I can remember, a place I used to go
Chrysanthemums of white, they seemed so beautiful.
I can remember, I searched for the amaranth
I?d shut my eyes to see.

I can remember, dreamt them so vividly,
Soft creatures draped in white, light kisses gracing me.
I can remember when I first realized,
Dreams were the only place to see them.

Rosie and Dakota?s sorrow over a baby lost weighs heavily on my heart. I know that plight; it was my own once, twice.

It seems there are many things others do not know about me, even those I love dearly and have loved for many years past. I keep these stories?that word trivializes my memories but in order to tell them they must be detached, simple tales that happened to someone else other than me?close to my heart.

The first I will not speak of, though it is not out of shame that I keep this hidden, safe within me. It is too painful, even a decade later as it is, to share with anyone. The second I will confess for the blame falls only on my shoulders and is my burden to bear.

I don?t remember the year but I can place the event sometime after my daughter Amanda was born and within a year before I married Alex. I was out walking in the woods one night when I was assaulted and taken advantage of. A common occurrence in RhyDin, I assure you, although it will never happen to me again. I will not be caught unaware more than once.

Alex sought revenge but that is another matter that eventually led to things of a more pleasant nature to me. What is important is that I became pregnant. Brian, Katharine, Alex, and everyone else important in my life did not know. I knew. I am Fae and I knew very quickly what was happening inside me; life was there and it was unwanted. Yet, it was still life. I am not a vegetarian?as they tend to call it in the more modern parts of the city?for the heck of it. I respect life in all its forms from complicated humanoids down to amoebas.

The problem of what to do weighed just as heavily on my mind as what had happened to cause the predicament. I felt I had no one to confide in, to take counsel with. I was ashamed, ever more so as my depression dragged on for weeks to the exasperation of others. I had become a nuisance, an annoyance. I worried myself sleepless; food couldn?t pass my lips without churning my knotted stomach.

My body finally made the decision for me.

Growing a life inside you requires good health, a mixture of the correct vitamins and other nutrients with appropriate sleep. I was letting myself fade away, unknowingly letting my unborn child fade into nothing at a much quicker pace.

The day my actions reached their culminating point and I realized what I had inadvertently done definitely numbers on my top ten list of suckiest days I?ve ever had. There was nothing I could do by that point. Where there had once been life there was nothing. I was empty. I desperately wanted back what I had never desired in the first place.

Life goes on but I don?t forgive myself this error of my youth.

I never, never wanted this,
I always wanted to believe
I never, never wanted this.
I never, never wanted this,
But from the start I?d been deceived.
I never, never wanted this.

While I waited, I was wasting away.
Hope was wasting away.
Faith was wasting away.
I was wasting away.
-The Great Disappointment, AFI