And there she was...gone REDUX

JUNE 25/10 and July 13/10 (27 and 30 weeks)

It's been four days and I only now have the courage to even write about it. Four days ago, for several heart-stopping moments, my child disappeared from me.

We were headed to the water park to cool down from the heat that had finally come down on Vancouver after weeks of mercilessly gray skies. Nahanni and Pella ran ahead of us, eager to climb on the equipment. We watched them clamber onto the slide, laughing as we skirted the park with the stroller to park ourselves in a copse of shade just on the other side of the playground. We chatted as we began to unpack the food, the sunscreen, the stuff of an outing with kids. I turned around to look at the girls, the quick check-in you do as your child begins to gain independence from you and when I didn't immediately see her, I wasn't alarmed. I stood there, hand on forehead to block out the early day's sun, scanning for her little red hat. I knew she wouldn't be far - she never wanders, wouldn't leave Pella...but then I realized that I just couldn't see her.

Anywhere.

In the space of thirty seconds my blood pressure went from calm to panicked. My heart raced as my stomach fell. I looked at Kendall and I said 'My god, she's not there!' and my first real thought was that someone had come and snatched my child. My child who never wanders, my child who would not leave her friend -- but I also fought that notion, I told myself that is so rare, that Pella would have screamed, that she had to be somewhere, but she wasn't. She really was gone. My pulse thundered in my ears as I began to call her name with increasing alarm, my eyes scanning furiously in the trees behind the playground. I walked quickly, yelling for her, the urgency rising in my voice. My stride quickened with my poor heart, I was stuffing the panic down, trying to stay calm. My voice grew louder and I was close to screaming as I looked back and met Kendall's gaze. I saw in her face something I never wanted to see; she knew too that Nahanni was gone. I started to run and as I ran up the little set of stairs towards the field that led to the parking lot I saw a woman waving her arms at me, some 50 metres away. She started to point and I looked and saw Nahanni, bewildered, frightened as me. I yelled to her and when she saw me she threw her arms wide and burst into tears, running toward me full speed, yelling for me 'MOMMA!'. Like a scene from some awful film we ran towards each other and I scooped up my sobbing child, somehow stifling my own sob in my throat. She pressed herself to me and I dropped down and just held her to me for a good ten minutes. For a good ten minutes we just sat in the pool of relief that surrounded us both. I held her and rocked her and whispered that she was okay. She buried her head into me, sucking her thumb and crying quietly and for a moment she was my little baby again. I breathed her in, trying to release the horror of that moment in which I really thought I had lost my daughter. I talked to her about what had happened, reiterated all the lessons I thought we'd been through before and I finally came to realize that she simply hadn't seen us skirt the edge of the playground, that when she turned to see where I was, well...

There I was. Gone.

She had simply doubled back to where she had last seen us. The woman who found her said she wasn't crying, she was very calm, she was just searching and calling for me. I feel like a thousand times I have told her that if she were ever lost to find a mommy and stick with her until she brings her to me and in one little moment it all seemed to fall apart. It was amazing how quickly she recovered and was back to herself, playing in the water. How quickly tragedy returns to normalcy and we laugh about how scary it was. I know we both kept an even keener eye on our kids that day. It is a hard road, this road to independence. We try to let them be kids, but in one second you can see how things can go pear-shaped, no matter how vigilant you are. I don't want to be falsely paranoid about the real dangers in my child's life, I don't want to say 'no' to everything because we have a false sense of the dangers that face them. I want her to be brave and independent and to challenge herself and me.

But...

But really, that scared the living sh*t out of me and I hope it never happens again.

And there she was...gone

She isn't here.

For the first time in her life, she will not sleep at home, will not be here when I wake. We had dinner with Tracy and Adrian and she came back in from the trampoline next door and begged to stay with Talulla and Sadie. My first instinct was to say no, and I did, but then I thought about it and wondered what reason I had to say no. I said to Ez - should we ask her and make sure she is ready? I took her aside and talked to her about it, about what it means to have a sleep over. I explained that Mommy and Daddy wouldn't be there and that she would wake up at their house and not ours...was that okay? She was excited, insistent that it was, that she was fine. I felt torn - for whom would I be saying no? For me, for her dad? Because though we were both utterly unprepared and a bit apprehensive, Nahanni was fine. She was primed. She was excited. She went pee, threw on pj's, brushed her teeth in between giggling with the girls. I stood there, feeling torn, worried...almost overwhelmed. It felt strange to be leaving her there - anywhere, really - and to go home without her. I've never spent a single night away from my child and I'm not sure if I was ready (and Ez really wasn't ready).

But she was.

She was so happy and excited she scarcely could pull herself away to say goodbye. Ez and I stood back, both of us (I think) wanting some kind of long kiss goodbye, but she was already ensconced with the other girls, giggling and hopping on her mattress, inspecting the pink sheets, the beige blanket, picking stories for the night. Her dad and I stood there at the door, lingering helplessly and when she couldn't even manage a wave over her shoulder we slunk out, empty handed. We entered the car in silence, me torn between feeling so proud of her for being ready and scared because maybe I'm not. I wanted to laugh at how strange it felt, how quickly that corner was turned but the tension in the car was palpable. If I felt a bit apprehensive, I can now say that Ez seemed downright perturbed. More than just the shocky feeling of such an unexpected turn in the evening, he felt...what? Like he'd gotten pressed into agreeing. He felt unhappy, not because he'd really see her any less - she'd have gone home to bed and I'd have been up with her for hours in the morning before he even got up - but because at the snap of two fingers our little girl had turned a corner. She has passed into a realm that now extends past us, past our home even, and he really was not ready for that to happen. I wasn't quite ready either, at least tonight, but I seemed more ready than he.

I suppose it is a real turning point in her young life, what will eventually be commomplace now seems like a giant turn of events. Driving home in a silent car, tension thrumming between us (that's just how daddy rolls) without her little noises in the backseat. I tried to talk to him about how happy it made her, but he was just living in his feelings of being upset, of feeling left behind in this major moment that he wasn't ready for...so entering the house without her, suddenly her little empty ballet shoes held a poignancy they wouldn't have otherwise. Her leftover 'cheesy-beedles' from lunch, her chair pulled up to the sink where she'd washed her hands - these little things held a certain loneliness to them. I don't mean to be melodramatic, but still I think 'Oh! Where's my girl!?'

I know where she is - she is with friends that I trust like family. She is lying in a darkening room laughing with her friends. She is a little girl testing her boundaries. May she always be ready to push herself, and even if we are not always ready for it, may we always know when it's fine to say yes.

Sleep well, lovely girl. You'll be in my dreams and I'll see you tomorrow. Bright and early I bet. For me, not for you.