Daydream
It feels almost ridiculous to have such a thought. Impossible, really. My daughter isn’t going to be anything. That train has passed. It steamed and whistled and methodically toiled for almost thirty-nine weeks and then, promptly, fell off a cliff. I understand there is no future for her. The potential for choosing ice cream and friends and hobbies and a career are all out of reach for my darling M.
And yet.
Here I am, imagining her doing something with her live self. Something very particular. Something I know almost nothing about, a pursuit I have always found rather boring. And of course, what I imagine her doing could be entirely untrue, a figment of my imagination, a cruel and beautiful mind trick that connects me to her and her to me. It took me nearly seven months of thinking about it until I even told my partner.
I have something to tell you, I told her.
It’s kind of ridiculous.
No, seriously, it’s pretty crazy.
Well, I keep thinking Margot was going to be a volleyball player.
Because of her hands.
***
I unswaddled her as gently as I could, as any parent would have, protecting her head, giving careful attentiveness to each limb, making sure all of my movements were soft against her body. She appeared slowly before me, from head to toe, revealing herself in stages as I unwrapped the blanket round and round her.
Neck, shoulders, chest, arms and elbows. Each was in perfect harmony with the other.
Her hands were folded neatly together over her belly, her left hand wrapped around her right wrist. There was a solemness about the way they were together, a sacred reverence for the tragedy that befell her. They were the first part of her that took me off guard as I unwrapped her. Her hands were simply huge, almost as long as her forearms, too big for her body. Her fingers were long and thick, and seemed to run on forever. Her palms were white and deep, great pools of soft skin and little creases. Folded together, they almost covered her entire belly and chest.
Those hands make me ache for her future.
***
We were recently at the beach, my first daughter and I, on the swings near the boardwalk cafe. I pushed her from behind, counting with each push, tickling her each time she came back towards me. Kids played all around us, screaming and running, playing hide and go seek. Teenagers walked in front of us, down the wooden path towards the low tide. Behind us was a cafe full of families, eating and conversing on the sand. It was much too warm for January and everyone’s mood seemed in tune with the weather.
It wasn’t until maybe the twentieth push that I noticed them, across the sidewalk, less than a hundred steps from the swings. The University of Southern California women’s volleyball team.
There were more than a dozen of them practicing with one another, bumping, setting and spiking white volleyballs around the sand. They were taller than most women, and athletic, with big enough hands to palm a volleyball, and they moved around the sand so gracefully, as if their feet and the sand had a made a deal with one another.
For a good long minute, I forgot about counting, forgot about the kids around me, the conversations at the cafe, the charming weather. I secretly imagined myself in my late fourties, the father of a University student.
I looked for her, my M.
Tall like her father, blue eyes like her mother, great big hands.
Is there something about your child's future that you think about, whether it's about their personality, or their hobbies, career or anything else? Did you have any leanings or notions while your baby was in utero? Or after you saw them for the first time?
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Reader Comments (20)
Margot June, Margot's Dad, Margot's Mom, Margot's Sister, Margot's Brother - are some of the very important, significant, meaningful people who hold me back when all I want is to give up.
I don't know if you ever think of your little daughter, with her blue eyes and her great hands, as an anchor. She is.
Not all by herself. Without you, I wouldn't know her. There is something about seeing (reading) your family: keeping on, enduring the depths, welcoming new life, not quitting. It helps. It makes a difference.
When I read, "My daughter isn’t going to be anything," I knew what you meant. But I also started to cry. Because Margot June is something, right now. Really something. And she's always going to be.
Cathy in Missouri
"The people who influence us the most are not those who detain us with their continual talk, but those who live their lives like the stars in the sky and the lilies of the field - simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mold and shape us." {Chambers}
When I saw Eszter, she was so beautiful, and looked exactley like her bigger sister - except of her mouth. My husband did not allow me to take pictures of Eszter. I am so f****ing angry on him because of that. The human mind has limits, and as time passes by, it's harder and harder to load her image... What if I forgot her face?
Therefore I try to picture Eszter as her bigger sister. It's not good. Eszter should have her own personality, her own look, her own everything. She would not be as her sister - she deserves her own individuality.
Sometimes I feel I knew her based on the time she spent in my belly. Eg. she kicked much more as her bigger sister - so I guess she would become a spry child. But sometimes I feel I don't know anything. Before the funeral my mother went to the moritician to bring Eszter some clothes. She also brought a Winnie-the-Pooh toy to put in the coffin. I saw it before the funeral, when the coffin was open. My first tought was, that what if she wouldn't like Winnie-the-Pooh? It's crazy, isn't it?
It hurts soooo much, that I don't know my child...
during my first son's pregnancy, because i had experience in losing a baby, we found out his gender- we wanted to know him as much as we could, just in case, god forbid (which it turned out, he did not). he received the family names long before he was born, and i suppose because of this, we think of him in his role as the carriers of these names- it links him in to his past in a way that is very tangible. he would be like his grandfathers, calm, strong, smart. when he was born, he had my side of the family's features, and because of that, i have always imagined him taking after me, liking the things i like, being a 'momma's boy'. what i wouldn't give for a glimpse into what they really would have looked like as toddlers, teens, adults...
There out of all the noise, I heard this Mom scolding her son. About 13, in the inbetween, not quite a teenager but not a young boy anymore. She called to him in an angry tone. "Braedon"
It was like little needles in my ears. I dream of him growing up, standing tall before me in all his teenage angst. I remember when I was pregnant thinking I hope that he stays a baby as long as possible because teenagers are just so hard.
I want to imagine him growing and throwing fits, getting angry at how unfair it can all be when you are just a kid.
