Creation.

There is a painting above my fireplace.  I painted it when I was pregnant with Nik.  The urge to paint it was overwhelming and I couldn’t function until it was all out of me, and on the canvas.  When I was done, it was as though a part of my soul was sitting outside my body. 

A few days ago, Anjali looked at it, and then at me, and then back at the painting, and finally, with real frustration in her voice, asked: “What IS that, mom?  What does it mean?”

And that opened up in me a flood of emotions and memories.  In my mind, I was painting it again, and then when I was done, standing back and looking at it, and realizing what I had done, and how much of what I had gone through to get to that point in my life, that miraculous point in my existence where I had a living, kicking, healthy baby in me that was going to stay, and be born… how much of all that was in that painting. 

And then I looked at the beautiful boy who was sitting there at the kitchen counter, eating his cereal, looking at me, waiting for me to answer his sister.

And I started crying.  Large gulping sobs tore out of me, frightening them.  I saw them look at each other and I knew I had to say something. 

So I said: “I painted that when Nik was in my tummy.  It is a picture of all the darkness and sadness that was my life before Nik, and it has the babies that I lost, and it shows how I felt that God was giving me another chance and finally trusting me with Nik.  And giving me a vision of what his power is, tearing through all that darkness.  And that, at the center, is Nik.  But I didn’t know that was what I was painting until I was done.”

Anjali nodded, and looked at it again.  And Nik looked at me and said: “You lost babies?”

So I told them.  I told them that they had a sister and a brother that died before they were born.  And Nik looked at me with so much empathy in his eyes, that I was crying again.

And he said, “I think they are with God.”

I nodded.

And then: “They are with God.  I know it.”

Now I know it too.