10 Years Ago Today

Ten years ago today, I gave birth to a beautiful little boy. I loved him from the moment that I saw him and while I was overjoyed at being a mother, I didn't cry. For years, that fact bothered me and I often wondered what type of mother I was. I felt as if I was lacking in some area or other because I hadn't cried at the pure joy that becoming a mother was.

I had seen it on countless television shows. I watched as my husband grew tearful, as certain visitors grew tearful. Had seen it at the birth of two of my nephews. I sat there, waiting, wondering, worrying about the tears that didn't fall.

But I pushed those thoughts aside and turned to the little being that filled my life completely. I loved him before I even knew about him. I felt a piece of my soul slip away and I knew that he held it safely in his heart. There is no better feeling than meeting his gaze the moment after he is born and finding a soul that is part of you.

I have watched that little soul grow, watched him make his own choices. Laughed when he laughed. Calmed when he was scared. Comforted when he cried. I embraced being a mother and celebrated each success that he has had.

It has been a roller coaster of emotion being a mother. Highs, lows, stresses, celebrations and trials. A world that is rich in color and emotion and is made richer with each laughter that I hear. It is in those moments that I can stop and listen...feeling again that little piece of my soul that he is keeping safe within him. It is during those moments that all the lows, stresses and tribulations are worth it. The celebrations of the everyday.

Like all mothers, I can safely say that my son is amazing. Intelligent, empathetic, and imaginative, he is as stubborn as his mom and I love that part of him, the part that challenges the norm and asks the question, "Why?" Sure, I don't always like it but I am proud that he is becoming an individual that I can respect.

It is hard to imagine that he is 10. That a decade has passed and I have been there for all of it. I have become a little wiser, have realized many times that I wasn't prepared in some ways to be a mother but I don't think anyone is. I have realized that simply guiding him through his growth is better than steering him in a direction I want him to go.

I have realized that those few moments after he was born, when I didn't cry, didn't mean a thing about me as a mother. It just means that I have saved those tears for the other events where he can see me, his mother, standing there with pride as tears shine brightly in my eyes. (Which he has seen many times already.)

So to my little boy, who isn't so little anymore, I am proud of you, I love you and I celebrate all the little (and big) things that make you who you are. Happy Birthday.

The Lotus Part Four

You faded from my sight and I gathered by the shore, longing to see you once again. Hoping that I had simply missed you in my passing. You hadn't disappeared but had drifted out of sight as many things have done in the past.

It was to no avail, you are gone and as the days drifted by I stop searching for you, although I remember the vibrancy of your petals. I search the water for other flowers but they don't appear...until one morning, only a few days before I leave your lake behind.

That morning, I hear the kids cry out, "Mom, your flowers are back."

I look out into the water, and it is a celebration of white floating on the dark, inky water. I smile at the sight and race for my camera, ready to take the pictures but as I do, I realize that these are not my flower. My flower has drifted down into the pond where it had come from and while these flowers are beautiful, there was something delicate about my flower.

There was a beauty of a lonely flower, the only splash of white on the otherwise dark surface of the lake and that solitude was what had drawn my thoughts.

I still took the photos, but these flowers did not capture my imagination like my solitary lotus and I only took photos for one day. And these are the photos that I will end my Lotus journey with you.

A Lotus Emerging:


One that caught my eye:





And another one:


And another:

Wolf Dream

Moonlight trickles into the room and I watch it play along my wall casting images that make my heart beat quickly. I turn away from it, from the shadows that are terrifying to me. My eyes try to peer through the darkness of the rest of my room but the shadows are too thick and I close my eyes to block out the imagined monsters lurking there.

The air in the room presses against me and I struggle under the blankets trying to kick them off. My skin feels like it is on fire but the cool breeze from the air conditioning does nothing to calm it. It feels as though a thousand embers are slowly burning against me and I fight the urge to jump up and swipe at my skin.

As I shift restlessly on my bed, a noise comes to me. Deep, primal, fierce - the growl raises the hairs on the back of my neck and I suddenly feel cold, as though I had been dunked in a tank of ice water. I turn towards the window. The blinds pulled tight enough so I can see nothing but the vibrant moonlight.

