Being Long Again

This was written on a writing retreat at Cupcake Manor. The prompt was:
Write about something you lost that you hope you never find.

“I want to be … long again,” I gestured to my ribcage and traced the line of my hip.

“Say it again,” said Eileen.

“I want to be … long again.” I felt my hand against my body.

“Again,” she repeated.

“I want to …,”

“Faster!” Her tone shifted toward urgent.

“I want to be long again.” My voice shifted upward as I heard what I was saying and the wonder spilled over my lower lids in steamy tears. I whispered, “I want to belong again.”

The words echoed against the white walls of Eileen’s private exercise studio. I was studying Anti-Gymnastics with her. A systematic way to get back into my body, and stay there. Um, here.

I lost my body—my sense of my body—the day my daddy died. Flew out the top of my head feeling that I surely was never meant to return if he wasn’t going to be on the planet with me.

Mama never could see the fairies that lived behind the sofa; Daddy always could.

Once he was gone, well and truly gone, there seemed little point in staying embodied. No one around me did. They escaped into martinis. I escaped into my imagination, into books, into magic, into writing.

I was, I lived, quite literally, beside myself. Do you know what that looks like?

***

“Are you sure you’ve never done this before?” Dr. Miesel asked.

“Not in this lifetime,” I puffed, “now go away. I have to push!”

He laughed. I didn’t.

Ten hours later my son was dead in my arms, but I was back—in my body, embodied, incarnate into more pain than I ever could have conceived. I held a membership in a dubious sorority.

The pain didn’t dissipate for a long, long time. Months.

Till the day, three months after he died, when a woman appeared in my mind’s eye.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.”

“I’m Mary.”

“Hi, Mary,” I answered.

“Uh,” she seemed perplexed. “Jesus’ mom?”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I just looked at her, and then she vanished.

She came every day. Just to check on me.

I greeted her every day.

Nine months after my induction, she asked me a question. “Do you want to know how I did it?”

I knew instantly what she meant.

Without hesitation, I said, “Yes.”

She spoke softly. “I gave him away.”

That day, I resigned my membership, gave away my son, and began to heal.

I had no further trouble belonging to myself, my self belonging in my body, my body belonging to me.

One day, many days hence, Blessed Mary took me to see my Daddy. He couldn’t see me, or hear me, but I could see and hear him. He was playing croquet with some fairies, and telling them about his beautiful little girl who taught him to see the fairies.

I lost my Daddy. I lost my body. I thought I’d never find it again.

I lost my son. I found my body, and ever since, I’ve kept her close to me.

She keeps me close to her.

I wish my Daddy hadn’t had to go. I wish I hadn’t lost my body, but I did. I’d like never to find that sense of loss again.

I wish my son hadn’t had to go. But I know that part of the reason he did was so I’d get my body back.

I am so glad that I did.