Musings

Saying goodbye to mi abuelo’s house.

My darling child @mickeymagpie was a mere 18 months old, and on this cursed day we traversed the land in search of provisions, eventually arriving at the establishment of oversized, buy one get 12 free goods known as Costco.

With child on one hip and diaper bag on the other, I muttered a prayer of thanks to the gods for the doublewide carts for procuring the giant goods, and plopped child down in one seat and diaper bag in the other. 

Child suddenly gasped in horror and brought both hands over their mouth, eyes bugging out and welling up with tears. I thought perhaps I had plopped them onto an angry wasp, and equally alarmed, asked, “What?! What is it? What’s wrong?”

Tears began spilling out as child tried to form words, and my alarm grew since child was normally ridiculously loquacious and even at such a young age sometimes used words I didn’t know. Between ragged breaths of sheer grief they finally managed to slowly get out - 

“You. Killed. Baby. Butterfly.”

My own eyes bugged out and I followed the small one’s gaze to the diaper bag. 

“You SQUISHED her!”

The child wailed. People looked on. My mind raced. 

Baby Butterfly was the changeling’s child’s first imaginary {who’s to say what’s real and what’s not, really} friend, who had accompanied us everywhere for some months. 

Whom I had apparently just unceremoniously violently squished with a diaper bag.

Overwhelmed with grief and probably in shock, and also desperately wanting the wailing to stop and the people to turn away, I lifted the bag and threw it into the back of the cart, and scooped up a small amount of the air where it had sat.

“Baby Butterfly! Baby Butterfly! You’re alright, Baby Butterfly. Right? See? See? She’s okay!”

Child continued wailing and shook their head slowly. 

“NO. She’s DEAD. YOU killed her.”

I shifted Baby Butterfly into one hand and poked at her with the other. 

“No, I think she’s just hurt. I’ll help her breathe again.” 

And then I proceeded to do CPR. On my own empty hands. At Costco. With onlookers. And a wailing, moaning in grief child.

I don’t think I got the ratio of breaths to chest compressions right, and perhaps even when applied lightly with one finger that was the thing that ultimately did poor Baby Butterfly in.

“She’s okay?” I whispered hopefully.

“No. No! She’s DEAD. Baby Butterfly is dead. And YOU killed her.”

The trauma was long-lasting, as some 3 years later the child waltzed into the kitchen where I was cooking, looked at me somewhat suspiciously and said, “Do you want to meet my imaginary friend?”

Delighted to finally see a semblance of normalcy {who’s to say what’s normal, really} in the child I happily replied, “Yes! Of course.” 

They gestured to the air beside them and grandly announced, “This is Nobody. He eats nothing. And lives nowhere.” 

Then with those damning eyes piercing my soul, “He sleeps outside.”