Dreams for My Children: a Poem for Corrie and Her Brother

In a dream, 
I heard her laughter. 
She bounced on the bed
I could feel her arms
around me, and see her
curls wrap around her 
face. As always, her 
hair flew unkempt,
unbrushed as if she'd 
just read Where the Wild
Things Are. I'd laugh
and tell her, "She was
one of the the wild 
things," before she'd sing
"How many monkeys are
on the bed?"  Because in 
those days, she'd think 
Daddy wasn't looking, 
Mommy didn't see, and
she made big brother
promise not to tell; so 
she bounced on the bed.

I had dreams of my daughter;
of everything she'd be.
She was my second little 
monkey to bounce on the bed. 
I had dreams for my daughter.
She was learning how to read.
She'd often tell her brother, 
"Hayes, read your book aloud
just like me."  He rolled his 
eyes, made a noise, and 
wandered off to bed.   I 
smiled knowing they were
the perfect brother-sister
mix. I thanked God for
such blessings when I 
still spoke with God for 
the two children who 
came from where the 
wild things are.

I woke up from the dream, 
and realized she was gone. 
I had to breathe and recall why
I didn't hear her sing.  There's
an empty room across the 
hall from me where my 
little girl used to sleep, 
but I can't stop moving.
I can't wonder when I will
see her again.  Right now,
it's only in my dreams. 

But she's not the only dream.
I have dreams for my son.  
I have to fight harder, 
run when I wish to walk, 
for where our daughter had 
birthday parties where 
everyone showed up, we drove
our son to the beach to ride the 
ferris wheel. We never wanted
to live the moment when no 
child showed up for his 
birthday party because he 
got a good part of my
neuroatypical mind.  

You know from the days when 
they'd played together, and 
you had two monkeys 
bouncing in the bed that 
they were crafted differently
for dreams in the world.

They both have been to 
where the wild things are.  
When he walks into the 
room and he sees my face,
he says, "Mother, I am here." 
When a mother walks by
with twin daughters in 
a stroller, he gets in the way. 
He says, "Mother, I don't 
want you to see. I don't
want you get sad."  I know
there are struggles when 
it comes to how he reads,
but he's learned how to 
read me better than 
anyone ever could.

I tell my son that I used to 
stutter, my preschool 
teacher didn't think much of 
me, and my Kindergarten
educator thought I had 
problems that she couldn't 
read.  I thought differently,
didn't color inside the lines,
and I always struggled 
in how to socialize. 
There was a time, son, that
I couldn't read.  I was the 
last to be considered for 
those to achieve.  But ... 
for all the times 
I struggled and took others' 
dislike to my heart, my son 
talks tales perhaps no one 
else understands to 
tune out the words. 

My son once admitted,
no long after our daughter 
was gone, that he disappeared
into his imagination and
movies no one could ever read
because it helped him to 
shut out the words other kids 
said to him.  I told him he was
stronger than I was at his age, 
 He said, "I never want them 
to see in the dark forest, or the 
mysterious beyond," because
to see into a divergent mind 
meant to get too close to him; 
too close to her. 

I had dreams for my daughter,
but now they are gone.  I have 
dreams for my son, and he for
himself, but I don't know what
road such hope will take.  He 
still knows where the wild 
things are, and I long to see 
the voyage such a ship
will take beyond a gray 
horizon where wild dreams
grow.