“Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape… Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you had left behind miles ago. That is when you wonder whether the valley isn’t a circular trench. But it isn’t. There are partial recurrences, but the sequence doesn’t repeat.”— C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
The past week has been exponentially more stressful than the rest of my year and a half integrated. So the other night, in order to redirect my mind and not ruminate, I created a fantasy. One that I have had since I was a child, but from a new and different perspective. One, I am now a singleton and that means my emotional reaction is not so split up about things. A part of me may still feel something different than the rest, but now it’s still me and it doesn’t takeover my entire reaction. It is one of the joys I have found in integration that I had never imagined.
My fantasy was about my mother. She died when I was a newborn. I have never seen a video where I could hear her voice. I have never touched her hair, held her hand, or seen her face with my own eyes. But I imagined her and I if things had somehow played out differently. He is suspected of killing her. He pulled the plug, refused an autopsy, and had just upped the value of her life insurance policy. I heard that she was planning on leaving him with me and wanted to take my brothers too. He beat her throughout her pregnancy as she stood between him and my brothers. Of all the women that were in our lives, my brothers told me that she was the only one that ever felt like a real mom, tucking them in at night and lovingly protecting them each day. She stayed with him for them. But, in truth, they did have a real mom, a biological one. He had kidnapped them from her and fled to a different state. So, without detail, I imagined she had turned him in – that he was in jail, my brothers were with their mom and I with mine, but they came to stay for the summer. And, the rest of the year she was entirely mine.
I saw our life together. Reading books. Playing music. She would have taught me guitar. She would have encouraged my love for literature. She would have patiently listened while I told her my opinions and details of books I read. She would have competed with me in video games. We would have belly laughed, she, throwing her head back, her eyes squinted with joy. I would have tackled her lovingly because we would feel so safe and natural touching. She would hug me and put her arm around me to keep me close. I would have gone into her room at night as a little girl, scared of the dark, possibly the wind or a storm. She would have held me close – I would have known true safety.
We would have cooked together. Dancing to music in the kitchen to prep dinner and then later to clean it up. We would have joked, she would exaggerate her hips to nudge me, beckoning me to join in her fun. We would have had a routine. A Friday night movie routine and we would have loved watching shows together. I was a teen when Gilmore Girls came out. We would have watched it together. We would laugh because it would be so much like us – best friends. She would paint my nails and toes, I would convince her to let me do silly colors on hers. We would have died our hair. Have all sorts of inside jokes.
We would dance in the rain together. Stomp through puddles. Eat honeysuckle and blackberries out of the backyard. We would blow bubbles, jump rope, hopscotch, and race each other. We would compete at so much, but without ever paying attention to who really won. It would have just been for fun. We would race on the swings to see who went the highest. In the Spring, we would plant a garden, getting tips and ideas from my uncle when we visited family. All summer we would fill our house with fresh cut flowers and play out in the garden with the butterflies. She would have pretended to eat my mud pies. We would pick fruit at farms and then bake them into pies, throwing handfuls of flour at each other then slipping and falling to the floor on each other, laughing at the mess that would surround us. She’d have all sorts of nicknames for me and we would go on many adventures. We would spend days at the beach with my aunts, holidays crafting our own decorations…
I’d get older, but so would she. Like a vampire, she had been immortalized at 30, frozen in time as a young woman shown in pictures I rarely got to see. Now, in this world in my head, she would age. Her hair would change with the decades, her face would develop laugh lines and eye crinkle indentations. Running through a montage of scenes of our joyous life together, I would see us age together too. She would have talked to me about puberty, there would have been no shame but celebration when I started my cycle. And she would have rubbed my back when I threw up, felt my head when I looked flushed. I saw us shopping for training bras like the ones I saw other girls have.
Even in my rebellious teenage years, our unity would never waiver. She would laugh at me when I snuck back into my house at night, turning on the light to show her sitting there waiting while I attempted to tip-toe down the hall. She’d tell me that I couldn’t get away with anything because she’s done it all. I’d tell her everything. We would have no secrets. She’d know everything that happened at school, with peers – I would have been able to play sports and she would have sat in the bleachers cheering me on, loudly screaming and jumping up and down. Always my biggest fan. I’d be in the plays at school and she would get there early, sit as close as possible for the best view, and videoed me. She would have mouthed my lines and others from months of practicing running lines with me.
I saw her at my graduations, taking pictures of my first day at my new job, at my first car. Her face would always be glowing with her love for me. She would sometimes watch me sleep or pretend to read next to me to watch my face as I read my favorites like Little Women. I imagined her teaching me to drive and laughing, again throwing her head back so carefree, as I sat tense and anxious.
She would have believed in me and my ability to do anything I wanted. I watched as she helped me move into a college dorm. Crying in each others arms before she left, then talking on the phone to each other as she drove back home, thankful that I was not that far and for technology that allowed us to video and talk everyday still.
Then later, I fast forwarded to my wedding, her dancing with me, arguing that as both my mother and father she should get a dance with me. She would have adored my loves and stood up for me when others had a problem with our relationship. I imagined her with my daughter, picking out what she wanted to be referred to and deciding on Marmee. I imagined her holding her for the first time and helping me through the first few months of sleepless nights. In this fantastical world, I added a sibling for my daughter and instead pretended she had been there to support me while I gave birth.
She’d get old. Her light and fair hair would turn silvery white. She would have embraced it too, made it look good and not covered them with dye. By now, in her mid sixties, her hair would be long, she’d still be petite and short. I would have seen what I would look like older, as I am almost her twin. Her beauty would continue to radiate. Because it wasn’t just surface level – it was her. Her loving ways and kind heart, her quick laugh and patient words, her endless adoration and celebration of life and love.
This fantasy did not hurt me as much as others have in the past. As a young child, my fantasies were about my own needs being met. As I got older, I considered and recognized the loss she endured. So much she missed out on. In this vision though, it met both our needs. I know now, as a mother myself, that each of this moments, occasions, milestones, and experiences would matter as much to her as me, perhaps even more so. I was her heart’s desire – a baby girl. And she wanted to be the mother of her own childhood fantasies.
The most amazing part of this vision was how real it felt. The pleasure that coursed through my body as I heard her laugh and saw her brilliant smile – it is immeasurable. Seeing her age and time pass for her in this earthly world was so beautiful. And my returned devotion to her. I would have been there in her old age. I would have been there for her always. As she would have been for me. I am thankful for that feeling and belief. So sure of our bond even when we didn’t get the time needed to enjoy it. When I visited her grave for her birthday a few days after this fantasy, I shared it with her. I told her everything about our life together. Because we already have that relationship, we created it as naturally as breathing. I am safe with her always and I share everything with her. When not standing there with her resting body, she is with me as I interact with my daughter. She is with me in joy and sadness. No matter where I go she is and always will be there.
