Dearest diary, how strange life turns out… nobody expected little Alfie to join us. Yet arrive he did, announcing himself with a lusty cry, demanding food, attention, care. And me… well, I fled. Weak and swaying, barely two days after the birth. I vanished into the grey Cambridge afternoon, feeling no bond at all for that tiny bundle, utterly unwilling to shoulder the responsibility for his life. I’m only nineteen. My nan, my only real family, died last year. Then there was Liam, full of promises, who left too. Everyone leaves me! Mum and Dad, gone in a car crash when I was small. Nan, who adored me, recently left… Dad grew up in care; Mum’s sisters live in Italy with their grandfather. No connection, long gone.
A ridiculous saga of grudges, anger, and petty squabbles. I never cared, until Nan got really poorly, was hospitalised, and then it hardly mattered.
This year, I should’ve been finishing my college diploma. My classmates are writing their final projects now, while I… Oh, never mind. I’ll manage alone, I always have. But a baby? It’s too much. Crushing. Nearly impossible. And I’m struggling enough as it is, can’t they see? So I left my tiny one behind. Maybe someone will help him. Like they helped Dad once. People came, said things… but who they were, what they wanted? I don’t know. Ignore them… Just get some strength back, then somehow carry on.
But Alfie doesn’t need his mum “later”. He needs her *now*, this very minute! To press his cheek against her warmth, to taste her milk, to feel the steady beat of her heart beneath his ear.
Instead, no maternal warmth. Only fear and loneliness. He cries out for me. Different hands, strange hands, hold him. They feed him milk, but it’s not *mine*, so his little belly twists and cramps constantly. His sleep is restless, waiting… He’d know my voice even through troubled dreams. But only unfamiliar voices reach him.
Little Alfie knew how to wait. He waited for his mother’s hands, the comfort of her body, the taste of his milk. Perhaps he prayed his infant prayers with every tiny feeling, even the soft puffing from his miniature nose.
And his prayers were answered. Matron, a kind woman with a caring heart at the hospital, wouldn’t condemn me, but she couldn’t bear this sweet little scrap being without his mother either.
She used every contact she had. She discovered everything about my situation, unearthed the address of my grandfather, Alfie’s great-grandfather, in far-off Italy. She contacted him by video call, spoke at length. She told him about his lonely, despairing young granddaughter with no one to turn to. About the tiny boy, barely begun his life, yet seemingly wanted by no one.
Grandfather couldn’t make the journey himself, but both my aunts, Mum’s sisters, came. They found me home in York, terribly sick. The pain in my breasts was unbearable, burning; I could barely express milk anymore. Fever raged. For a long time, I couldn’t grasp what was happening, who these women were or what they wanted. The ambulance crew brought me, the young mother, back to hospital, where the nurses gently, yet firmly, ignoring my tears and protests, expressed the last of the milk, broke the fever, and brought Alfie to me. He looked right at me with his little eyes, wrinkled his nose, and pulled funny faces. Did I know my son? Of course I knew him. I took him into my arms. Meaning I’d never let him go again.
Later, I was discharged. Two lively, chattering cousins (aunts? sisters? it blurred) drove Alfie and me home to London. Somehow, a cot had appeared there. A chest of drawers filled with nappies and tiny clothes… They talked to me, fed me familiar baked beans on toast, which they called ‘pasta’. What did it matter what labels they used? What mattered was I wasn’t alone anymore. What mattered was someone was asking:
“How are you feeling, love? Have you eaten? Had a drink? More tea, it helps your milk. Need a kip? You were up with Alfie so long last night… must be shattered.”
Who’s this about? Little Alfie? Or me, young and a bit daft? No. It’s about Matron, and every other compassionate soul who didn’t just do their job, but went *that little bit further*. That ‘little bit more’ saves lives, mends destinies, gifts happiness. For that tiny person and his young mum, it *was* happiness. Imagine how much brighter our world would be if we all did that ‘little bit more’ than merely ticking boxes ticked off tasks, refusing to pass by suffering with indifference.
