jabberwocky could not believe in forgiveness, she had decided in her 2012 buick enclave on the drive towards kristiansand, norway. 

  at eighteen, nearly nineteen, she had experienced loss equal to the sum of mourning of every single person attending a funeral. her own body had become a vessel of grief. 

she had never been the type to show vulnerability; raised by two stone-cold french mothers, she seldom felt the need to cry in the presence of another. if she needed to express something, she would turn to her aunt, pamela. 

  “your worrying is tiresome,” pamela would say to her. “you’re too beautiful to be this upset. when your mother gave birth to you, all she would talk about is how gorgeous you were. it was like she was bragging. she had every right to, as she had molded you in her stomach for nine months. she wanted to shield you from sadness, always. but boy, are you a flame.” 

when the loss happened, when the life she had been curating within her for so long had dissipated in her hands like sand, they all came rushing to her. not to provide support, not to hold her hand and let her sob into their motherly arms, but instead, to ask for her forgiveness, to relieve them of their own guilt. 

“we couldn’t have possibly known,” they lamented. “if we knew your situation wouldn’t have been permanent, we would have let you stay.”

 jabberwocky, being young, did not know much about motherhood. what she did know, however, is that she would not treat her child the same way. even with no support and no resources, she refused to be a cog in the machinery of hurt that her ancestors had started. she would play her kids the smiths albums on vinyl and dance with them, she would hug them frequently. jabberwocky did not know much, but she knew that to be a mother was to be the foundation of a child’s life, not the walls trapping them in. 

kristiansand welcomed her with open arms and wrapped her in the warmest hug. she visited the doctor often, too often, praying to a higher power every time she went. the good news outweighed the bad. the first time she got to see this life, floating in an inky pool of black, just an outline of a head and body, she felt an overwhelming surge of emotion. “oh mon dieu,” she cried. 

the contractions came unexpectedly, and without warning. they hit her like the most intense but relieving crash of water. but they were early. why were they early? she was in pain, and she had no plan of getting to the hospital this early. she threw herself around, trying to figure something out. there was a knock on the door. 

pained, she got herself to the door, throwing it open in the intensity you’d expect from a woman in labor. to her surprise, the one there was none other than pamela. 

pamela assessed the situation and quickly got jabberwocky through to the car. pamela stayed by jabberwocky’s side through the entire delivery–pamela was the strongest woman jabberwocky had ever known. and she still was, as she teared up holding up jabberwocky’s healthy newborn. jabberwocky did not question why pamela was there, or how. she just knew that, for once in awhile, she had a support system. 

a few hours after the delivery, pamela was still by her side, cradling her baby so she could have some rest. 

“they never understood,” jabberwocky said, tiredly. 

“i do.” 

“you don’t,” she said. “you can’t.” 

“how come?”

“you’ve never lost a child.”

pamela smiled. “i have.”