He would have been sweet and stubborn. My baby that I spoiled as he was to be my last. I would have banged my head against a wall at how hard it was to understand him but I would have loved him for all his personality craziness. I imagine this life and how it is supposed to be.
I can think of the days where he kicked me out of bed, as if he was determined to keep me up and moving. Not happy to be laying down and ready to get the day going. My sweet boy. He would have challenged me and made me weep with his amazingness. Even now without him I weep at how beautiful and perfect he was. So amazing these little babies we miss so much.
She was my first so maybe one day when I have more children I may be able to see her in their face and actions. But at the moment I can't even imagine her, I can't see who she would have been and I find it so heart breaking. I wish I could just see who she would have been - I know I would (will) have loved (love) her no matter what.
Josh - thank you very much. Eszter (is Esther in Hungarian) means "star". We have now a Star on the sky, and a "Princess" (Sára = Sarah) here with us.
It's odd - I can just see him, barely, out of the corner of my eye, as a two year old. A lanky, skinny, too tall for his age two year old, stubbornly yelling to let HIM do it, mama. I can see him shrieking with laughter and jumping in the pool. I can see him laughing, and awkward and shy as teenager. I think he would have been a gentle soul who loved a sly joke.
All in my head? Sure, maybe. Does it matter? Not in the least.
I wonder every day who she would have been, who she looked like, what our relationship would have been. Having two boys now, I just wonder all the time what our little girl would have been like. I wonder who I would have been as the mother to a girl.
Beautiful post.
He seems farther away now that his little sister is here. A little hazy figure on the horizon.
Thank you for this beautiful post Josh.
I do daydream about Lauren and what her future would have been. I imagine her as very musical. My husband's parents are very talented musicians, and I was sure Lauren would have her grandmother's voice: very soulful and gentle, soothing. My husband has a decent voice himself and sang to her all through the pregnancy. She would love music, I decided. It was already in her, a part of her. I couldn't wait to hear her voice.
I search for Truman all of the time.
I spotted him once, just for a second, in a young teenage boy who reminded me of a young Jeff. I thought that Truman would have been like him when he was his age.
I do believe that T would have been a musician like his Daddy.
there were days when he would get quiet and nothing would get him moving more then Jeff playing the banjo.
When he was born on Aug 1st, my older friend, Bettie, who traveled with "The Dead" called me in tears, so deeply touched because T was born on Jerry Garcia's birthday! i have to laugh, if only you knew Bettie.
I like to think that his favorite color would have been Orange... because that is the color that I associate with him.
As the days pass i find myself thinking about how i should be surrounded in the chaos of baby items. Teething rings. and T would just be starting to crawl.
I feel stuck in this space in between parenthood and single socialite. I don't fit in anywhere. and the thoughts about T and where he would be in the world with us seems to be lost in the same in between existence.
I search for glimpses of him and what he might have been everywhere.
So yes...I feel you, through and through.
I've been thinking about this piece for some time now. I'm somewhat preoccupied by whether I knew, or could possibly ever have known, my Georgina. I've been mulling it over for nearly three and a half years now and I'm no closer to an answer now than when I first began.
I often think I catch a glimpse of her at different ages. Curiously it's often at ages that she would not be yet had she lived. Older than her twin sister. Strange that. Most frequently as a young teenager or as a woman of my own age.
It's so hard not to see her in the light of her surviving twin, to consider her as either exactly the same or as precisely the opposite. What I feel I knew about her was . . . she was stubborn. I could see that from her profile when they held her up for me to see her after she was born. Something about the line of her chin. That dear determined little chin. I can scarcely bear to remember it.
Like your Margot, I'm fairly certain she would have been tall. Like her sister and her parents. I know she had blue eyes. But perhaps those were just the blue eyes of every new born. She didn't live long enough for us to know if they would have stayed blue. Perhaps athletic like her father? Perhaps hopelessly uncoordinated like her mother? I only wish I knew.
I think of her as a book worm and a day dreamer, a gentle, sensitive soul. But I just don't know. Not really. I wish we did. I wish we all knew and didn't have to imagine or guess. That their entire futures weren't such a mystery.
It is hard for me now to seperate the things I imagined for my child before I met him and what I imagine now after I gave birth to him, held him, found out he was a boy. My little boy was born stillborn but he was beautiful. I picture him most of the times around the toddler ages and sometimes older. I picture him and I in the garden. I'm planting things while he pulls the plants out and plays in the dirt. I picture us sitting in the grass, I'm telling him stories and we are singing songs. I picture walking around our yard pointing out to him all the trees his daddy and I have planted. I picture him in overalls, I always picture him with soft blond hair, and overalls. I picture us holding hands. I picture his daddy lifting him up over his head and Henry giggling and smiling. He looked just like his dad and I imagine they would have been one in the same. Both strong, funny, loving and smart. I imagine him as a little boy climbing trees. I imagine him loving animals and running through the back yard with our dog.
I imagine him often as a teenager. I imagine we would have had our rough days but mostly I imagine making snacks for him and his friends. I wanted our house to be a haven for our child. I imagine Henry and all his friends lounging around, making a mess and pigging out. I imagine he would have been a mama's boy. I imagine him giving me a big hug as he runs out the door. I imagine him playing t ball, soft ball, baseball. I imagine being at his games while his dad coached them. I sometimes play our life out in my head as if he were alive and it is such a beautiful movie. I just wish it was my reality. I miss my little boy so much. I want him back. I want him in my arms. I want to whisper to him. I want to tell him how much I love him and how beautiful I think he is. I want to smell him. I want, I want, I want.