Before my birth I knew the sound of her voice, the beat of her heart, the rhythm of her movements. She would sometimes talk to me, and I heard my name, and knew which music she liked and which sounds she found unpleasant. I heard my little brother chattering away.
Soon after I was born I learned to recognise my mother’s face and the smell of her breast and her milk, and the feel of her skin. Her body temperature would rise if I was cold and lower when I was too warm. My brain waves and hers could synchronise and there seemed to be a direct link between the right halves of our brains.
We knew how each of us was feeling and we could spend hours looking and smiling and making faces at each other. I would copy her movements and her funny noises and she would copy mine. She would come to me straight away when I was upset and she knew instinctively how to soothe me. She knew when to feed me and when to play with me, when to leave me to sleep and when to cuddle me. When to excite me and when to calm me down. The bond between us was deep and strong, and it was broken in a brutal and barbaric manner. One minute I was safe in my mother’s arms, and a minute later I was handed to a complete stranger and I never saw my mother again.