Anonymous

How does one describe the pain of the lost forever child? The child one will never know or even touch. The child only in one’s thoughts and imagination. The chubby baby never held and caressed, the child never seen at play, and the sometimes sullen teen’s door never heard slam shut. I will never have those moments to remember.

I do not now long for the sight of that adult child, you know, the one that may, or may not come to visit. Because I made the “choice” long ago. I reluctantly went along with the wishes of the potential father to never conceive, never adopt that longed for child. A forever sad decision, now made sadder still with the passage of time.  

There are no birthdays to celebrate, other than our own. No graduations. No weddings or mother of the bride, and certainly no grandchildren to cuddle and enjoy the way grandmas tend to do. The passing of time evokes too many non-events, too many non-occasions. Joys that are never to be felt. A dream never to be fulfilled, a dream broken.

Life is not filled with only joy. I get that. But it is a journey I so wanted to take. A journey, I fully realize now, fills me with regret beyond belief, only now when it is too late.

The Mother ship has sailed and I’m left standing on the shore wishing my 30 year old self had been wiser to the feelings she would have some 43 years later. A broken dream. A dream that haunts both days and nights.

Joys…I’ve had many. And, I’ve also had my share of heartbreaks. But nothing compares to these now broken baby dreams and the knowledge of what might have been and the deep pain now in knowing I had the power within me to choose differently…and did not. 

Photo by Damian Siodłak on Unsplash