Little girls begin playing with dolls, at a very young age, like, practicing the art of motherhood. Then what is it that forces them when they become mothers, to take such drastic measures of abandoning the born baby?
In February 2016, some walkers between University Parks and Marston, Oxford, England were aghast at finding a little baby wrapped in a black bag lying along the path.
The scene was horrible and shocking. They immediately informed the authorities and that is when Detective Inspector Jim Holmes came into the picture.
Holmes was particularly touched by the sight and he named the little stillborn girl Raihana, which means “Heaven’s Flower.”
“Having two children myself I know how hard it is to choose the name for your child and in these circumstances I think it is more important, this is the only memorial there is going to be,” said Holmes.
Holmes tried his best to locate the mother, or any other family member to come forward and claim the dead baby. He also appealed to the public to help them locate the family taking the help of the news conference.
But nobody came…
Finally, the Oxfordshire City Council and Thames Valley Police got together and arranged for the funeral. They decided to bury her at Wolvercote Cemetery at 1 pm on Tuesday, October 18, 2016.
Holmes was not sure if anybody would turn up at the little girl’s burial. But when he saw people turning up in hundreds from across the United Kingdom he was deeply touched. People paid their respects, throwing rose petals and rosemary springs to the ground.
A white rose was laid on top of the coffin and a sign was placed near her tiny grave which read, “Baby Rihanna, Born asleep February 2016.”
“For someone who was on the earth for such a short time, you have touched the hearts and minds of the community and the entire country,” Holmes said at her graveside, who led the eight-month investigation to find the girl’s mother.
“Her mother unfortunately has not come forward so we know nothing about her family or her heritage. We are giving her a home in our hearts,” Holmes added.
The officer made a promise to the little dead girl at her graveside “no matter how small the lead, we will follow it up. We will keep on trying to find your mother. That is my promise to you,” he said, in a moving speech delivered at Raihana’s graveside.
A mother’s love is time and again given as an example of the purest form of love. This is the only one uncontaminated relation! Under normal circumstances, when a mother is expectant she feels complete as a woman. But not all mothers-to-be are so fortunate. There are teenage pregnancies and other such cases where the mother is forced to abandon the baby due to social pressures. How far our society can go if such practices are not morally checked?
Was Raihana’s mother there at the graveside on the funeral day? Nobody knows… but the mother in me says she was. If indeed she was there, what was it that didn’t let her step ahead?
Maybe we all need to look for the answers within our own hearts and souls!
