Rainbow Dusted Dreams

As a little girl I adored looking up into the sky, watching the constellations twirl just out of my reach. I would spend hours whispering my most intimate wishes to the stars in hopes they would encourage the moon to grant them. Nothing was impossible as I laid in the sweetly damp grass, looking up to the limitless sea of twinkling hopes. Like riding a unicorn with candy floss pink fur into the golden sunset while I grip the back of a knight in shining armor. Or swimming through the liquid silver sea and letting the purple haired mermaids lead me to the lost city of atlantis. Or working my way up the world’s rickety political ladder to become the world leader who brings peace to earth. Or becoming a doctor so I could cure my mothers illness. No matter how many exotic dreams I thought of in my trustful mind, seeing my mother’s cheerful smile again seemed the most impossible.

With each year that passed my dreamful childhood floated farther from me like a boat lost at sea. As my hope filled eyes dulled and my dimpled cheeks frowned, so did my dreams, hope and wishes.A nd I wasn’t sure I ever wanted them to come back.

I remember the last time I made a wish, I threw it up to the stars with such might they almost couldn’t catch it. My mothers illness had gotten worse and that morning she was given mere hours left to live. Instead of staying by her side and comforting her, I went outside and wished upon that damned star. She was dead by the time I went back inside. I was trying to help her the only way I knew how.

By the time I turned twenty I got a boring and stale office job. From nine to five I was confined to a small gray box. All day I endured torture, but I got paid for it so who cared?

By twenty five I was married to a unique man from Europe, he was a poet but as soon as he realized that career path held no money his parents paid for his law school tuition. Another person the universe stole dreams from.

We bought a large house with a white picket fence and a bright flowering yard in a high class part of town. To outsiders, our lives were perfect. We had money, love, food and a roof over our heads. But deep down inside my heart something was still broken that I wasn’t sure could ever be fixed and because of that everything seemed useless. Invaluable.

At twenty seven I had a miscarriage, I couldn’t bear the pain of being so useless. Women are supposed to create life, it comes naturally for them, yet I failed. I killed my first child. Shortly after I tried killing myself and was hospitalized for six months. I was locked away in a white room with a single barred window and a ghastly firm bed. No laces, no hoodie strings, no pencils without supervision, anti-suffications sheets. It was hard at first but I managed to fall asleep to the sounds of the lady in 3B banging her head against the wall until it bled. Once I got home I wasn’t sure if I could sleep peacefully in the quiet, or knowing my husband would never look at me the same. Love is rumored to be blind but not foolish. He no longer took me out on dates or to his family gatherings. He stayed later and later at work until I didn’t see him until dawn.

The night of my thirtieth birthday we had a massive fight and he stormed out. I didn’t see him for three days. I was so terribly mad at him that I didn’t care where he was or what he was doing. I didn’t even flinch at the fact that he might be screwing another woman. I didn’t worry. Not until the fourth day when the police came knocking at my door and told me my husband had gotten into a car accident. He went to a sports bar and decided to drive home; he didn’t even make it out of the parking lot before he crashed into a fuel truck. Both drivers died. I didn’t cry, not a single tear fell from my eye as I heard those dreadful words; he is dead.

I knew he didn’t love me anymore, he even told me so. My heart mourned for him years ago, hearing that his heart had stopped beating was the last stitch of closure I needed.

Three weeks later I scheduled an abortion. I didn’t want to have my dead husband’s child. I waited impatiently for the appointment date to arrive, I wandered around my house aimlessly; reading every book I owned and baking every box mix I could find in the back of my dusty cupboards. I spent hours staring at my husband’s urn sitting on the red brick mantle. I could feel him staring back and after a while I couldn’t take it anymore. I packed the urn into a small cardboard box and drove it out to his favorite hiking trail where I threw the ashes into the west wind. I wouldn’t want to be trapped with someone I didn’t love either, I would rather be free.

As I sat in the waiting area of the abortion clinic all I could hear was the loud clock ticking in my ear as the minutes shifted by. My anxious foot tapped against the floor faster than my already racing heartbeat. Was I really about to kill my second child when I had already killed my first? 

As the nurse called my name I got up and walked out of the pastel pink building. I couldn’t bear the thought of killing not only my first child but my second too. With each day that passed the world around me turned paler and more solemn. I got fired from my job and my husband’s family cut me out of their life. I was a failure. No more. No less. 

When I gave birth I was alone. There was a ravinouse storm twirling through the town so my midwife was unable to make it to me. Half way through my contractions the electricity went out and I was too incapacitated to light a candle or find a flashlight. In the dark, completely alone, I gave birth to my rainbow baby; Mia.

Through the first three years of parenthood I was unsure of what I was doing. With each temper tantrum I deemed myself more and more unfit as a parent. My therapist suggested I join a local mothers group so I could make connections with some people who had  the exact same struggles I did. It helped for a while. Until I got a notice of eviction. My house that I spent the last thirteen years in was being ripped away from me and there was nothing I could do but sit there and watch. The deed to the property was in my husband’s name and now that he was dead it went to his next of kin. His sister, who was a selfish and spiteful woman. She never cared for me.

My last night in the house was a miracle in disguise. I sat on my living room floor and cried, I screamed out in pain until my very last sorrow was heard. Everything I had was gone and it was never coming back. In a depressed fueled rage I packed up Mia and left the state. I traded my car for an old battered trailer then used most of my savings to fix it up. Mia and I spent the next two years traveling the country and we have loved every last bit of it. We got to see dozens of places that mostly people only dream of encountering.

And now I sit here, watching her stare up at the silver powdered moon. With eyes filled with hopes and dreams and I am reminded of myself. Her soft cheeks are filled with cheerful eagerness and the soft smile touching her toothy grin is dusted with wonder and hope. I can see her whisper quiet words to the stars just like I had at her age. Yet this time her mother is right there beside her and I can feel my own mothers hand gently embracing mine across the unknown realms of life and death.

The only dream I have now is to be happy. And it has already come true.