The Unborn Baby That Changed History

Content warning: death, child loss, abandonment, family trauma, mention of abuse. 

 

I have long wondered why I can be so angry, bitter, and distant. After 2015, that makes sense, but why was I already walking with an emotional limp before that phone call saying my uncle had cancer?

 

The other day, while cleaning the kitchen, I got thinking about my first experience with loss -- so long ago and at such a young age that until this week I had not categorized it as such.

 

In 2000, not long after the birth of my brother, my parents announced they were having another baby. I was delighted. I loved my baby brother, and I wanted very badly to have a baby sister as well.

 

In the fall of 2000, my mother went for a routine doctor's appointment. The doctor could not hear the baby's heartbeat, so she was sent -- with some urgency -- to the local hospital for an ultrasound. In that in-between time, I was told the truth -- that they could not hear a heartbeat -- but I was also told it was possible that something was blocking the stethoscope, hence the ultrasound. This was explained so calmly and in such a matter-of-fact way that while I do remember praying that the baby was okay, I was mostly convinced that everything would be fine -- the ultrasound would find the baby safe and sound.

Someone took me to dance class, I don't remember if my mother snuck me over between appointments, or if my dad or grandma took me.

 

An hour later, I left dance class and headed to the parking lot. Dad was waiting for me -- Dad never picked me up from dance. Even though I thought it was perfectly logical that Mom was still in her appointment, I knew somewhere in my soul that the baby was not okay.

 

I don't remember when or how it was explained to me -- probably on the car ride. But there was no sugarcoating (even as a child, I hated it when people danced around an issue, and my parents largely respected that). The baby, at 17 weeks, was dead. When I asked if the baby was going to stay in my mother's 'tummy,' Dad explained she would have the baby like normal (I was familiar with the concept from my brother's birth), only it wouldn't be alive when it came out. He also told me that would probably happen that night or the next morning, not in the springtime like it was supposed to.

 

I saw my mother only for a few seconds when we got home. She looked terrible (she usually did when she was pregnant -- she never had a single easy pregnancy, and it was only another year or so before I started to wonder why she kept putting herself through all that awfulness). She retreated quickly back to my parents' bedroom, and Dad put us kids to bed.

 

I don't remember much of the next morning. Dad told us (or at least me) that the baby had been delivered the night before. I don't remember if Mom was there at all.

 

I do remember over the following weeks how Dad would occasionally check in with me about it, to see how I was feeling about it. While I was old enough to understand death and emotionally connected enough to know I was sad, I didn't have the vocabulary or emotional awareness to go much deeper than that. He shared with me that he was sad and upset too. He also told us how his mother had also lost a pregnancy when he was young. He invited my grandparents over for coffee one night to talk about it. My grandmother shared that she had actually lost two -- news that surprised even my dad. She told the stories of both losses. Knowing her, she probably offered a lot of comfort and cried with my parents, but I don't actually remember that.

 

A few months later, my parents announced that they were expecting again. The doctors kept a much closer eye on her this time, but things progressed well.

At her 16 week checkup, the baby had a strong heartbeat and was moving well. At 17 weeks, my mother went to her doctor's appointment. The details in my memory aren't nearly as clear. But I remember her saying she hadn't felt the baby move in a couple of days, and then somehow I heard that this baby, too, had died.

 

In retrospect, this was the one that altered my mother forever.

 

I didn't realise that till this week, in 2025. I had wondered for years what had happened to the fun, kind, gentle woman who raised my sister and me, who took us to the library and baked cookies with us and showed us which blades of grass made the best whistles, why suddenly she was replaced by this screaming ball of rage with an absolutely hair-trigger temper. I'm shocked I didn't make this connection before.

 

The next few months were a whirlwind of specialists appointments as the doctors tried to figure out how my mother lost two pregnancies at 17 weeks within six months of each other after having three perfectly healthy children -- the youngest of whom was barely a year old. We, the living children, spent more time at my grandparents' and my aunt's house than we did at home, and as the oldest, I was in charge of my two younger siblings. My parents became strangers to me. After the first loss, my parents had held space for our emotions even while they were openly processing their own. After the second one, they disappeared. I lost them too when that second baby died.

 

By the time my mother's violent morning sickness started again, she was broken and terrified. She tried to hide it, but there was no hiding her symptoms. At eight years old, I was already a veteran of spotting morning sickness. I called her out, and she swore me to secrecy until she was past the 17-week mark. I kept that secret, and it worked... that baby is my little sister, and she is entering her third year of college.

 

It was around this time, I realise now, that the rage set in. She had always been opinionated and a bit fiery (I had to get it from somewhere), but after my rainbow-baby sister was born, my mother would scream bloody murder at anything that moved. In a house of four children under ten, there were a lot of things that moved. I remember writing in my diary many, many times how she would scream at us if we breathed too loudly. I spent the remainder of my childhood trying to figure out the triggers that would set off her screaming rages, but never succeeded in cataloguing them all. Seven months after my sister was born, I developed depression.

