A New Narrative

(what do you do when your dreams don't come true?)

It’s mid-August. 

Jesse stands barefoot—with dirt-stained heels—washing dinner plates with a bright blue Scotch scrubbie. Archie, our two-year-old Goldendoodle, wags his tail and rubs his once copper—now blonde—fluffy head into my legs. I sit on the cool taupe tile with my legs stretched out straight, right next to Jesse’s feet, to give the pup some love. 

Vera, freshly eight-years-old, notices the three of us. Our proximity and smiles. She skips over and climbs onto my lap, her legs two growing oak branches extending out, mimicking mine. Her ankles nearly line up with my ankles below them. Our 1940 brick ranch isn’t spacious per se, but there’s certainly more room for us to sprawl than the four square feet we all occupy at the kitchen sink and just below it. 

Archie thinks it’s fun to jump over our outstretched legs. So do we. Jesse coaxes him again and again to hop over the pile of limbs, to the left and right, and then again. With my arms wrapped around my girl and the sound of her giggle ping-ponging from one white wall to another, for a split second peace replaces the fear who's built quite the mansion in my body. 

We are okay. We are enough.

***

In April, we drove four minutes to our friends’ home in our same rural town and returned to our house with two jet-black kittens. Brothers.

I am not a cat person, or an animal person for that matter. But I prefer outdoor cats to in-attic rats, so there I was in the backseat of our Subaru with a pair of purring kitties on my lap and my over-the-moon, then seven-year-old sitting next to me.

We named the cats Shadow and Midnight, of course. They followed us around like puppies. They became part of our days, ingrained in our routines. Wake up, feed the kitties, snuggle them, eat breakfast, let the kitties play in the growing garden, adventure for the day, come home and play with the kitties, eat dinner, do dishes, put the kitties in the shed for the night. 

We got the cats so they’d hunt rodents, but they quickly communicated they were very interested in signing up for the cushy pet life, wanting to be held at all times. And Vera quickly communicated she loved nothing more in life than these sweet little jet-black kittens. 

One evening in June, we got home from the beach late. As we drove up our rocky driveway at dusk, the three of us scanned the boulders and pomegranate tree for the kitties. We hopped out of the car, me with an armful of sandy towels, Jesse and Vera with a mission to get the cats in the shed before the coyotes and bobcats started their twilight prowl. Shadow was waiting for us, but Midnight was nowhere to be found.

The last of the sun disappeared. With pits in our stomachs, we went inside and hoped for the best. 

The next morning, we still couldn’t find Midnight. And the next, and the next. Vera and I waited by the picnic table under the oaks. She swayed in the hammock swing. We sang our usual silly songs, but we just didn’t feel that silly. 

Shadow missed his brother, too. He cried out through the night from his lonely shed and entangled himself in our every step once we walked out the front door. 

I called my friend Chelsea who knows much more about cats than I do. 

“Will Shadow be okay without Midnight?” I asked. My melancholy daughter watched me, waiting for her response on speaker phone.

Chels said maybe Shadow is missing his brother but not as much as we think. These are animals, after all. 

But what about people? 

Can a child miss a sibling she’s never had? Does she feel the deep ache and loneliness I think she does, or do children too—similar to baby animals—not experience all the feelings we  project in their direction?

I want to ask my friend, the cat expert. I want to ask anyone and everyone who might know: Will my daughter be okay? Will she always feel like someone’s missing? Or, will she rise up and thrive, regardless?

***

In January, just eight months ago, I chose a word for the year. I picked the word based on my experiences and losses from the year before, as one does. Actually, years before. I had no idea how prevalent this word would become. 

***

It’s early July. 

I can’t tell if it’s the relentless temperatures or the left-over bouts of grief, but I feel like I’m suffocating.

***

“It just feels empty sometimes,” I tell my therapist. I can’t explain the lack. 

On paper, our home is complete. We’ve purposefully filled the space God has given us with overflowing whimsy, nature, and color. Jungle and shamrock greens, digging their roots into terracotta pots, diving and trailing over their edges. Forts made of old bedsheets, books—so many books—laughter, and a fluffy puppy who flops his body upside down for belly rubs. Prayers and made-up songs. Light-hearted and deep conversations.  

Sunshine and joy amidst the usual growing pains of parenting and becoming who you were created to be. But overall, an abundance of radiant light and love.

However, we bought this house so we’d have room for another person. Another being who isn’t here. A baby—four babies—who have a different home now. An eternal one. We signed on the line almost three years ago when we envisioned our future: our children running free, together. Almost our entire time living in our vintage home nestled in the side of a mountain, we’ve been living inside the slow and torturous death of this dream. 

***

It’s mid-July. 

It’s early morning. Too early for breakfast. Too early to do anything but lay in bed. My sweet girl, almost eight now, still smells like lavender from her bubble bath the night before. We chat about the quail family scurrying along outside her window and her new favorite stuffed animal, Blueberry. We giggle about nothing at all, just happy and content to be together giggling about nothing at all. As I kiss her smiling cheeks and her happy, dancing eyes look into mine, the clock and my worry come to a crashing halt. Maybe she’s not as lonely as I imagine her to be in my deepest fears.

