I NEVER HELD HER
I dreamed about him.
Even though far too much time had passed for him to still find his way into my dreams.
But he did.
He looked exactly the way he had the last time I saw him. Exactly as I had left him behind. The part of my life that had never been good for me.
And me?
I was standing opposite him.
Only a few days away from my twenty-eighth birthday.
“Too young for me. Too immature. Just like all the others,” he had once said.
We were standing on what looked like an endless sandy beach.
In his arms, he held a tiny sky-blue blanket.
He never let go of it.
Inside, peacefully asleep, was a baby boy.
He wasn’t crying.
He looked as though heaven itself had wrapped him in its arms, shielding him from every sorrow.
I reached out, begging him to let me hold the baby.
Just once.
Please.
But it was as if he couldn’t hear me.
He didn’t move.
Didn’t even acknowledge that I was there.
I tried again.
Nothing.
He simply kept looking down at the little boy, smiling, refusing to let me come any closer.
Then I stepped back.
Another step.
My knees gave way beneath me.
I fell onto the sand, covering my face with trembling hands, hoping they could somehow hide the tears pouring down my cheeks.
I knelt before him.
My voice broke as I begged.
“Please... just let me hold him for a second.”
Nothing.
“It’s not fair.”
I never said the words aloud.
“This isn’t fair.”
“You never even wanted children.”
“You said they were a burden. That they ruined lives. That they were too much responsibility.”
“And now... you’re holding your son.”
By then, it wasn’t only my voice that had shattered.
My heart...
My soul...
It felt as though both had been scattered across the endless sand beneath me.
“It’s not fair...”
I kept crying.
Kept falling deeper into my own grief.
Until the two of them slowly disappeared before my eyes...
...leaving me completely alone.
Then I woke up.
In my bed.
Holding the same stuffed toy that, even today, is my only comfort when loneliness becomes too loud.
The tears came instantly.
The quiet kind.
The ones that hurt the most.
I didn’t even try to stop them.
Inside, I was screaming.
Outside, I simply let the tears fall.
“I lost my Mia.”
“I never even got the chance to hold her.”
“She didn’t stay with me for more than five weeks.”
“And him?”
“Maybe today he really is holding a son in his arms.”
“Even though he always said he never wanted children.”
“How unfair would that be?”
“Someone who never wanted them gets to have them...”
“While someone who wanted nothing more loses that chance.”
“I lost mine long before you ever came into my life.”
Those thoughts echoed through my mind as I cried in silence.
Eventually, I wiped away my tears.
I got out of bed.
Looked at myself...
...and quietly whispered,
“Maybe you never gave birth to her.”
“Maybe you never got to bring her into this world.”
“But you’re still a mother.”
“The mother of an angel.”