 

It's obvious now that that depression came as a direct result of the loss, abandonment, and verbal abuse from those three years. I still suffer with depression today. It has impacted my education, my friendships, my decision-making, my career (both of the ones that I straddle independently), my faith, my hobbies, and my marriage. If the depression doesn't kill me directly in the end, it will still be etched on my heart when it stops.

 

My mother's rages continued until I left for college at age twenty. My youngest sibling at that time was three years old. That was the longest my mother had ever not been pregnant since before she was pregnant with my brother, the one before the miscarriages. My entire teen years had been a cycle of violent morning sickness; long, dramatic, difficult deliveries, and white-hot rage -- all of it hers. I raised all the post-miscarriage siblings because my mother was either too sick or too angry to do it herself and I couldn't bring myself to let those helpless babies suffer for something that wasn't their fault. I'm still not convinced it's a coincidence that the baby factory stopped when I left home.

 

Thinking back on all of this, it's not as much of a surprise why I all but stopped being human after my cousin died. Something in my soul remembered the deaths of those young babies all those years before and remembered how I was left alone, overburdened, and screamed at for every. single. misstep for a full decade in the wake of those losses, and it knew I could not go through that again.

 

This fall is will be 25 years since that first baby died and my life was irrevocably changed for the worse. I don't know what I can do at this point. Knowing why my mother's behaviour shifted so suddenly is helpful, but it doesn't take away the pain of having to choose which of my siblings to shield with my own body and which ones to leave exposed to my mother's rage -- whose cries I had to listen to helplessly as I was only so big and couldn't protect them all at the same time. It doesn't change the fact that my sister and I have basically no relationship because I prioritised the younger, weaker siblings over her and had to harden my heart against her pain because I couldn't handle being helpless in the face of it. It doesn't change how I've spent decades feeling like I wasn't wanted and that my parents were desperate to replace me with the next new baby rather than be content with the ones they already had. It doesn't change the fact that I dissolve into wild, uncontrollable, suffocating sobs the second anybody raises their voice at me or speaks with the very slightest of harsh tones because all my hear is my mother screaming at us that we're all failures and how she didn't want us.

 

It's nice to have a starting point, I guess, but I still don't know where to go from here. 

Reflections On Stories From The Incandescent Years

I miss this place and I want to write something here, but I'm not sure what.

I've been scrolling Facebook for two hours and am mostly writing this in an attempt to get myself to just stop and do something productive. Supper is in the oven already, but the dishes haven't been done in three days. I had dental surgery yesterday and they told me not to exercise, but what else is there to do?

I want to listen to music, but I want to buy more, as I'm getting bored with the variety I have (which sounds ridiculous even as I type that; I have over five thousand songs in my iTunes, which apparently equals over fifteen days).

Recently I've gotten into vapourwave, specifically climatewave (which is to say I've gotten into early '90s smooth jazz). It's the only thing besides dance that calms (or at least drowns out) the scream of static coursing through my brain every second of every day. That music transports me to when I was a child and everything was predictable and safe -- Mom was always in the kitchen making supper around 5pm, Dad would spin records well into the evening and then put on an instrumental CD for us after we were tucked in for the night, Grandma always had cartoons and 'coffee and cookies' for us whenever we went to visit, and we'd watch Grandpa slice apples in his chair with his little paring knife against his thumb while he watched the news. Church was on Sundays, and we'd go to Kosmos or Zambelli's afterwards. Incandescent light still cast a warm glow over everything (maybe the phasing out of incandescent has contributed to the phasing out of human warmth and connection). We were poor, but we were comfortable. We lived out on the exposed fields of the vast prairie, but we were safe.

When they say 'music is my drug,' maybe this is what they mean. I have always felt more comfortable thinking about the past than the future, but now I'm using the music of the past to actively block out the present. The present is filled with angry people and the AI takeover and 'we're moving forward with another candidate' emails and fluorescent lights and grey fast food restaurants and my brain screaming but not in words and the persistent feeling of time moving too fast. If black holes really do slow down time, somebody should install one by the moon so we can all catch our breath once in a while.

Maybe then I could see the stories again.

I used to write mundane little stories here, whole blog posts about computers crashing and construction delays and moments with friends. Stories that took maybe five minutes to live through, and would have been forgotten in a few weeks if I hadn't put them here.

That's what life is, isn't it? A thousand tiny stories that make up who we are.

My parents, though not artists, are both born storytellers. My dad is the unofficial keeper of the generational stories, the ones that he heard at his grandfather's knee and has passed on to us (and all the neighbours). I got my comedic timing from my mom, who has a one-liner for every occasion. Buying gas while running errands can become a hilarious encounter by the time she gets back home to tell us about it. To not be able to see the stories in my life the way I used to feels like losing myself as a person. Have I lost the stories because my memory doesn't work? or does my memory not work anymore because I lost the stories?

Maybe all I have to do is re-cultivate my eye for story. The only thing is I'm not sure how to do that.

Ten Years At The Edge

On 10 April 2012, I completed my first piece of choreography.

I had been choreographing in fits and starts for probably about a year and a half before that, and I had been seeing the dancers in my head since around 2001.