Maybe she has everything she needs. 

Maybe I don’t have all I need, but that has nothing to do with her. 

***

It’s late July. 

I have Covid for the first time, somehow, and it is the worst sickness I’ve ever endured. A nine-day fever. Debilitating migraines. Stomach pains gnawing my insides. A thick and dark fog moves into my brain and doesn't budge for three weeks. I can’t keep my eyes open. I’d rather keep them closed. I wonder if I’ll ever feel like myself again. 

***

It’s early August. 

I pick up one of my oldest and best friends, Rachel, from the airport. She and two of her kids are here for the California dream vacation. We pile suitcases and excitement into the van. My friend clicks her seatbelt and I turn to the three kids in the back—Vera and her two boys—to let them know this is the party van and we’re in Yes Mom mode. I pass out Gatorade and snacks and with what I can only imagine is Dance Mom energy, I drive past the Arrivals sign and head straight for Chick-Fil-A, next stop: the ocean. 

I hear the bright words come out of my mouth and I want to believe them. I want to feel carefree, like the fun mom I know I am. But the weighty task of acceptance, isolation, the agonizing heat, and a lingering brain haze mock my announcement to the trio buckled and beaming behind me. 

My friend stays at our house for five days. We take the kids to see the seals at the cove; we bravely wade far into the chilly ocean with our squealing children; we walk miles at the Safari Park; we stay up late unpacking realities we can’t always get to over the phone. She wraps her arms around me on two separate occasions when I feel like I haven’t provided enough. 

It could have been the salt of the sea—I know it was really her—but by the time I drop Rach off at the airport, the devil’s loops of gloom replaying in my mind had been severely silenced.

***

It’s mid-August.

I gut the garden. The snap peas stopped producing fruit weeks ago. The last of the cucumbers are overgrown and yellowing. We are wasting water, irrigating dirt that has nothing to show for it. 

It is time. 

***

It’s (still) mid-August. 

We do hybrid homeschooling with our daughter. Twice a week, she goes to school. Three times a week, we sprawl books, colored pencils, and curriculum over our dining table that sits in front of a west-facing picture window and learn together as the hummingbirds check the feeder in hopes it’s been refilled. After drop-off on the first day of at-school school, I meet my co-op mom friends for breakfast. It’s become a tradition we all adore as much as the kids love a fresh box of crayons. 

I split a veggie frittata with Melissa. I sit across from Nina and Mary. I wear black jeans, earrings and mascara, and exhale relief. We share stories. We laugh as we feed ourselves crispy garlic potatoes and friendship. 

It’s just breakfast, but it feels like a proclamation, the turning of a page. 

***

My counseling session is coming to an end. 

I tell her how drained and depleted I am from this season of long-suffering. 
I tell her I’m desperate for a new narrative. 
I tell her about us piling together by the kitchen sink and how it made me feel whole.
I tell her how alive I felt at breakfast with my friends. 
I tell her I need something else to think about, to hope for, to create.

“I need a new dream,” I say.

“What else makes you feel whole,” my therapist asks. “Anything from before this season?”

I tell her my plans to revive my lifestyle photography business. 
I tell her about a writing project that feels like a gift delivered on my doorstep. 
I tell her how I’m reimagining the spaces and future for our home. 

I tell her I don’t know if I’ve ever truly felt whole, and that leaves us with plenty to talk about next time.

***

It’s the third week of August. 

The cool, early morning air greets us as Vera and I step outside and make our way around the southwest corner of the house and up the hill to the Shadow’s shed. 

We open the door, scrape his food from the metal tin into the blue plastic dish, and then look out at the silence in front of us. I pause and breathe. I notice how the air isn’t thick with humidity. It’s no longer pressing down on me. I notice how it’s almost cold enough for a second layer, and how the sky is streaked in the calming palette of dawn. I notice how my daughter—the girl I begged God for—is relaxed and snuggled into my side. 

The sun will still get hot today, but at least for this moment, there’s relief. Tangible hope. Something real I know I’ll get more of soon.

I drink it in. 

Shadow bounds down the narrow path on the hill. He’s ready to hunt. Just yesterday, he got a gopher and a field mouse. I make up a silly song about him called “Bouncy Boy,” simply to delight my daughter. This time, we really do feel silly.

The two of us head to our favorite spot under the oaks. Vera races ahead to the hammock swing, but on my way I stop to cut the long-gone sunflowers, so I can harvest their seeds. 

I lay the dried flower heads on the picnic table. The finches and black phoebes have already done some harvesting themselves. But there’s still plenty left. I break the circles in half and scrub and extract sunflower seeds with my thumb, placing each one in a jar. When I’ve gleaned all I can, I’ll pour the seeds into tiny brown paper envelopes and wait for spring. The remains of what once was to be planted again, someday, as something new.