I know they are there, watching the window. Their growls pulling me up onto my feet and I stand at the window, my hand hovering over the pull. The urge to see them is strong but I fight it, telling myself to go back to bed. Telling myself to forget the pull of the growls. There is nothing there for me but pain.

I shake my head, my long blonde hair cascading around my face and my fingers touch the cold plastic of the blinds. Biting my lip, I raise the blinds and search the darkness outside.

My gaze falls upon the first wolf and he is beautiful. His eyes flash yellow in the moonlight and his lips curl upwards as the snarl pours from his throat. The rest of the pack of wolves are turned towards him, watching him. I sigh at the beauty and lean forward to try to catch a better view but as I do, the pack shifts and they turn their wild eyes onto me.

I freeze but before I can drop the blinds, pain lances through me and I feel myself changing, become the wolf. Yellow eyes watch me with interest and I hear them calling, "You are here. Finally, you are here..."

I start awake, sitting straight up from bed and stare at the window. I can hear the deep, throaty growls and I long to stand up and see what is there. I remember the dream and lay back down. Tears prick at my eyes and I turn away, too afraid of what may happen, where I finally fall asleep...

As I mentioned a few days ago in my wolf story, shortly after my first encounter with a pack, I began having a wolf dream. It was reoccurring and sometimes, when I woke up from it, I would wonder if it was a dream at all. Maybe it was something deeper and while I longed to figure out what it was, I could never bring myself to delve deeper into it.

The first time I dreamt it, I never realized that it was a dream within a dream when I woke up but after I kept having the dream, I realized that it was just a second part of the wolf dream.

I think though that it was a reminder to find myself. That I need to arrive to where I am going so that a new journey can start. On the other hand...it could just be a dream but there is never anything wrong with dreaming.

Learn!

As I mentioned a few days ago, I have decided to start moving forward by giving myself some goals. I have found that it is very easy to stop. To begin to stagnate and enjoy the status quo. There is nothing new, nothing that really changes but instead of moving forward, you start to simply accept it. You forget that life can be more than the daily routine.

Over the last three years, I have really hit the status quo. I have worried for so long that maybe I should be normal and I have tried. Unfortunately, that trying has been to stagnate, to stop learning, stop growing, stop doing things that make me...well...me.

I have forgotten the words I said to myself years ago, “It’s not that I wish I wasn’t strange, only that I was eccentric enough not to care.”

I had begun to care that I didn’t fit right, that I was misshaped peg that didn’t fit into any hole. The biggest problem with this is that the more I tried to fit, the more people would notice that I didn’t. It has led to some hard years for me and even my kids have told me that their friends say I am weird or crazy.
But I digress, change needs to happen for me to feel happy and the first goal was to laugh a bit more and a bit deeper. The second goal is to start learning again. The more I learn, the happier I am.

Right now, I am starting to research how to become a Doula. I love attending births and the goal is to work through several levels of the program and then move onto working with Teens. Of course, all this will be while I keep writing. It is often sad that I have so many passions and interests because there is no way that I will be able to enjoy them all.

But for now, I am looking forward to working on this goal and even if I don’t start learning about becoming a doula right away, I will be moving forward. So goal number two is learn but I think in ways, it is simply a reminder to me that I do much better when I am moving forward either in mind, body or spirit.

The Pack

Whiteness. That's all I remember for much of that night. Just the white that covered the road, the van and all the other vehicles on the highway. It hung in the air and when you opened the window, it invaded your throat making you gasp at the iciness of it.

It was a strange winter storm for the lower mainland in British Columbia but it wasn't unheard of. What was unheard of, was the fact that I was in it, sitting in the van beside my step father. He had ventured out before the storm to pick me up for my weekend visit and while it had threatened to snow before we left; we never expected it to be this bad.

The traffic, already crawling at a snail's pace, ground to a halt as a road block of RCMP officers stopped everyone. They were bundled up in thick parkas and gloves, but they still looked like they were freezing. My step dad rolled down his window and he asked, "What's wrong officer?"

