The Monkey's Paw

I used to love the story, The Monkey's Paw. One of my all time favorites. Nothing so creepy as the thought of something dead coming to the door. Something you invited yourself.

It isn't so much creepy to me anymore as sad. And I get it. I understand that mother's wish. If she had just wished BETTER, I think. If she had just been more specific, more clear in her magical thinking...

I understand more than ever the wish for a real monkey's paw, to have the power over life and death, to be the one in control. Would I make the wish? In a heartbeat. Would I die to do it? In a heartbeat.

In the end, the mother who made the wish says to the horrified father, "You're afraid of your own son? I'm coming! I'm coming!" as she runs to answer the door.

But I get it.

It's insane, it's twisted, it's wrong beyond any natural order of things, and yet, I know her pain, her longing to see her son, to hold him in her arms just one more time, dead, alive, undead, who the hell cares?

Today another mother who lost her child lamented that she didn't have a handprint of her baby. I lamented that I didn't have a picture of William's little feet. Or his whole little body, without all the coverings. We don't have a monkey's paw, we can't wish them back. And yet we're still left wishing for little things we can't have because the cruelty of time has now passed - a handprint, a photo we forgot, a bit of their umbilical cord.

Today, mothers with live babies wished for a full night's sleep.
Today, I slept until noon.
Today, mothers with live babies wished for time to take a shower.
Today, I could care less how I smell.
Today, mothers with live babies wished for time to eat a meal in peace.
Today, I forgot to eat.

Today William would have been three weeks old, if I'd pushed him out alive.