I would have liked to name her Alba. Or Violet (if I could have ever convinced Chip). She would have had the deepest darkest chocolate chip eyes, and glossy chestnut hair to match. She would have idolized her older sister, wearing her shoes and tripping over her hair ribbons. My girls - that's what I would have called them, and each time my heart would have melted to welcome such softness, such femaninity into our home. I would have relived Alice's babyhood, watching another sweet girlchild inhabit Alice's clothes - but with every new dimple and smile, discovered a world of differences between them.
The journey of motherhood has hammered home this lesson: that with every turn of the road, you leave behind another possibility of what you imagine. When you have a boy instead of a girl, when you have a c-section instead of the other, when you bottle feed---- hundreds of little things that close down the What Might Have Been to tell the story of What Is.
This is not to say that I am sorry for anything that has happened to give us this moment. Every small detail of our lives is how it should be - and for how it's going to be, I'm willing to be surprised.
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3 comments:
Beautiful. As always.
I had to grieve not ever having a boy. Every time we open a new door, another one closes. Or something like that.
Ah, my boys. Yes, I was a little mournful over not having "my boys" but am so contented every day with what we do have. Life never fails to keep us guessing.
I understand...I have a lot of "what might have been" in my heart, but I try not to think about it (and rarely do) since I am so eminently fortunate to have my one boy, the boy I always wanted. Thanks for yet another beautiful post.
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