"The main highway to Hope has been closed. We are telling people to either turn around or go up the alternate highway."

"That's still open!"

"Last we heard it was. The storm hasn't reached it as badly yet."

I kept quiet but prayed he would turn around and just take me home. The last thing I wanted was to be trapped in the middle of nowhere in this weather. My step dad ground his teeth in thought and then turned to me, "Do you want to try?"

Being only 14,I simply nodded to keep him from being disappointed. As he pulled the big, yellow van onto the ramp to the back highway, I turned to the window and rested my forehead against it.

I breathed out, my vision obscurred with a thick fog before I watched it slowly disappear under the heat of the vent. I stared at the few taillights that pushed through the thick snow; the road nearly invisible. Other travellers who were braving the near white out conditions.

I spent the drive in silence, waiting for something to happen. I peered into each car we passed that had slid into the ditch and made sure no one was trapped in them before I tore my eyes from ditch, praying that we wouldn't find ourselves in it.

Finally, my eyes grew heavy as the miles slid by...

"Sirena, wake up."

The voice was sharp, urgent and it pulled me from my sleep instantly. I jerked awake, grabbed the door and feared for the worst - maybe our van was sliding into a ditch, maybe something even worse was happening.

What I saw took my breath away and this time, as I leaned my head against the cold window, I held my breath, terrified that I would lose sight of this enchantment.

I wondered if I was still dreaming but I knew it was real and tears stung my eyes at the emotion choking my throat.

The snow had stopped falling but the frost still hung in the night air like diamonds twinkling in the moonlight that was pushing through the cloud cover. We were alone on the highway, our headlights breaking through the darkness but beside us the snow caught the moonlight and glowed with an eerie beauty.

Panting through it were 15 wolves, their heavy gray coats glistening with the melting snow, their strong feet landing directly into the footsteps of the animal before them. They panted as they worked, their tongues lolling, their ears perked forward and their tails held straight behind them.

I was only watching them from behind a car window but I felt drawn to the wolves as they pushed through the stretch of flat snow between the road and the forest. Despite the cold, the loneliness of the highway, despite what had driven them from the forest, all of the wolves look happy. I wanted to have my step dad pull over. Wanted to get out and watch them for a while but before I could even ask, we were already pulling past them.

I craned my neck, trying to watch them for as long as I could and when they finally faded from sight, I realized that my cheeks were wet from my tears.

You may be wondering why I started this post with that story but it is one of the first times I had ever seen a whole pack in the wild. I grew up in some pretty âmazing places and while I had seen lone wolves before, I had never seen a whole pack. I felt truly blessed that day because I saw something so beautiful and so spectacular. I think it was that moment that I fell completely in love with wolves and they are my favorite animal to this day.

In fact, I used to have a reoccurring dream about wolves that started shortly after that fateful night but I will save that for tomorrow. For today, I just wanted to share my wolf story with you to get you interested in what I will be sharing in the next few days and that will be my visit to the wolf centre. As you can imagine, it was the highlight of my vacation and if I could have spent more than one day there, I would have.

So a story today, a dream tomorrow and then the experience of seeing the wolves at the wolf center shortly after that.

The Lotus Part 3

Silence fills the world around us and I focus on your beauty. Is it me or is your beauty fading? I wonder if it will last until tomorrow or if I will come down the stairs and find you gone; your secrets disappearing with you. But that is for tomorrow and today I capture your silence with my lens; your secrets still hidden away.

The kids say that you are mine but you remain out of reach from me. If I could, I would wade into the water and pluck you from it so I could carry you with me but I cannot bring myself to draw you away. You are where you belong and I will continue to paint your image across my mind as I click away with my camera.

The lotus for the third day, unfortunately, it was the last day that I could photograph her. Funny, I started calling the flower a her at about the same time the kids started calling it my flower. The following day, the flower was gone and I had to turn my camera onto other things.

Here are the final photos of my lotus before she closed her petals one last night.

The Hero Problem

I have been reading a book lately that has been less than stellar in my mind but I keep reading, hoping that maybe the book will pick up and suddenly the wasted hours will seem like they were worth it. Unfortunately, I am about 15 pages in sight of the end and the climax is just being reached. From what I have read the climax will definitely be missing the big "wow" that it should have.

