Another one...

I was curious to go back and revisit some of my other drowning dreams, and found this one which was of interest to me, which took place when Liam was an infant, just after the great Tsunami in southeast asia.

I had great news: Charlotte was found. (Found?! This is, indeed, the opposite of lost) I was going to be allowed to hold her while she slept for three hours each night, after Liam was tucked into bed. I was so relieved. The relief was overwhelming, swamping. You would think, perhaps, from your perspective that I might have been disappointed not to be able to just re-integrate her into my family? No, I was grateful, deeply grateful to have anything with her, that three hours a night would seem like heaven.
So I had her, and I was holding her, she was about 1, and she was robust and warm in my arms, and asleep. I was so happy. The feeling of fullness, which I can reconnect to so easily now, I can't even describe it. I was ecstatic. Content. I could not see her face, but I knew it was her. We were outside on a deck, overhanging a beach. It was beautiful and tropical. I don't know where the rest of my family was, except that they were safe, and I was there with Charlotte, and I felt so proud to have her with me.
Then I saw it: the wave. A huge, momentous, gigantic wave was coming. It was far out in the ocean, but I could tell it would engulf us, and sweep us off our feet in mere moments. I held on to Charlotte with all my might, but realized that with both arms clinging to her, I would not be able to swim. How could I do this? To hold on to her, and both die, I would lose her anyway. To lose her again seemed too much to bear. I would try. The wave approached, and I tucked her under my arm, tightly, and prepared for it to sweep us, and the deck chairs, and the palm brush on the beach, and the deck itself out into the ocean.
The wave came, and I struggled under the water, and felt her release from under my arm, and she was gone.

Gone again, the result of the dream perhaps that it is impossible for me to save the child who is already lost.

Today I leave for 3 days with my family, and Henry's family (see 5/12) to New Hampshire to let our boys romp and our girls dress up in fairy costumes and for us to sit in a hot tub and dig in the sand and enjoy life. I will be back on Wednesday.