I've told the story on this blog about the catalyst that finally got a piece done. I had only just discovered Benesh Movement Notation as a tool for writing down the dances flooding my mind when I overheard my mother mocking my dream to my dad. The rage I felt fueled me to see through the task I set before myself -- namely, to complete choreography to the song Sing Your Freedom by White Heart. I hadn't put much thought into my song choice, but as I think back on it, that was probably a very fitting launchpad. After years of quietly bristling under my mother's authoritarian rule over my words, thoughts, attitude, and activities, I finally had the courage to do something that I wanted to do. She thought I was stupid, but I did it anyway. I still remember the thrill of realising I only had two more sets of eight to go, and then finishing the piece less than an hour later. I emerged that night with a fully-notated Benesh score (which I still have) and a renewed fire and passion for choreography which has yet to be snuffed out by the 'well-meaning advice' of those who claim to care about me.

Over the past ten years, I have been able to perform my choreography both on stage and on film. I've choreographed for musical theatre productions, fundraisers, talent shows, competitions, and short films. I had a piece place first in its category in (virtual) competition in summer 2020. I have been able to at least somewhat distill the pain of three MAJOR personal losses into highly emotional and touching dances that are highly praised by viewers. And to this day, whenever I hear music, I see dancers. They are my companions on long drives and late nights.

I write choreography not because I want to, but because I HAVE to. It's an almost irresistible impulse. There is no balance in the world if I'm not choreographing.

Ten years' worth of choreography -- some 1200 pages, set to roughly seven hours' worth of music.

While some of this has been scanned into the computer, put on backup drives, and (rarely) reprinted, every single thing I create starts out handwritten. Every single mark on these notation scores was drawn by hand (and probably erased and re-drawn at least three times).

Over the course of ten years, I've choreographed 116 pieces, which doesn't sound too impressive until you factor in the five-year performing arts degree and two years of that also independently working toward a musical theatre career (since the college sure wasn't interested in getting me actual experience let alone work in the field they were supposed to be training me for). I've also been working a legit full-time job for the past year and a half. In 2021 alone I choreographed twelve pieces -- all while working full time. This was something I never thought was possible (see also all my rants from 2012-13 about how I would never work a 9-to-5. And, technically, I'm still not, so 2012 me was right as well as stubborn). This year my goal is fourteen pieces this year, and I'm already over halfway there in less than four months. I am on pace for a 50-piece year -- in other words, to almost double my ten-year output by the end of 2023. And I'm working a 'real job' full time. All you who said it couldn't be done -- guess what, I'm doing it. Don't ever underestimate me.

I fully intend to expand my accomplishments in the relatively near future. Since I now have plenty of choreography to work with, it's time to get it seen (well, more regularly). I have at least two full-length shows planned for within the next five years, and I want to start busking this year. I also have a couple of dance films in active pre-production.

Do I wish I was farther along, doing bigger things, nicer films, larger shows, touring more? Yes. And I'd be lying if I said that didn't make me sad and frustrated sometimes. But I didn't quit. Despite all the detractors, I didn't quit.

We're still only at the edge of the dream, folks. There's so much more to come.

ADHD

Originally written 13 September 2021, 11.40pm.

Two days before our first anniversary, I was diagnosed with ADHD and officially told I am on the autism spectrum. This is not a self-diagnosis for attention; this information came from a licensed neuropsychiatrist following an hour-and-a-half assessment and screening.

I was fully prepared for an autism diagnosis. I was not prepared, however, for ADHD.

This has rocked my world -- it explains SO MUCH. I’ve been reading through the NaNoWriMo Adult ADHD thread all day (13 September) and literally crying because all of it is me. Time blindness/underestimating how much time things will take, inability to switch tasks, hyperfocus, inability to focus on anything boring (including sleeping, which is why I will 100% stay up till 4am if no-one actively stops me), inability to just sit still, constantly being busy, brain constantly going a million miles an hour (turns out this is why my brain always feels like it's being eaten by acid), self-teaching myself everything under the sun, millions of brilliant and unfinished creative projects in my wake, constantly interrupting people, executive dysfunction…

I’ve been a dancer for 22 years, I routinely overloaded myself in college and mostly managed to get almost every assignment done hours before it was due (a famous example is when I wrote four papers and two final exams in 36 hours), all while still dancing 12-20 hours a week and keeping up a theatre career on the side (I’m also usually in three shows concurrently, and the only reason I still get away with this is because I’m always on top of things – if I miss a rehearsal for another rehearsal for a different show, I study my butt off and show up next rehearsal looking like I didn’t miss a thing). Twice I wrote two 50k novels in a month for NaNoWriMo because doing only one was too easy and I had enough plot ideas to sustain it. My mother was CONSTANTLY on my case for forgetting my chores and knew that if I was reading or engrossed in a project that nothing short of an atomic bomb under my seat could get my attention (and even then, it would take me a minute to realise where I was and that something was happening). I once choreographed an entire 4.5-minute dance piece for seventeen dancers start-to-finish in one single eight-hour sitting (during which I did not eat, drink, or go to the bathroom), and also recently finished a far less complicated five-minute dance for four people that took me seven years. There’s really no in between. I notoriously learn entire dance pieces three days before I perform them and then perform them better than everyone else in the piece (none of my teachers have ever known what to do with me).

