Nipped off in the bud.

During the last two weeks in New Zealand, there was a flurry of news that affected everyone here. It even made news in Europe. Little two year old Aisling Symes went missing in wet and unseasonably cold weather in Waitakere City of West Auckland.

Despite police and volunteers searching, she was found only seven days later. Yesterday was her funeral. I watched on TV and as her mother carried out her white coffin, my mind went back twenty years ago. I was that mother, seeing her baby's coffin being put into the hearse.

All deaths are sad, because they are separation from loved ones. But the death of Aisling as a child is even sadder. Her parents released a dove into the air. As it fluttered away, the young mother watched, and watched, until its pure white plumes disappeared.

It was Angela Symes' goodbye to her baby girl.

I post this photo of the apple buds on my apple tree. The apple that Aisling would grown into had been nipped off in the bud, the same way my son Andrew had been that November 22 1989 morning. Angela and me, we belong to this club, the club of bereaved mums. Entry requisite, I hope you don't have. Though my fellow blogger Queenmother mamaw and Linda were members before me.