I’ve been hiding in my tiny space, cocooned with my new sprigs of plants, ready for spring. Axel sprays them daily, watching them grow. Small shoots pierce through the soil, and then comes his small gasp of wonder.
I live my days intentionally through his small joys. His – and his big brother’s.
While Axel gasps at the simplest wonders, my eldest is tiptoeing into the real world – joining social clubs, coming home with an excited fuss over the possibilities of building friendships.
Life is beautiful on my side of the world. It is a privilege to be protected in a space David and I have chosen to nurture.
And then there are moments when I am alone, dipping my toes into the world without my rose-colored glasses. The tears come quietly.
As I was baking for the kids, I listened to a BBC podcast, The Global Story. Fergal Keane was speaking about his experiences as a war reporter, about the book he wrote, about how war shapes a child’s brain.
Maybe it is the mother in me. Maybe it is the way my brain paints pictures when he speaks of these children. But something in me felt pierced.
It was the familiarity of it – the deeply unsettling recognition of how violence settles into a small body.
I remember years ago, when I was still in the field.
I remember how tiny she was, about Axel’s age now.
Two pigtails.
Her mother had escaped violence by climbing out of a bathroom window, carrying her and her baby brother into something uncertain, but away.
She was safe. Or at least, safer.
When she threw up, she said, “tummy awe,” and then she threw up.
In The Body Keeps the Score, I know too well how this can become her truth.
The breaking of two truths:
that violence had already found its way into her little body, and my own quiet gasp of relief that my boys will not carry this from our home.
But I also know this: not all children carry their stories the same way.
Some are orchids – fragile, deeply sensitive to their environment. They wilt in harsh conditions, but when given the right care, they bloom in ways that are almost unbearably beautiful.
Others are dandelions – resilient, pushing through cracks in concrete, surviving where nothing else should.
They grow anyway.
They insist on life.
And sometimes, the same child is both.
I do not know yet which one she will become. Or if she will become something else entirely – something that holds both the fracture and the bloom.
But I hold on to this, quietly:
Her story does not end in that moment.
Not in her small body.
Not in the memory that made her say, “tummy awe.”
There is still time for her to grow – toward light, toward safety, toward something softer than what she has known.
Scribbling through tears and sometimes smiles.
Hoping for gentle ripples of goodness.
-Therese
ThereseChristensen 