Born Cold.

        When I was younger, I was a writer. Well, in reality, I was an emotional rollercoaster of a teenager who thought she had a lot to say to the world. And I was bound and determined to share it, all those words splashed on paper that would mean something...some drama, some relevant substance to challenge the mind. I had a goal of being published by the ripe old age of 26. Then life came along. High school was over and college too, I married and moved, started a career and a family...and all that passion for writing faded. Or perhaps got pushed to the background to the business and busy-ness of life.
       If you're reading this you can tell though, that I'm back to writing. A semblance of that emotional teenager has reared its ugly head (no pimples this time!) and I'm indulging her for a while. I've dusted off a few of the old journals, opened a notebook or two, dated from over a decade ago- which feels like a century now. My mainstay back in the day was poetry with a few short stories scattered about. I'd jot down titles too, ideas that struck my fancy for a moment, a few trite words to gnaw on later and develop into something substantial. Born Cold was one of them. Never really knew where it would go, how I could cull a storyline from that kernel of a thought but there it sat on the page of plenty of other ideas.
       It called to me today. Today, when I'm anxious to get out the story of my son. Not really his story because I don't know it in the end. But the story of That Night. The story of His Birth. I keep stopping though, stuck already at the first line, at the empty title box sitting on top of the page. It can't be that difficult to spill it, to spew my guts all over the page, to bloody and muddy the waters of his life and death with the simple facts as my mind recalls them. I share all the time, why is it so hard to do now? To write this story, to slap a title on it and publish it to the world?
       How shall I call it? By his name? To label that night "Griffin" seems wrong, as though he is the sum of my short labor and his untimely death. By date? "January 25, 2014:A day that will live in infamy"- in reality to none but me and perhaps my family for a short time, this seems silly. Shall I call it something dreamy, "The Birth of My Angel," and fight through the bitter taste of that sweet sentiment as it churns its acid in my stomach. Something equally acerbic then, "Born Cold," must be very fitting, right, as literal as can be and catchy too.



In the end though, to have known him, to have held him and shared in his birth and death, it is nothing like that. It may be catchy but I've learned it isn't literal. He held my warmth even after death and he was born with all the love I had to offer in my soul...there will never be a remembrance I have of him as cold. Despite the blowing snow of that night, the dark evening and enveloping despair surrounding his birth, I can't give his story that title.
     
        Doesn't mean that the story can't be told. Perhaps it will have to start from the end though, to show me the beginning. Perhaps that young thing that I was, that hormonal and naive, overconfident and perpetually invincible girl, will have to take a backseat still, quiet those old musty pages of randomness; sit mute and watch for a while as the semblance of herself takes the wheel and starts to drive this ship again, wading through those murky waters of memory and mourning, looking for a horizon to guide us all through the storm...

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