Fairytale hero

Mummy wrote this for the Scottish Book Trust Family Legends project. Mummy was doing some volunteering work for them.

Our baby Billy with his Celtic red hair and Mongolian blue spots is our family legend. He was a symbol of many nice things. He was the symbol of Mummy and Daddy's love, Scot and Mongol ethnicities, Western and Eastern cultures, Christianity and Buddhism representing the modern Scotland, modern world. He was only three months old and he hasn't shown anyone his first smiles or looked me in the eye properly he left us behind. Yet he is our family legend and he will be a legend in many people's minds.

Expecting him to be born and carrying all the dreams and hopes, I bore him just like any baby. From the moment he was born life seemed unfair. The heart breaking, shocking and devastating news came one after another and tested our strength to the limit.
I'm writing about Billy, announcing to the world how proud I am to be Billy's mummy and he was born to me, to be my son. He was taken away from us because of a tiny extra chromosome. It was a syndrome, it was Down's syndrome. This tiny chromosome destroyed so much physically and emotionally. But it did not destroy the love of a mother or a father. He was our baby Billy, a baby brother and he will be a big brother and uncle Billy.

Our baby with golden chest and silver bottom just like the fairytale heroes in Mongolian tales.

Billy big brother

Mummy hasn't written here for a while. It's because there were times Mummy felt too low to write here and now Mummy is ok to do so. It was the first anniversary knocked Mummy harder. It was like reliving the moments of losing you, preparing your funeral and saying goodbye to you. Mummy didn't feel that down since you passed away, but Mummy was in tears and poor Jackie took Mummy out for coffee two days in a row. Mummy felt much better the third day and was motivated again to write and keep going. Mummy is keeping busy these days, going to Writers' club, attending Business Women's meeting/dinner, working in Oxfam book shop, volunteering to do public speak for Yorkhill and Scottish Book Trust project called Family Legends. Mummy hopes these would help others in many ways and us too. Mummy is still writing, saying that it has been a while actually. The laptop is great if it's like now, late at night, but during the day it's so slow and your brother even gets annoyed with it. Mummy will get a nice new laptop one day and it would be nice to work on it.

Your sister and brother are doing ok at school. Your daddy is working hard as usual, and mummy is too. But Mummy's work is ongoing at home and Mummy is getting used to ignoring housework that can wait. Your granny used to say 'It can wait. It'll still be here when we are gone.' It's true. There is more to life than a dirty floor.

I'm sure you know there is something we all know is happening. we can't talk about it just now, but you know what it is. We'll write here when it's time. Hopefully, it would be a nice thing for you too.

Billy buuz, night night babes. It's getting late, Mummy'll sleep now. Love you, the candle lit for you in the living room is still on. Burhan orshoog minii huug. God bless you, baby boy. Love you dearly. XXXXXXXX

Extract from Mummy's book - Chapter 9 - Mummy is reliving this moment...

...The consultant quickly took out the ventilator and left the three of us alone in the room. Billy started to cry, gasping for breath and then he stopped breathing. Within thirty seconds Billy had gone. He had left us. He had left us forever. Richard and I held Billy’s body, holding onto each other, our loud sobbing cry filled the room. For a while, I don’t know how long we cried and sobbed covered with our tears of grief. Life wasn’t fair. Billy was our baby. He was supposed to outlive us. We should have cut his hair for him to go to school, not for a keepsake. We were supposed to play with him, read stories, hold his hand and walk along the streets, throw him in the air and give hundreds and millions of kisses. I carried him for nine months dreaming of many things, but not to say goodbye and hold him like this, dead in my arms. We couldn’t even see his first smiles. We looked at Billy. Billy looked calm and pain free...