Despite being a poorly written book, it did remind me of something that seems rampant in many books where there is a whole end of the world, hero has to save us thing. The hero problem that I am talking about is the "We don't have the time we need to prepare."

For some reason, this problem has really been grating on me. Story after story, movie after movie, book after book, there is the conflict that draws the characters together...namely the end of the world. Okay, fine, I can get behind those types of stories.

In these stories there is the good side that is trying to tap the main characters and get them ready for the impending battle. And there is the bad side that spends the entire storyline plotting out ways to make the heroes fail before they get together for the final epic battle, which is also the climax of the book.

I get the premise, although I tend to avoid writing in such stark shades of black and white. In fact, I tend to feel that shades of gray are really the best way to create a gripping story. Everyone knows that white defeats black and there really is no surprise at the end when the good guys win. Sometimes it is fine and the story, if written well, makes for an enjoyable read.

However, the true gems are in those shades of grey when you wonder, will light defeat darkness and do we truly know if the person we view as the antagonist is truly one or is the hero. Yes, the story is harder to write but if there is a compassion there for all the characters, the reaction for the reader is emotional and worth the struggle of the writer. The thunderclouds of grey can lead to a kaleidoscope of color that is breathtaking to experience.

But I have kind of meandered off topic and really, my frustration comes down to those stark black and white ideas and the way that heroes are tapped at just the last second. In the book I am reading, the author even goes so far as to spell it out for the reader, just in case it wasn't clear. At one point, a character said, "This type of training takes years but there isn't the time...the battle is upon us." (Paraphrasing a bit but he did say takes years and the heroes didn't have the time to train.)

Miraculously, (hey we are dealing with the light) the heroes managed to learn the ancient skills within an hour and also managed to have sex during that time while demons are hunting them. Wow, riveting stuff.

The moment that sentence was uttered in the book, I actually sighed, rolled my eyes and put down the book, leaving it where it was to read later. First, it irritated me that the author was so blatant about the whole thing. Second, it has been done too many times. Third, what the heck is wrong with the light side?

Okay, I get it. There is suspense in wondering if the heroes will be strong enough to defeat it but unless the writer decides to kill off the main characters and have the bad guys win, then there really isn't that much suspense. There is also the whole underdog thing and we all love to root for the underdog. Unfortunately, if the character can learn what is needed in an afternoon, he is not really the underdog. In fact, he is a protege in the art of mystical powers.

My main problem is that the light doesn't seem to have their stuff together. I mean, you know the Apocalypse is going to come. You have been training people for centuries for this day, have set everything in place but you forget about the chosen one. Oh no, we didn't forget about him, we decided to tap him late in the battle to make things more interesting.

Wait, what? Why would you do that?

Chances are, they wouldn't. It just seems silly. Okay, let's leave our weapon there to rust and then right before the battle, we'll try to flake off a little of the rust and maybe we'll survive. The answer would be no. If you went onto the battlefield with a rusty blade you wouldn't make it through the first charge.

As you can tell, the whole hero problem is really a big peeve of mine. It is okay for the hero to be a little seasoned. It is okay for him to have his loss of faith, his shade of grey when maybe he doesn't know if his next foot will land in darkness or light. It is okay to think of a plot that is completely different from the last.

They say that all the ideas of been used but I really believe that if you wade out into the murky depths of grey, you can pull up a few shining gems of color that are new and exciting. Even the gem is something that has been seen before, maybe, just maybe, by working a little harder, I won't have to read the line, "This type of training takes years but there isn't the time...the battle is upon us."

The Lotus Part Two

You drift there, alone amongst the leaves, almost overlooked in the dark water. The clouds cover the sun but yet you reach out your petals and grasp at the light that trickles through. You are like a ghost upon the water, your delicate beauty a bright spot upon the mind. I am drawn to you, wondering if today a new secret will cause the pond to ripple beneath you as it comes to the surface.
Day two of photographing the lotus started with a very overcast day. I tried a different angle and whenever I tried to get a good shot, a wave would cause the ripple on the surface. Made photographing interesting since I was perched on the swimming dock and bouncing with every wave as well. The water looked almost like ink today when I was taking the picture.

