My Sons

This sculpture is titled 'The Child Who Was Never Born' by Martin Haduceka (National Art Society). I found it on my Facebook feed, posted by Kay Weber.

And it made me smile - kind of a wistful, wry smile - but a smile nonetheless.

Because it makes me think about the sons who were never born, mine own sons.

Through the years I've thought of them often, which is perhaps unavoidable. I don't think any mother who has lost a child before birth can not think about them.

The years pass, you know. For a long time I thought of them as riding on my shoulders, miniature versions of what their own selves would have become, like little guardian angels but still my babies.

Then they grew too big for me to carry them, in my thoughts and in my heart. I envisioned them as the growing boys they would have been. Not all the time, mind you ... I had their sisters to raise - their older sisters and their younger ones - but once in a while I would see a boy who was the age they'd have been right about then, and think, 'Ah, maybe my boys are playing ball, or riding horseback, or shooting marbles' ... or whatever ... wherever they were ... It eased my mother-heart to think of them, sometimes, as growing up.

When they would have been in their teens I envisioned them as having become bigger than me. They came and went, but were always standing just back of my shoulders when I thought of them, strong and tough or laughing at me (as their sisters do now and then) depending on the circumstances that brought them into my mind.

At times, because people understand it better that way, I refer to them as my guardian angels. But angels they are not. No son of a Branson woman will ever be angelic, at least not all the time. Nor are they devils, mind you, for basically the same reason. They are simply themselves, if selves they indeed might be - who knows?

Losing the first one almost killed me, inside where my soul lives. And I thought to myself that if ever such a thing happened again surely I would die.

I did not die when I lost my second son.

Since then I've not been afraid of much of anything. 

Maybe, just maybe, that has something to do with a couple of things. One of those things is that once you've lived through what you were sure would kill you, there's not much left to be afraid of. The other might be the strange sensation that someone's always got your back - somehow - 

My sons would be well into their adult years now, grown men. 

There have been times I've wondered, you know that's only natural, whether they would have been artistic or athletic, easy-going or intense, tall and dark and handsome like their father or smaller like me with my hair and my eyes - or a combination - or throwbacks to some past generations ... 

That's something I may never know, but I like to think that one day I may be able to find out. 

People often talk about those who die as becoming angels ... which isn't possible because the angels have never been human nor ever will be. However, the concept of human souls continuing beyond the death of the human body is something to cherish. One day we'll know for sure, and what a precious thought that is.