I would never have known I had ADHD until the pandemic took all of my coping mechanisms away – theatre and dance had been giving me enough controlled chaos to keep me sane, and then when it was all taken away, my symptoms (both ADHD and autism) finally presented, big-time. At first I thought it was just depression, brought on by the stress of the pandemic and my first real romantic relationship/marriage, but luckily I follow a few autistic performers on Instagram who regularly post autism/ADHD memes, and I began to see myself in a few too many of these posts. I took my autism suspicions to my therapist, who told me how to go about getting assessed. The process happened very quickly, and it was at my autism assessment that I was screened for and diagnosed with ADHD.

I am not medicated yet, pending a more detailed autism assessment, and also because they want to put me on Wellbutrin and I've shied away because I am TERRIFIED of Wellbutrin. I have not met a single person who has had a positive experience with Wellbutrin. Everyone I know who has been on it has had severe side effects that were ten times worse than the issue that they were trying to treat. Plus, it only comes in pill form, and I can't swallow pills (thanks, autism-related/hereditary texture issues).

As difficult as life is with ADHD, I'm glad to have a diagnosis. Not only does it explain things that I honestly thought meant I was just a no-good failure and a waste of skin/God's punching bag, it also saved our marriage. My husband was constantly on my case for forgetting to do things and he would get extremely frustrated and accuse me of doing it on purpose and I would get angry because I was angry at myself for forgetting (again) and angry at him for not believing me whenever I tried to explain that I didn’t mean to forget things (that's literally what 'forgetting' means...?). Since my diagnosis, we went from screaming matches every other day to I think maybe one or two in the past month. It’s helped me understand myself and make a conscious effort to be more attentive to the things I forget that annoy him the most and it’s helped him understand me and be more patient with me.

There is still a lot to learn and a very, very long way to go. I've borrowed some books from the library to try to understand myself and how to function as an adult human in a world that I never did feel I belonged in. It's a lot to catch up on, and right now I'm feeling rather overwhelmed by it all... but I'll keep trying.

Stay tuned...

Five Inches

30 June 2010. Seven years ago today.

I had just gotten my driver's license a month and a half earlier. My parents had graciously bought me a (used) car, and on the 30th, my sister and I were on our way to our friends' house.

To get to their house, we had to make a left turn onto a bi-directional secondary highway. We had the stop sign, so I stopped. We were in prairie Alberta -- the land is flat and fairly clear as far as the eye can see. We were about a five-minute drive from the nearest town, and you can almost see that town from that intersection.

I was still a fairly cautious new driver, so I looked both ways twice. It had just been raining. My sister had been keeping the passenger window clear of fog with her sleeve so I could see out her window just fine, but I had to actually open my window to see down the road. Seeing no one in either direction, I began to make my turn.

Then I saw headlights coming from the opposite direction.

At first I wasn't too concerned. If I was quick enough I could continue into my lane and the truck would pass by me. I would be cutting it much closer than I would have liked, but it was doable...

As I pressed the accelerator to complete the turn more quickly, I suddenly realised that the truck was on the wrong side of the centre line. If I continued into the lane, I would hit it head on.

Something from the driving manual flashed through my head: If you must hit something and the ditch or something stationary isn't an option, try to hit something going the same direction as you are rather than head-on. I wrenched the wheel to the right, hoping I was still far enough back from the truck's path to get away with a sideswipe going the same direction. I kept my foot on the gas to accelerate my attempt to swing around. There was a flash of red in my windshield... a tremendous whoosh... the car whipped around...

We stopped moving. Without thinking, I told my sister to get out of the car and I turned to do the same. My lungs were burning. There was something in between me and the door. I pulled at it blindly, trying to get at the door handle. As I did so I realised my obstacle was the air bag.

Crap.

I knew from an accident my mother had been in years before that the air bag meant the car was totalled.

Finally I managed to get out. I didn't have the heart to even look back at the car as I ran to the side of the road where some of the witnesses were beckoning. A few seconds later I realised I had left my cell phone and ran back to the car to get it.

The car was filled with smoke and dust, but somehow I knew it wasn't on fire. I dug around between the front seats looking for the phone before finally finding it on the floor on the passenger side. The dust was irritating my eyes and it was getting harder and harder to breathe... The dust was like chalk -- thick and dry, but sticky when breathed in. After a failed attempt at getting the key out of the ignition, I merely grabbed my water bottle and went back to the side of the road.

