or two,

I’d have watched those waves as they curled towards the shore, breathing deep the salty brine-laced air while my toes danced up and down in the damp sand,

If I’d have known.

Would these imagined memories have tasted so painfully sweet,

If I’d have known what was reaching its tendrils towards us, threatening to cast a shadow that seeped deep into our pores,

Would I still have taken everything for granted,

If I’d have known.

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by Cherie Woodhouse