If you could zoom through space in the speed of light, what place would you go to right now?

That’s today’s assignment. My mind raced as I mulled that one over. A Janis Joplin concert? My perfect moment in the woods when I was a child? Ancient Egypt? Which adventure would I choose? When my answer hit me, it was actually quite sobering, but real. And writing is often about bringing perceived reality and actual reality to light. Right?

I know where I would go.

It would be a small, slightly chilly room where I was strung with wires. A nurse hovered over me, shaking her head. “We are just waiting for him to show some movement–just a kick or something–during this time frame.” She said. Or something very similar to that. I don’t remember the exact quote.

I do remember that I laughed as I told the nurse to let me roll to my left side since he always kicked when I did that.

The nurse nodded and helped me roll my prodigious belly to the left. Levi kicked and passed the test with seconds to spare.

It was one of his last kicks.

How I wish I could retract my words. He would probably have failed the test, and we would have investigated further. Maybe induced labor to keep him alive.

Then again, maybe if he had lived our next child wouldn’t have come into existence. Or the one after that. I don’t know. I remind myself that we all did the best we could with the reality we had. If that child was meant to live, he would have.

But if I can imagine myself traveling through time and space, I’d also like to allow myself the freedom to merge my actual reality and that alternate reality in my mind–and picture all my sons together–if only for a moment. I cling to the hope that will happen someday in Heaven.

* The Featured Image today is where we said goodbye to Levi.