Whenever I get out the photo albums and look at all the pictures of my children when they were babies, and toddlers, and small children, and middle-sized children, and older children, and preteens, and teens. . . .I dream that night that they’re dead.

It’s to the point that I am frightened of their baby pictures. I look at those two beautiful little faces, the fluffy golden curls, the spiky bright-red curls, the gorgeous little eyebrows, the tiny little ears, the sweet miniature teeth, the gaptoothed smiles, the fat, dimpled legs, the thin straight legs, the tiny feet with the curled-up toes, the snapshot of two toddlers playing in the middle of the living room with the huge case of Pampers showing there in the back corner, my freshly two-year-old daughter holding her newborn brother on our old couch with the denim patches to keep the springs from hurting us. . . .and I dream that night that they’re dead.

Some nights, after looking at old pictures, I dream that I’m at an airport, frantically trying to find my children in a crowd of people who don’t speak English and who are in too much of a hurry to help me. I stand on a chair, and I can just see a curly golden head and a spiky red head waving, and I can just barely hear two baby voices calling for me as they’re borne along by the crowds. . . .and I wake up in a cold sweat of horror, that somehow, and I can never remember how, I’ve lost my babies.

Sometimes, when I walk around the yard, I remember my children playing there, in the big sandbox my father made, that finally rotted away and blended with the grass. . . .I remember the swing that was so wide both toddlers could sit together on it: that swing that was fastened to a branch so high up, the physics of it allowed that swing to swing higher than any children’s swing should ever swing. I can close my eyes and see them sitting in it, and I can hear them reciting their swing poems: “How do you like to go up in a swing, up in the air so bluuuuuuuuuue. . . .” and, once they got some momentum and could see the ‘neighbor cows’ to the left, “The friendly cow all red and while, I love with all my haaaaaart. . . .” Now, I look at the cover of “A Child’s Garden of Verses” and the memories flood over me until I choke and nearly drown. I’ll be afraid to sleep that night, because I know what the dreams will be like: I’ll be frantically wandering in a garden, trying to find my tiny children by following their voices, their sweet little voices, reciting poems and singing songs and getting farther and farther away as I get more and more frantic. . . .

Underneath the deck in the back of the house are two little round sleds. They’re been under the deck for years now; I don’t think anybody knows they’re there but me. I look at them and remember tiny children in snowsuits, being pulled over the snow by me, by their father, by visiting cousins. . . . .by my father, who’s been gone for many years now. This night, I’ll dream that my father is pulling my babies away from me, and no matter how fast I run after them, I can’t catch up, and I watch helplessly as my father and my babies disappear. I stay up very late on those nights, too.

My father has been gone for several years. But, the two toddlers he pulled across the snow are gone, too. They’re gone. My children were here, today, and I looked at their dear faces and I loved them so much I couldn’t say it. . . . I even heard some scolding words come out of my mouth, when what I really wanted to say was, oh, my children, you’re still in there somewhere, I can see that you are by your eyebrows that are still exactly the same as the day you were born, and the fluffy golden curls, and the spiky red curls, and the huge green eyes, and the huge blue eyes, and the gestures, your gestures are still exactly the same, look, look at these pictures of your childhood, these faces are in the faces you have now, still, like rings in a tree, every age you ever were is still in you somewhere, my babies, my toddlers, my children, my beautiful young adults. . . . look at yourselves in these pictures. . . .

They’re gone now, and it’s after 4 a.m., and I’m still up, typing, because I’m afraid to go to bed.

I know I will dream, and I know what the dream will be. No, I’ll stay awake a while longer.

Those babies are still here. It’s just that some days, I can’t find them. Or perhaps, some days, they don’t want to be found. . . .

I’ll sleep some other time.

When we use a word too much, it loses a lot of its power. The word “love” comes to mind.

Love is a powerful emotion, and the word “love” should rightfully be reserved for that. Instead, we use it in trivial ways.

We love pizza. We love dancing. We love Nordstrom’s.

This is a word that should not be used lightly. We shouldn’t say that we love some small thing in the same tone of voice we would use to say that we loved our Maker or our spouse or our sweetheart. (That was Aunt Jamesina’s advice to Anne and Priscilla and Phillipa and Stella. Bonus points if you recognize the reference.)

Of course, the difference between “love” and “in love” are vast, too. Christine loved Erik, but she was in love with Raoul.

The word “awesome” has been trivialized, too. If we have an awesome time at a party, or we think someone’s haircut is awesome, or we receive any and every little piece of news by thinking that it’s all AWESOME, what have we left to describe a sunset, or a miracle?

People who describe every little thing in their lives with the superlative make me wonder how they describe the really important things.

When someone goes off the deep end over a trifle, what’s left to describe a real tragedy?

I am also disappointed that the word “awful” has undergone such a drastic change. “Awful” is really the same thing as “awesome.” When people spoke of something that was “God-awful” it was a positive thing, an inspiring thing, something that was, literally, “full of awe.” Wondrous. Now, people use the expression “God-awful” when they describe something bad, like a burned pizza or a tacky outfit or a bad hair day. I hate that.

“Awesome” should never be used unless something is genuinely awesome. Don’t waste it on a good pedicure. Goldie’s brilliantly creative son (I would have LOVED to have him in class!) made this same observation a while back. (not about a pedicure, but the idea was the same.) (A pedicure was the most mundane thing I could think of at the moment.)

I said, a post or two back, that by overusing words that are supposed to have a real kick to them, we remove the kick. Some words are SUPPOSED to have shock value, so they can best describe truly shocking things. Other words are supposed to strike a chord deep within the recesses of our hearts, but we’ve cheapened them by using them to describe cheeseburgers.

We’re so used to hearing dirty words, that the dirt is gone. Even the F-word has ceased to have much shock value any more. We’re all beyond being shocked, or deeply touched, or blown away, or thunder-struck, or filled with wonder, any more, by words, and I really think it’s because we have made the words that are supposed to be reserved for great emotion too common.

As for me, though, I can still be had with a few well-chosen words. They have power over me when nothing or no one else does. I’m sorry for people who are immune to the hypnotic and enriching power of words. You might not have me at ‘hello,’ but you might with some other word. So to speak.

Keep trying.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly