I Know

I knew the moment you were conceived. People later told me it was impossible, that I couldn't have possibly known. But I did.

Four weeks later, I visited the doctor, who told me that I wasn't pregnant. I laughed and said, "see you next month." And when I did, he finally confirmed that you were there (which was something that I had known all along). He said you'd be born sometime in mid-November. I laughed and said, "see you in October."

You were born at six in the morning, after 36 hours of labor. After 24 hours I was given a pit drip, because you had already made up your mind to stay in your warm little den, amnoitic fluid or no. They said you were two weeks early, but I knew you were really two weeks late... and when your life support system was finally ejected it was all too clear that you had waited until the last possible minute to emerge. Already you were imposing your will upon the world and expecting it to comply.

As your little body slid free from the fortress of mine, I felt a moment of stark terror followed by a moment of utter loneliness. And then you were placed in my arms and I knew Love for the first time in my life. You lifted your little head and looked right at me. They all said that was impossible, too... but I was there.

We struggled with nursing, you and I. Two weeks later the mid-wife took one look at my cracked and bleeding nipples and demanded that I take a break from nursing, which of course I would not consider even if you had allowed it. Two weeks after that, you were diagnosed with "nursing jaundice" and had to be bottle-fed with formula for 10 days. You refused the formula to the point that you had to be fed intravenously, and your shrieks of hungry loneliness shattered my heart and muddled my brain. When you looked less like a carrot and more like a baby, you were allowed to nurse again and suddenly, we were in sync. From that moment on, you were my Snuggle-Bunny.

Oh, my Faery baby, with your impish eyes, fly-away hair, and pixie nose. You were a tiny, delicate thing... until someone tried to lift you, only to realize you were as massive as Jupiter despite your miniscule size! Even then you were a star, waiting for the magical moment of fusion when you would change the Universe forever. You had a three-year-old's vocabulary before you were 9 months old, and you filled the house with silly singing and a wild cackling that never failed to make me howl with laughter. We had to practically force you to learn to walk, though. And despite your obvious genius with all things literary or vocalized, I was certain I'd be sending you to Kindergarten in diapers because using the potty just wasn't your bag, baby.

But you finally did it. And just like everything else, when you made up your mind to do it, it was DONE. Your binkies, which you had to have in your hand or in your sight even if one wasn't in your mouth else a mesoscale tantrum would erupt, went into the trash one day of your own accord and you never mentioned them again. You announced one morning, "No more diapers! PANTIES!" and panties it was ever after without a single accident. You were so terrified of the water that each bath was an exercise in heartbreak, but at age five you jumped in the pool with your cousin Jenna and swam like you'd been doing it all your life. You staunchly defied our edicts that you learn to ride a bicycle, crying uncontrollably every time we asked... but at age 7 you suddenly decided bicycles were the bomb and rode like you were headed for the X-Games from day one.

And from then on, whatever you decided to do, you did. With or without the means. With or without permission. With or without a clue of how it could be done. You wrote seven books by age 15, many of them fully illustrated. You learned to play guitar without a single lesson, wrote dozens of songs, and covered dozens more (always with your own little twists). You found a way to take extra classes in middle school so you could have enough room in your high school schedule for both music and theater. Scarily, you made such a foolproof plan to run away to New York with an online predator at age 13 that I was almost too late to save you, and would have been had you not offhandedly mentioned Comic-Con to your auntie only days prior. You've approached each dream and each goal with a plodding determination and confidence, refusing to believe even for a moment that it cannot be done. You've lived in the magical whirlwind of your incredible mind, always expecting reality to bend to your will and never paying much attention to the chaos you've often left in your wake. Your blithe attitude toward "real life" used to drive me crazy with worry and fear... mostly because I was terrified of the moment when the hammer would inevitably fall, exposing your dreams and aspirations to the physical reality that the rest of us seem to be slaves to and forcing your whimsical creations into the four winds.

You, my Dollie, could do anything and everything. You were an alchemist in the truest sense, forging tangible reality from the dust of dreams. And though the physical plane of applied force (athletics and other mechanical concepts) ever seemed to elude you, your fertile Mind of All Creation manifested concepts of light and darkness that most of us could only hope to grasp, let alone understand.

You DID, my senshei. And now you DON'T. And I don't know what changed or exactly when. But you DID and now you DON'T and I am AFRAID. I'm afraid in a way that has no words, no sense. I know there is a threat, but I don't know where it is, what it is, or even how it came to be. But something has happened to darken that magical world in your mind where anything was possible, and the part of you that is forever part of me is racing, panicked and white-eyed, around my heart. It scrabbles in the corners of my mind, trying desperately to claw its way to the surface. It shrieks at shadows and freezes in dumbstruck horror with the touch of any light. It tells me that you've already decided. You just haven't decided how.

Make a new choice, my baby girl. You have the power to bend the Universe to your whim, you've been doing it without thinking since the moment you were born. Let go of whatever blackness, whatever doubt, has wormed its way into your heart and let the brilliant light of your visionary soul spring forth once more, chasing it away from your Being forever.

Don't give up. Don't you dare.