Walking with Ghosts

The road that we turn onto dwindles down to a one lane dirt track and we glance around to make sure that we are on the right road. A sign up ahead, barely visible in the green expanse of the encroaching swamp, reads Umphraville with an arrow pointing off into the wilderness. We don't say anything as the van jumps and sinks over each bump and into each pothole in the road. "I guess they don't get out to do road work very often," I say.

James rolls his eyes at me and turns to peer through the green darkness that has enveloped us. Through the canopy, we can just make out the piercing blue sky but down where we are, only a light shower of sunlight breaks through the leaves of the canopy above.

It is enchanting and I stop the car to take in the sounds and feel of a forest alive. I close my eyes for a second, unafraid that some random car will collide with us and breathe in the damp air that is drifting through the open window.

The sound comes to me layers. The rustling of the light breeze in the leaves. The symphony of songbirds perched in the branches. The hum of the insects flying around the van. The crash as something large moves through the forest. It is both exhilarating and peaceful and everyone in the van is silent as they take in the forest.

I open my eyes and scan the forest, looking for whatever made the crashing sound but all I see is the dark green of a healthy forest and the winding brown of the forest road that is slowly being consumed by it. I start forward again and I finally give the first hint of where we are going to the kids, "Keep your eyes open," I say, "We are close to the ghost town."


Looking in the rear view mirror, I watch as their eyes widen and they begin searching the forest around them. "It just got 10 degrees colder in here," Gabriel says, "That means were close because it always gets colder when you are close to a ghost."

I smile and remain silent, listening instead to the kids talking about the ghosts. Their voices are full of excitement as they begin to imagine the ghosts around them. I remember those days and I remember spending my childhood running through forests much darker than this. I remember the feel of the forest; the way that it had always felt like it was watching, its breath baited as though it was simply waiting for me to discover its secrets.

I wonder if the kids feel the same way as they sit there waiting for the ghost town of Umphraville to appear.

We turn at a fork in the road, heading left and up a steep hill. At the top, the road ends at the start of a hiking trail and I pull off to park. Besides us, an opening in the forest shows a clearing and a large, weather stained cross stands in the center of it.

"This must be it," I say and we all pile out of the van.

It may be my imagination but it is as though the forest has fallen silent as we walk closer to the cemetery; one of only a few things left of the town of Umphraville. A feeling of sadness washes over me as we walk through the gates of the cemetery and realize that these people are almost forgotten and only a few people come to keep it tidy.

The forest has nearly engulfed the road of the once thriving town and the only people to visit it are hunters and the random tourist looking for a scare. I wonder how many people have laughed and joked as they walked around the small cemetery and while I try to do it once, I just can't bring myself to do it.

Instead, we all walk around in silence, occasionally saying something about a marker or how sad it is to see a baby of only 3 months old buried at the site. The kids are respectful but you can see their imaginations racing as they glance around the cemetery.

After a half hour of wandering through the cemetery, we start out on the hike. James tells Michael he can be as loud as he wants so his voice will scare off any large wildlife. I laugh and start talking to Michael to keep up his chatter (if you didn't know, Michael can be very loud).

We end up in a field and it is a stark contrast from the cool forest that we had just left. Up ahead is one of the few buildings left of Umphraville itself and we explore it for a little bit. The feelings of the cemetery slowly lift and we start to simply enjoy the exploring until the deer flies come out and start to pester the kids and James so we decide to head back. Or rather, James and the kids run to the van as I slowly walk back since the deer flies leave me alone for some reason.


It was a nice trip and we took our time driving back down the road, stopping every little while to listen to the forest again.

Like most of the other posts, here are a few pictures that we took of Umphraville.