I began to dial my dad's number, but one of the witnesses saw me with a phone in my hand and told me to call 9-1-1. I initially refused: "I have to call my dad." The witness insisted that I call 9-1-1 first. Lacking the presence of mind to formulate an argument, I punched in 9-1-1 and then handed my phone to the witness -- I had no earthly idea what I would say to the operator. From the moment I had realised that the air bag had gone off, every conscious thought had disappeared from my mind. I saw things and heard things and I reacted to them and remember them clearly even now, seven years later, but I could not formulate my own thoughts. And I was aware of that. It was one of the strangest experiences I've ever had. I remember trying to get myself to think a conscious thought, but I couldn't. Even the idea of calling my dad was coming from some internal unconscious autopilot.

I borrowed a phone from a bystander and dictated my dad's cell number to her. Years of hearing my mother quote it to customers over the phone had internalised it to such a point that even in a state of shock I could rattle it off. The witness sent the call and handed the phone to me.

He picked up, but there was a long pause before he spoke. Somewhere in my subconscious I realised that he wouldn't recognise this number on his caller ID. "Dad, it's Kate," I said as quickly as possible to prevent him hanging up. "I've been in an accident."

There was a reason I called my dad. My mother would have absolutely lost her mind -- she had just filled the car up with gas the previous night. She would have lectured me about the money I'd just wasted by totalling the car -- not to mention the inevitable increase in insurance costs.

My dad, however, is a little more able to focus on important things in an emergency. "Where are you?" he asked.

...And I couldn't remember.

I still remember sitting on the passenger seat in the witnesses' car (she had insisted my sister and I sit because we were both clearly rattled), staring straight at the highway sign, knowing it contained the information I needed, but not able to read the numbers. I struggled in vain to translate the shapes on the sign into words that my dad would be able to understand.

Finally I said, "The turn Mom told me to take." I hadn't wanted to say it like that -- it would only awaken even more of her ire because then she would think I was blaming her for this and she's HIGHLY sensitive about being blamed for anything -- but it was all I could come up with that he would understand.

"I'll be there in ten minutes," he said, and hung up. I handed the phone back to the witness and told my sister he was coming. She was freaking completely out and it was all that the witness could do to keep her seated and wait for the police. Meanwhile, the dust I'd inhaled from the air bag was beginning to burn in the back of my throat and my lungs began to feel sticky inside. I was coughing more and more in a vain effort to try and clear it, and no amount of water would take the burning away. (To this day, I suffer from a chronic cough and breathing issues.)

At some point, somebody had pushed my car to the side of the road not far from where I sat in the witness' car. It was the first proper look I'd gotten of it and I gasped.

When you draw a car, you draw the hood, then go up a bit for the cab, then down a bit for the trunk. Now imagine erasing the entire hood, or imagine cutting off the hood of the car in line with the windshield. That was what I saw. The entire front of my car was gone.

"Where's the engine?" I asked the witness.

"It's in pieces in the intersection," she said.

I half-stood and looked over the roof of the witness' car. I expected to see semi-recognisable car parts -- you know, part of a fluid tank here, hoses there, maybe jagged chunks of plastic or a few gears.

Instead, I saw shards.

Millions of shards, like shattered glass, catching the light and throwing it across the damp pavement. That was all that was left of the engine.

My dad and the police arrived around the same time. The ambulance arrived shortly afterward and checked the occupants of the truck (there had been a baby in the truck, who was the higher priority) (the baby survived -- actually they all did), then came over to my sister and me. My sister outright refused to let the paramedics check her, but my breathing was so laboured by now that I insisted they check me. I felt like I was suffocating.

They took me to the ambulance and began checking me all over: "Does this hurt?" they asked, pressing on various parts of my body. Nothing did, until they got to my throat.

"Does this hurt?" the paramedic asked, touching his fingertips lightly on my throat. It was the lightest of brushes, but with my breathing restricted already, he may as well have closed his fist around my windpipe. I recoiled instinctively, with a gasp for good measure as I tried to keep breathing.

Without another word they had me lie down and strapped me down on a back board.

"Are you taking me to the hospital?" I asked.

"Yes, for x-rays."

"Can you tell my dad where I'm going?" I asked.

"Sure." They swung the ambulance around and opened the back door. I heard them talking...

"Do you want to talk to him?" one of the paramedics called to me.

"I just want him to know where I'll be," I said.

They drove me to the hospital, no sirens, asking me questions the whole way. Name, address, date of birth, contact information, next-of-kin... then at the end of all this, they asked me what province I was in and what year it was, to establish that everything they'd just spent ten minutes taking detailed notes on had a reasonable chance of being accurate.

They took me to the hospital, but the x-ray room was in use, so they wheeled me into a room in the emergency department and left me there for the better part of two hours, with oxygen because I had been complaining this entire time that I couldn't breathe (though their instruments showed I was at 98% saturation). Strapped to a back board, completely immoblised, with the events of the previous half-hour playing on an infinite loop through my head, I had no choice but to consider what might have been -- what I'd just escaped. My dad and sister arrived and talked quietly with each other as they waited. My sister was still freaking out and my dad and the nursing staff were both trying to assure her that I was not actually dying, that these x-rays were only a precaution.

