take away these tears | ellen shirley stand alone

E L L E N

So goodbye my friend
I know I'll never see you again
But the love you gave me through all the years
Will take away these tears

A casket, too small, had been buried today.

Eyes, still glassy, refuse to look away from the freshly turned earth.

She had buried her child today.

A child who had been filled with an unbreakable happiness right until the end of her short life. Right until the moment her innocence was corrupted and she was forced to grow. To become a child she that she no longer recognise in the efforts to survive. Ellen had watched, eyes captive by the screen, as her daughter morphed from a child, a dreamer, into a girl who struggled to overcome the sins she had been forced to commit. As she struggled with the internal war within her, convincing herself that it was okay to go on.

She had been so strong.

Right up to the end.

Right up to the moment her heart was pierced by steel, freezing it forever.

Arabella had been strong. She had been so, so young. It should be Ellen who was buried beneath a pile of dirt, Bella standing beside the grave, skin ageing, family beside her, as she celebrated a life that had perished. Instead a child in the midst of her youth, buried six feet under. A woman, aged by the years stood watch, carrying her broken heart on her sleeve.

Matthew had left without a word about an hour ago. Ellen had turned to watch him leave, but had not stopped him, had not begged him to stand by her side. She knew that he was grieving, that his heart too had been shattered into a million pieces and that many of those had been buried today. Would our heart ever be full again? Mindlessly she wipes away the tears that begun to leak from the corner of her eyes. Or had Bella permanently scarred them? She hoped that she had. Ellen never wanted to forget the girl who had brought so much warmth into their lives.

A deep inhale of breath and Ellen moves forward, careful fingers skimming across chilled stone. The tombstone read:

Arabella Shirley, Daughter to Ellen and Matthew Shirley.

Loving, uniquely spirited and brilliantly savvy.

Leaning over she places a kiss on the edge, eyes drifting shut as she pictured Bella sleeping, tucked away safely under the covers of her bed. "I love you, Arabella Shirley."