Page 81 of Finding the Pieces

“Yes.” I sigh, noting how much lighter the burden feels. “It’s like I can breathe again.”

“I’ve never wanted to push you to talk about it, but I thinkyouneed to push yourself,” Bec says with conviction. “Dom is asking us to open doors for you. We’re inviting you in, asking you to share this with us. We want to help, but you need to walk through those doors on your own. We’re waiting for you when you’re ready.”

Chapter forty-two

Ellie

Iwalk along the beach early the next morning, having tiptoed outside, flip-flops in hand, to avoid waking the girls.

When I opened my eyes, there was an immediate pull to come here. To steal this peaceful, secret moment with my toes sinking in the sand, those first morning rays warming my skin, and the warm, salty air filling my lungs.

I take a step into the shoreline. Sand shifts beneath my feet as the waves ebb and flow against my calves and ankles, each time my foundation sinks a little lower, feeling for a moment more unstable, then settling into a stronger, more rooted footing. One after another, the surging waves ripple against my legs, wetting my skin at various heights, leaving my skin exposed and slightly chilled.

The sounding crash of waves farther from the coast is forceful, an echoing reminder of the ocean’s strength. For a moment I’m connected to the sand, the ocean, and the breeze.

The burdening weight of everything on my mind comes crashing down so suddenly, I can’t fight it. I don’t even try, too tired to fight this any longer. I choose to finally let myself feel…I let myself feel it all.

I envision the waves barreling toward me, demolishing the walls I’ve built around my mind and heart. I let the waves tear them down and relish in therelease of everything I’ve buried, everything I’ve hidden away from everyone, even myself.

Fear, suffocating and sharp, comes crashing in waves as violent as the ones sounding in the distance, and it pulls me under. I’m drowning in the sudden onslaught of panic; it fills my mouth, my lungs, my soul.

All I can see is the nurse’s face. All I can hear is my own agony as I scream, wailing in pain. My last thoughts before they put me under race through my mind, plaguing me with terror:Is this real? Will I see my family again? Will I ever hold my baby? Will we survive this together?

My throat constricts and a pit sinks into my stomach, hard and heavy. Every muscle in my body pulls taut; the drive to fight or take flight is overtaken by the instinct to freeze.

I think over and over and over,I don’t want to die. Let us live. Keep us safe. I don’t want to die. Let us live. Keep us safe.

Who I’m talking to, I’m not sure. Religion has never felt like home for me, but I send out the thoughts anyway, into the void of darkness as the anesthesia takes me under into nothingness.

Tears continue rolling silently down my face, the droplets falling from my chin, gently pattering against my chest as they wet my shirt.

Memories flash through my mind again, and again, some more distinct while others remain blurry and unclear. I relieve every brutal moment of birth. Tiny, insignificant details I’ve buried deep inside come raging to the forefront of my mind. The way the iodine felt on my stomach when they applied it to my skin. The shape of the anesthesiologist’s glasses as he stared into my eyes and counted down from ten. The inflection in the voice of the person calling out the baby’s—my baby’s—heart rate.

Eventually the tears stop, my shoulders droop with exhaustion, and my breath heaves out of my chest in a weighted huff.

My body is heavy, but my mind is weightless. My heels sink lower in the sand, but my thoughts are flying, freer than they’ve been since that day.

That horrible, beautiful, ruined, perfect day.

I wiggle my fingers and they brush my thighs. I sway against the pulse of the water drumming into my legs.

My thoughts begin to shift, melting into a new stream of consciousness, a new narrative I want to believe: I could never be defined by any one moment in my life. I have to believe that I am more than that.

I’m here. We’re here.

I’m safe. We’re safe.

Maybe the rest of my story will surprise me and hold the joy I wished for with the ease I always imagined I’d feel. The joy that just a few months ago felt out of reach forever.

Maybe the thorns and thistles that barb around my hurting heart have helped root me deeper into who I am.

Trauma buried its thorns so deeply within me, trying to take everything I had. It almost did, but it left me with something precious as well. The freedom to live my life without holding back, because I almost didn’t get to see this moment, and neither did my son. Nothing can hurt me as much as when I believed we’d miss out on a life together as a family.

The expectations that stifle me, the judgments that shame me, the comments that rattle me. None of them mean anything. I don’t have space to give a shit about any of it.

I didn’t ease into motherhood with the beautiful birth I’d envisioned, like the stories people love to share or the ones they show in the media.

I crashed into motherhood at breakneck speed, stumbling out of the wreckage when someone threw a newborn baby into my arms and saidgood luck.

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