I, meanwhile, was being shocked by the brevity and frailty of my own life. Even as I lay immobile on a hospital bed, feeling whiplash set into my neck muscles, I was acutely aware that I had been given a second chance. Every second I was experiencing now was a bonus second -- one that I may not have had. I pictured what it would have been like if I had died: seeing the truck's headlights and maybe the flash of red -- and then immediately seeing the 'lights of Glory.' I realised, suddenly, that I was not done on earth. I still had a purpose to fulfil here. And there on a hospital bed, staring at the pocked ceiling because I had no other choice, I vowed I would find that purpose and pursue it with every ounce of drive I possessed. Time was short, and a long life was not guaranteed.

They took x-rays of my neck, then, as there were no fractures, let me go. My dad actually dropped us off at our friends' house anyway. Life continued. I was sore and stiff and coughing violently nearly 24/7, but otherwise it was as if nothing had happened.

Several days -- perhaps a week -- later, my parents and I went to the impound lot to look at the car and retrieve the cassettes from it (because priorities). With a few days distance from the event and now able to think in clear sentences again, I was still shocked at the state of it. One detail that particularly caught my attention was the driver's side -- the side of the initial impact.

One of the witnesses had told my dad after I had left in the ambulance that day, "At the last second, she tried to swing the other way -- that probably saved her."

This was borne out by the car itself. There were five inches between the sheared-off edge of where the front of the car had been and the hinge of the driver's door, and gradually more of the car remained the further one looked toward the passenger side. I remember thinking, my legs would have been in that space -- the space that had been torn open by the truck. Yet my legs were preserved. It was not lost on me that I might never have walked again, yet here I was, still able to walk and dance as if nothing had happened.

For a long time that catalysed my fire to keep dancing. To me it was a sign that dance was still in my future. If God had wanted me to stop dancing, He would likely have taken my legs away right there -- if not my life. But I had remained. There was still something more for me. And I determined to devote my life to finding what it was and doing it.

The Quiet Miracle

Trigger warning -- suicide.


The twenty-second of December, 2009.

I was at my grandmother's house. They are trying to induce labour in my mother... again. Six times they've tried this. Six times she's been at least two weeks overdue no matter how many drugs they pump into her system. The fourth time, when I was only nine, they started inducing her over a full week before her due date. She went in for induction on 26 December that year, and I didn't see her or my dad again till 15 January, the day after my sister was born. In the meantime, my siblings and I were shuffled between extended family members with great abandon. And I, being the oldest, was expected to mind my similarly traumatised siblings, even as my own world seemed as if it was falling to pieces around me without my parents there to stabilise it.

Now, six years later, in 2009, here I am at my grandma's again, waiting for a 'successful' induction that will never be and well we all know it. But by now, the next-oldest sister has taken over some babysitting capabilities, and I am alone in my grandma's basement in the 1970s-orange spinning armchair.

The Christmas lights shine all around me -- the basement is the grandkids' Christmas decoration bonanza, where all Christmas heck breaks loose -- and the gas fireplace runs at regular intervals. This has been my place of solace for years. If the people get too much for me, I retreat here. This is my thinking space, this room, this chair, these warm-coloured surroundings. Some might find 1970s orange shag ugly, but I find it reassuring. (Thinking back, I'm surprised my looks-conscious grandmother lived with that carpet for twelve years.)

I stare at the TV cabinet, thinking, sinking deeply into the bleeding gash across my soul, the bleeding no-one will acknowledge, never mind attempt to stop. I stare at the TV cabinet, at the reflection of the Christmas lights making a plastic smile in the glass door, and I search my mind for the reasons I should live.

On the other end of the basement, in the kitchenette, in the first drawer on the right, are knives. Sharp, turkey-carving knives. I don't know how I know that's where they are, but somehow I do.

But suicide is not something to be taken lightly -- I know that much. So before doing anything, I must be sure this is what I want. To that end I'm sitting here thinking, making sure I really truly have nothing left to live for.

After at least an hour of contemplation, I come to the conclusion -- no. There is nothing.

I am convinced that no-one loves me. That no-one would notice I was gone. Or, that if I was gone, they could finally be happy because then -- finally -- I would have done something 'right.' Then I would be out of their hair and they wouldn't have to deal with needy, annoying me anymore. Perhaps my death would be the only way I could please them, and I so wanted to do well -- to please them, so then they would finally be able to love me. The irony was not lost on me -- that if I was dead, therefore they would finally be able to be happy with me and to love me, I wouldn't actually be able to experience that love and appreciation. But no matter -- at least I could be at peace knowing they would be pleased with me for sensing when I wasn't wanted and removing myself from their lives so they could live in peace, without having to deal with me.

Yes... yes. This was the only way. I didn't want it to be, but there was no reason for me to stay. They wouldn't love me as long as I was here, and all I wanted to do was to make them happy for once.

I sat there in that chair for a good hour (maybe more, I don't know -- time doesn't matter much when you're going to die), thinking it through, every angle, trying to foresee any potential hitch.

No. There was none. All I had to do was get up, cross the room to the kitchenette, and get out a knife. And that would be it. And then they -- that is, everyone -- could finally live in peace, knowing that I would never bother them again.

