Hello Stranger

Every day I kicked myself that I hadn’t.

Every day I thought about it way more than I should do.

Harrow. The next station is Harrow

Have a nice day, Chloe.

I told myself it was ok, that one day we would say more. One day one of us would speak, and maybe I’d be brave and ask him one of the questions I wanted to ask. It was ok… just time, right? Just time and the guts to spit the words out.

Harrow. The next station is Harrow

Have a nice day, Chloe.

Until it wasn’t ok.

Not on the day I’d jumped on that train and my heart stopped pounding, and my squiggles turned into a whole other kind of squiggly and the grey outside stayed grey and shivery.

Because my stranger was gone.11LoganMeet an elephant.

Climb a mountain.

Ride the back of a motorcycle around a sharp corner.

Put my toes in the sea.

Get a daughter-in-law.

Mum’s time was running out, and I knew it. Rachel Edwards could step in for my patients for a few days, and I knew that, too.

I also had a huge amount of annual leave backed up, and having seen my mother in bed that night, scraping breath and lost in herself, I’d known it was time to take action.

Mum didn’t know what was going on as I set up her mobile oxygen unit just as soon as she woke. She had a nervous smile on her face when she saw the smile on mine, and held out her hands for me as I told her we were going out that day.

“Beach or mountain?” she asked me.

I shook my head. “Neither.”

The carers helped me downstairs with her, making sure she was nice and steady all the way.

I eased her into the passenger seat, and wired up her oxygen, and with that we were off, driving west out from Redwood and into the open countryside. It’d been a long time since I’d ventured out this way.

“Not the beach, then, hey?” Mum asked, and that sparkle was back in her voice.

“Not the beach.”

“You aren’t about to push me up a mountain in my wheelchair, then?” she asked with a laugh, and I laughed right back at her.

“Not today.”

She went quiet once the signs for Pilsner started showing up at the side of the road. I loved how her eyes fixed on them, and her smile grew brighter.

“They have elephants at Pilsner,” she said, and I nodded.

“Yes, they do.”

We parked up close to the main entrance, avoiding the drive through, and I helped her into her wheelchair. My mother had never been one for quiet, but she was silent as we headed up to the main reception and I asked to see Jason Wood.

She looked so fragile there in her seat. I felt so fragile alongside her, knowing full well that this was one of those days that would last forever in memories, for all time.

“You’re here to see the elephants,” Jason Wood said, and Mum nodded.

“It’s on my bucket list. Top item.”

“Let’s make it a damn good meeting, then,” he said, and gestured us along the corridor.

It’s strange how those days slow down and speed up both at once. Every second is in high definition, the colours bright and the noises loud, and the smells… the smells embed themselves in your senses. I smelt the elephant enclosure before I saw it. Straw and sweat and that depth of animal presence.

Mum sucked in the deepest breath I’d heard in months when the first of the elephants came into view. He was standing there, towering tall in a sunlit stall. A grand creature, so steady on his feet.

Mum’s eyes welled up and she let out an oh, oh, ohhhh. I wheeled her up close to the fence of his enclosure and she reached out her hand for Wellington, the biggest elephant they had there on site.

He approached. Three steps forward and his face was up close, his trunk right there, and getting closer. Closer.

Until she touched him.

Her fingers were shaking, and her lip was trembling. Her eyes were wide and watery, and those petals of hers were glowing bright. A flare in the darkness of her deteriorating body.

Jason Wood was telling her about Wellington, but it was fading into a monotony of nothing, and eventually he saw that, and backed away.

He left us there, me up close to Mum’s wheelchair and reaching out a hand of my own.

“He’s beautiful,” she said in a whisper. “He’s just so bloody beautiful, he’s magic. Thank you.”

I didn’t need thanks. The magic in her voice was more than enough thanks for me.

His skin was like tree bark, his eyes were as alive as my mum’s. So solid and so royal. That’s how he seemed to me, that magnificent beast – royal.

“Does he live up to your expectations?” I asked her, and she shook her head.