Lost Souls: Chapter One

Chapter One

"Oh, do not let her be like one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes from his mother's womb!" Numbers 12:12

Vancouver, Canada

January 16, 2000, 6:58am

“Aaughh,” Anna screamed as she pushed herself towards the end of the bed, the chaos in the room as nurses and doctors waited for her child to be born, left her dizzy from a lack of air. Her legs began shaking as she pushed against the wave of pain that washed across her stomach threatening to pull her apart. She could feel beads of sweat dotting her brow before pooling at her hairline. Squeezing her eyes shut, Anna could hear little pants escaping from her tight mouth in a futile effort to try to control the contraction.

“That’s it, Anna, keep pushing, your baby is almost here,” The doctor rested back on his stool, his appearance of calm authority grated on Anna and although she knew he couldn’t help her at this point, she wanted him to reach out and drag the baby from her. She couldn’t take the pain anymore and this doctor with his tidy mask and gloved hands, staring at her intently as he waited for some work to do, was more then she could bear.

Anna couldn’t believe how much pain she was in, and she was sure that it wasn’t normal. Nothing had been normal about this pregnancy or how it came to be. Nothing was normal or right. There was no father sitting beside her holding her hand and weeping with joy at the birth of his child. Simon was gone, along with his laughter and warmth, leaving her with nothing but pain as their child came into the world.

Anna looked to the side where Simon should have been and stared into the silly souvenir that was all he had left her. She couldn’t stop the tears that glistened in her eyes as she looked at the snow globe sitting on the nightstand beside her. Simon had been so serious when he had given it to her. “Give this to my child, Anna,” he had said and then he had walked out of her life leaving only a whisper where he had stood.

God, how she wanted to feel Simon’s whispers against her skin but a bigger part of her wanted to smash the snow globe as he had smashed her heart. Something had stopped her though, that part of her that still longed for him, the part that didn’t want to forget him. Her gaze shifted to the nurse, standing at her left knee. Her cold blue eyes, stared back at her with disapproval, and tears spilled down Anna’s cheeks, This can’t be it, this can’t be how my baby comes into this world. He needs to be surrounded by love and laughter, not the disapproving eyes of strangers.

The words never reached her lips as another contraction gripped her stomach and thighs, forcing her legs closed in an attempt to stop the pain. Anna writhed on the bed, her head tossing back and forth as she fought the contraction. The disapproving nurse pulled Anna’s legs apart until she was splayed again, her whispers echoing in Anna’s ears, “Just a little push, Anna and your baby will be in your arms.”

“I can’t, I can’t do this,” Anna moaned. She could feel her rich mahogany hair hanging in short sweaty spikes across her forehead; she groaned in her effort to control the contractions that wracked her body. With a scream she pushed with everything in her, feeling a sharp rip and a sudden loss not only in her body but also in her heart.

Squeezing her eyes tight, Anna breathed in. Her heart pounding out the time: one…two… three… waiting for the first cry from her child. Waiting for the doctors to do something, say something about the little soul that had been ripped from her. Her ears filled with far off murmurs as though the room had been cleared of people. Her heart drummed a tempo in her ears, drowning out the sounds in the room.

Four…Five… The space between each tempo was engulfed by a silence that was warm and heavy. Six… the silence splashed against her body like warm waves, flooding her veins with liquid sweetness. Seven…Eight… opening her eyes, she found herself drifting in the deep blue waters of some endless sea.

Nine… Simon swam through the tranquil waters, gliding towards her with a smile on his lips, his grey eyes bursting with light. The storm that she had often seen in their depths had parted, leaving light-kissed clouds in their stead. Simon’s smile spread through her body making her cry in relief.

Ten… her tears mingled with the salt of the ocean. She felt refreshed; the tempo that had been drumming in her ears lay silent. Anna breathed in a healing sigh and reached for Simon, catching his shoulders in her grasp, his warmth ebbing through the palms of her hands and up her arms. A blond lock fell against his forehead and Anna reached up to catch the silky tendril in her fingers.

Gazing into his eyes she found the storm again. Gold lightening flashed across them. Blood ran down his nose between his turbulent eyes and Anna realized that gaping wounds circled his forehead. The blood poured out of them and dripped into the peaceful water staining it purple.

“God, no, no,” Anna thrust her hands against Simon’s forehead while her body shook in desperation. Anna gagged on her cries as the blood shot from between her fingers. “Simon,” she gasped in horrified confusion, “What’s happening?”