I sat there. And sat there. Visualising everything, how it would play out. My arms rested, fully and utterly relaxed, on the overstuffed arms of the orange chair. I sank deep into the cushion, my weight, my head, pressing against the back. Comfy. Too tired, too spent, to get up. I wasn't so much sitting in the chair as the chair was holding me. My body was totally relaxed for once. I had surrendered to the chair's sturdy padding.

I stared blankly into the fireplace, still thinking through my decision. Letting my mind wander a little, for the last time. Thinking... would there be anything I would miss? I was crying, inexplicably. But the tears meant nothing. It was only the bleeding, gaping soul wound doing a little housecleaning.

My body sank deeper and deeper into the chair. It wasn't particularly warm, but it was my grandma's and that was enough. I let my head fall back, still thinking, still feeling numb pain, waiting for the decisive moment. Giving someone, anyone, one last chance to call me up and tell me how much they loved me and how much I meant to them, like in all the stories... you know the ones, where someone's decided to kill themselves, and just before they take the pills/fire the gun/whatever, someone they know randomly calls or shows up and says, 'I don't know why, but I really felt like I needed to tell you how much I love you...'

Well, God. Give me one reason.

I waited. I waited.

No-one did.

Time passed, and the wound stretched bigger. So even God wouldn't send someone to stop me? Even God was just going to apathetically let me die?

My grandma came down and told me to come upstairs for supper. I did without a fuss. I had no reason to disobey.

The rest of the evening is lost to me. I don't remember what I did after supper. I don't remember if we stayed the night or if my dad picked us up so we could spend the night at home. He must have because on the morning of the twenty-third I was at home, ironing my mother's present before wrapping it.



Four days later, 26 December 2009.

I was at a family gathering -- the extended-extended family (my great-grandmother's descendants) Christmas celebration. Sitting at the table next to my (predictably still-pregnant) mother and my aunt, I suddenly felt horribly sick -- faint and hot.

I remember my mother calling my dad over and then everything began to shift and I closed my eyes. I heard voices around me, voices I knew, but it was too much effort to discern what they were saying. My heart felt like it was racing. I was only vaguely aware of someone taking my right arm.

"What's her normal heart rate?"

"I don't know. We've never really paid attention."

"Either way, it's too fast."

"Do you trust me?"

It took a moment for me to register the words were directed at me.

"Do you trust me?"

I couldn't breathe. My head felt like it would explode.

"I guess."

"I'm going to carry you to your vehicle and your dad's going to take you to the hospital. Okay?"

I nodded and was carried, without a coat, into the sharp December air, into the rattletrap (the family vehicle at the time). I lay limp in the seat as my dad drove the two blocks to the hospital. I don't recall if I even had the strength to buckle my seat belt.

My dad stopped outside Admitting and brought out a wheelchair for me, then wheeled me into the emergency room and went back to park the van.

The emergency room was full -- my dad took the last empty seat -- but my ashen face and irregular racing heartbeat got me in within five minutes. I realised years later that they had honestly thought I was dying.

I was given an IV -- to this day I have no idea what it was for or what was in it -- and tests were taken. An hour later the doctor came back with a verdict and a prescription. The former was a dangerously low hemoglobin count, and the latter was for the most disgusting substance on the face of the Earth. I swear they scrape the stuff out of the murky depths of Hell and bottle it and give it to the innocent populace with the wide-eyed promise that it'll restore their iron levels (which it never does, at least not enough that you can stop taking it).

Anemia. A curse that never goes away. It causes not only prescriptions for the nastiest substance in the galaxy, but it causes lightheadedness/dizziness, extreme weakness, and a complete inability on the part of the doctors to diagnose you with anything but anemia ("Fractured leg? It's because you're anemic. Take more iron. You'll be fine"). And based on the fact that I was only six points away from getting a blood transfusion, I had been crashing for a while.

At least four days.

I didn't make the connection until November 2012, when I inserted the experience as backstory in a novel (nothing is sacred). Only then did I see the miracle that happened that day, 22 December 2009.

God didn't send anyone to stop me. He Himself, who formed my body, reached down and stopped me.

That 'curse' -- that curse saved my life that day. I was already crashing, too weak to get up. And that saved my life. Because I can tell you if I had gotten as far as the knife in my hand I would not be writing this now.

This Is Why I Still Live At Home

So my youngest brother is in the hospital overnight (please pray for him, by the way; this is the worst I've ever heard him), and I wound up watching the others until Dad got home from work. This requires me to cook supper.

The ensuing phone call to my mother went something like this...

Me: How far in advance do you have to start scalloped potatoes? That's what's on the menu.
(Clarification: Meals around here are planned out and posted on the fridge weekly.)

Mom: Actually, it's probably too late to start scalloped potatoes.

Me: So then what do I make?

Mom: You could have soup.

Me: I don't know how to make soup.

Mom: *sigh*

And now she'll be upset when they get home because she just cleaned the stove and of course the soup boiled over.

