Wings..

I took my youngest son to tumbling the other night. It’s a long sit for me, an hour and a half. At one point behind me (as I tried to read a book on my kindle) I heard a father laughingly berating his young son. He called him “Sawyer” several times. It made me smile a little. Sawyer is the name of the child I lost before Q. Brought back many bittersweet memories, the day we discovered I was pregnant, grabbing the ob’s arm as she found his tiny heartbeat for the first time, the sight of him on ultrasound as he kicked and rolled long before I’d ever feel him, craving jars of mandarin oranges. Seeing him for the last time in images, tiny little sea creature, all curled in as if around his own heart. I was well into my second trimester when I lost him. I never saw him in life or held him in my arms, but he remained real to me always.

That night, I dreamed of him. He is and was in my dream, a bit older than 8 year old Q. He was taller, a little thinner with hair as dark and unruly as mine but with my husband’s sister’s blue grey eyes, long thick lashes and a smile like Q’s. Like mine. I saw him showing Q how he had found a way to design angel wings. He showed me as well on a huge white sheet of paper. He showed me his mathematical drawings, the lengths the angles. He planned on building them out of parchment paper so that they would flutter best. I do not know who the wings were meant for. It was only odd that I dreamt this the night before I was to have a minor surgical procedure. I might not have mentioned it to anyone (it was just a short snippet of a dream that I felt was only my own) but I wanted my husband to know about it before I had anesthesia. Everything turned out fine, of course, but just in case it hadn’t..

Still. The images remain with me. The memory of it will remain with me. I don’t believe in heaven or angels but there you have it. Perhaps somewhere in my jaded imagination, I do. It was lovely to see his face, this child I never had, and to hear his voice. A non memory I will cherish always.