For the baby in the bomb shelter by Aoife Twohig
Reflection by Dr. Aoife Twohig
Dr. Aoife Twohig
I wrote this poem in response to a photograph of a mother and baby taken in the weeks after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The mother holds the baby a little less than 6 inches from her face.
The mother’s face is held towards the baby’s but the expression is elsewhere and we cannot really see the mother’s eyes. The baby, around 3 months old, is turning, as if with as much effort as she can, away, as if reaching for something, just over there. A voice perhaps, a light. I thought about this image a lot, and what might happen next. The mother, in good enough times, might gently call the baby, wait for the baby, wonder what the baby is looking for, reaching for, gently bringing the baby back and enrapturing her with her own gaze, wide eyed and full of light. Or, given that this mother and baby are refugees and staying in a bomb shelter, for safety, perhaps there is the sound of armoured shells raining down outside, perhaps the mother’s heart and baby’s heart are beating in anticipation of something terrifying and deadly, too preoccupied with their own internal fear and terror to gaze into each other’s eyes or to seek comfort there. I have thought of this image and the poem I wrote then so often over the past 7 months, as we witness untold and endless harm and killing of innocent, yes innocent, infants and young children and their families in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel. How many such moments have occurred and are occurring each day that this inhumanity continues? In my poem, the mother finds the baby, her presence and breath heal a rupture. I hope that as infant mental health clinicians we can respond to the pain and suffering that is occurring, for all infants, children, and their families, in global conflicts. We have a duty to act and to raise the injustices which are occurring to infants and young children.
For the baby in the bomb shelter
By Aoife Twohig
The light in her eyes grew dim,
Faded, just slightly.
That was the first sign.
The movement of the soft and beautiful shapes around her eyes
Stilled.
There was quietness, no, silence in the air around me
The light that bathed each of my waking moments and called me to into being,
Faded.
I knew I was held but I could not feel the warmth beneath me.
I turned away because it was all I could do,
But my body could only stretch and not move away.
So I stretched myself as much as I could,
As if this could help me to find the light.
The light that calls me.
Then I felt it,
A small circle of warmth on my cheek,
A breath.
Soft and caressing and of the first and sweetest smell known to me.
Then a touch,
So gentle I wanted this moment to last forever.
I felt myself turn towards this warmth and touch,
And the light.
Dr. Aoife Twohig is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist specialising in Paediatric Liaison Psychiatry at Children’s Health Ireland, Temple St. in Dublin. Aoife became interested in early emotional development through her Masters in Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and in particular infant observation and subsequently completed a PhD in the area of attachment and preterm birth. Aoife is part of a group of clinicians developing infant mental health initiatives within Children’s Health Ireland in order to promote this area, particularly for infants with medical needs and their parents.