This Is Why I Cannot Read People

My mother, when it's cold out and the power is on:

"What do you mean, it's cold? It's only minus fifteen with a stiff wind -- Don't you dare touch that thermostat! Go get another blanket! Goodness, just because you suddenly decided it was a little cold..."

(Obviously failing to take into account the fact that I have no more blankets to use and yes, that is ice built up on the insides of all the windows in the house...)

My mother, when it's cold out and the power goes out:

"All right, just when are they finally going to get the power back on so we can run the furnace already?"

Me: *assorted you-had-your-chance grumbling under breath*

Worthless

Today we had another family get-together. This was the other side of my family, making up for the one we didn't do for Thanksgiving (my uncle had to work that day).

This side of the family is usually a lot of fun. And today was no different. We played games and talked and made jokes and laughed and ate and I just tried not to say anything too harsh (it's gotten me in trouble here before).

It was great fun.

Then, as everyone was leaving, my grandmother said, "Now Kate will wash the dishes, right?"

I shrugged. I probably wouldn't get around to it, even though there weren't that many.

"No," my mother said, "she's probably got a few thousand words to write yet."

I nodded.

My aunt asked, "How many novels have you written so far?"

Before I could answer my grandmother said, "None. It's not a novel until it's published."

...Well. Thanks for the vote of confidence.

She should have slapped me across the face and followed up with a punch to the gut. It would have stung less.

Especially in the wake of the words she'd spoken earlier that day... she had hugged me and told me she loved me just the way I was.

Just the way I am, huh?

But only as long as 'just the way I am' means I sell out Broadway and get televised worldwide on my first foray into the 'professional' dance world. It means I write 'The End' at 50,000 words of rough draft and get a multimillion dollar publishing contract two days later. It means I sing one solo for church and get inducted into the Music Hall of Fame. It means I get paid a quarter million a month just to breathe.

That is the definition of 'just the way you are.'

But these things take time. I have to revise the novels and send them out. I have to compose and write down the choreography and assemble the costumes. I have to find other dancers to perform this with, for the love of applesauce. I have to keep practicing singing and develop my stage presence and grow my repertoire (not to mention my audience).

I thought old people were the patient ones. The slow-and-steady-wins-the-race ones.

How successful do I have to be? Isn't it enough that I'm doing what I'm pretty sure God has called me to and that I'm enjoying it, even if only ten people see my work?

If I have to earn your love it's not worth it.

Music Day

It's November!

Not only is that NaNoWriMo, it's also winter!

...Mostly.

You see, though I live in one of the snowiest places on Earth (apparently), today was only the first snowfall. Typically snow starts accumulating here around the second week of October. According to my father, this is the first year since 1962 (or was it 1963?) that there has been no snow accumulation in October in our area.

It's all rather depressing. (For some of us, anyway.)

But today...

Today was the first snowfall! It's not much, but at least it's white and it's still on the front deck well after noon.

Also today, my mother brought out her Christmas music!

And nothing says Christmas is coming like hearing this song: 

Title: Overture/O Come All Ye Faithful

Artist: Michael W. Smith

Album: Christmas

Year: 1989

Label: Reunion Records

iTunes here; YouTube here. (You'll have to turn it up, especially at the beginning.)

When you're talking about Christmas music it's hard to play favourites (especially with my mother's collection), but I have to say this is possibly my favourite Christmas album ever. It's timeless. You can listen a hundred times and it's still just as beautiful as the first time.

Music Day

This song makes me think of bright colours, neon lights, and rollerblading. I don't know why.
Still, it's a lesser-known song from this band that seems just a little different from their mainstream hits -- quirky maybe? Perhaps it's just me. It just feels like a breath of fresh air. Not that they really had any stale songs (up until the release of the Born Again album, anyway). It's like hearing a new hit from a band you used to love but somehow forgot about. I've had this song for several years now and I've yet to tire of it.
Also, my mother likes this song. There you go... this is certified cool now.
(For those new around here, read this and this to get a sense of her musical tastes.)

Title: Spirit Thing
Artist: Newsboys
Album: Going Public
Year: 1994
Label: Star Song
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Music Day

As a teenager, my mother owned tapes from bands like White Heart, Petra, and PFR.

In other words, she was a rocking metalhead.

That hasn't really left her, either. Even now, when a song with a good beat comes on the radio or if there's a Petra/White Heart/PFR CD in the stereo she cranks up the volume.

A while back, she and I were running some errands in her huge twelve-passenger van, and this song came on the radio.

Title: Here In This Moment
Artist: Beckah Shae
Album: Life
Year: 2010
Label: Shae Shoc Records
iTunes here, YouTube here

So we have a woman with greying hair and a very serious-looking young person in a van the size of Denmark. Odd enough, right?

Now add Here In This Moment cranked up until the doors are literally rattling.

We pulled up to one of the busiest traffic lights in the city, bass thumping, van rattling, and the older woman rocking out in the driver's seat.

It kind of felt good to see the poor man in the car beside us laughing his head off. At least we made his day.

Apologies for not posting something more obscure -- I was going to post this story in itself and thought 'well, I need a music day post anyway...'