Simon shook his head, sadness pulling his wonderful lips into a frown as he did. He leaned towards her and Anna thought he meant to kiss her but she pulled back, afraid of what was happening. Her hands slipped from his face and Simon entwined her fingers with his. He began pushing her away from him, her body sliding easily away in the water. Pain shot up her arms as he pushed but it didn’t compare to the pain shooting towards her heart. The pain took root as he said, “No Anna, it’s time for you to wake up. It’s time for you to go and meet our son.”

Anna jerked forward, her eyes shooting open as she did. The room that had been a quiet and orderly chaos was now at full-scale war. The lights were glaring; the peaceful little birthing room of dull blues was now an unsettling mass of cloaked figures draped in blue. The harsh buzzing of alarm bells echoed through the room as hands pushed her back onto the bed. Her body felt cold and clammy, her hospital gown clung to her body, strangling her, and her arms fell limply to her sides. “Doctor, her pulse is stabilizing.”

A blinding light shone in first her left eye and then the right. A nurse fumbled with wires and tape above her. I’m so cold, Anna thought as she tried to relax her racing heart, and calm the tremors that wracked her body. Her hands quivered as she flexed them, trying to encourage warmth back into them.

The doctor murmured to her as he worked, “You gave us quite a scare, Anna. Where did you go?”

Anna stared at him, startled by the question. She licked her dry lips as she tried to focus on the thoughts flooding through her. Where had she gone? Smiling wistfully, she answered in a frail voice that didn’t sound like her own “I was with Simon.”

The doctor paused in his examination, focusing on her eyes as he weighed what she had said. His hands tightened painfully on her wrist in an involuntary spasm making Anna gasp in pain. “I’m sorry, Miss. Torrez,” he murmured breaking contact with her but Anna wasn’t sure if he was apologizing for her wrist or for the fact that she was obviously ill, “Let’s get you checked out.”

Backing away from her, he turned his attention to the nurse near the bed. “I want a full set of blood tests. Blood Sugar, CBC, and check her O2 stats. Get that mask back on her and get an EKG. Keep her monitored for 24 hours to see how she is doing and then we’ll decide if we need to do a CT scan. Notify me immediately if anything else happens with her.”

The nurse nodded at his instructions as the doctor gave Anna one last look before moving away to write his orders in her chart. Her mind reeled at his words, not able to close around the growing worry that she had been close to death.

My tranquil swim with Simon was nothing more than a dream turned nightmare. That’s all it was. The fatigue of labour had induced a partially sub-conscience hallucination, making me think that I had fallen asleep. My stress had changed the peacefulness I had been feeling into a nightmare. Anna comforted herself with those thoughts but another question drifted in the air before her, Are you sure it wasn’t more than a dream?

Anna left it hanging there like a thick black spider dangling on its silken thread, turning her attention instead to the line on the monitor that was happily displaying her heart rate instead. Whatever happened, I’m here now. I’m here for my son, she thought, My son!

Peering through the mass of bodies, Anna could see her son’s small face turned towards her. His eyes were wide open and blinking, and Anna was sure that when she got close enough she would see his father’s eyes staring back at her. For all his awareness, not one sound issued from his frail body. He lay there with a patient expression creasing his brow as the doctors prodded him with their instruments, taking their measurements.

The tone of their voices, gave a certainty that they were worried about the small infant on the table. Outside of his lack of crying, he seemed perfect, his skin was the red shade of all newborns, and his limbs were slowly starting to move as the cool air washed over him.

“Doctor, his heart rate is one fifty. His Apgar score is at a six."

The doctor’s terse reply was lost to the noise of the room but the tone made Anna’s heart skip a beat. She could hear Simon’s words echoing in her ears, “Meet our son, Anna, meet our son…our son.”

“Doctor, what’s wrong with my son? Why isn’t he crying? Let me see him, Oh God, please let me see him,” she cried as the nurse leaned over her to place the oxygen mask on her face. Her sobs went unanswered as the doctors worked on her son, leaving Anna to do nothing except pray.

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