Ali Sharman

Dear Luca

How will I explain 2020 to you?

Will I start like a text book,

Full of facts and figures?

An indescribable experience

Reduced to third person narrative

Of this most significant year.

Will you come home with a history assignment

And a buzz of interest?

Writing about the year I was one, mum!

Worth 12 marks to explain,

Just like other crises from the far-off past

That I remember myself from school.

Or will I start, not with facts, but opinions?

Some darkened by blame and righteousness -

Those chilling pictures of empty corridors

Which vanished worn-out doctors and patients trapped in beds.

Or the people who made mistakes,

Jumbled numbers, fumbled decisions, left it too late.

No - I'll start with my memories of you.

Cuddles and milk in the early morning, news on,

Yet cocooned in the womb of the family home.

I'll tell you of the hottest April ever,

Long walks with the world's best dog.

Of how I ordered a slide for the garden

And drank tea in my dressing gown

As you whizzed your way down.

Of the day you learnt to say "sausages" and "daddy's beer"

And laughed every time we ate outside.

Will you remember any of it?

The closeness - strangely absent in every other part of our lives -

That made me feel so lucky that we had

This time with you as you grew?

So what was 2020 like, my darling?

It was a year of tragedy.

A year too many want to forget.

But I won't forget - it can never be erased,

That snapshot of you, so small still,

Held close forever.

Tara Carpenter Estrada