From the Bottom of the Ocean

Content warning: story includes themes of parental loss and childhood grief

One time when I was sleeping my mommy got lost.

That evening when it happened she was all dressed up for a party, her and daddy, and she looked like the most beautiful mommy in the whole wide world. She had a long white dress which is my second favorite color, the first is purple and its so beautiful like mommy and also Sophia the First. Lenny the baby-sitter was watching over me. I liked Lenny because she would draw me pictures and I would color them in and also she had pink hair that was really funny and I liked playing with it. Plus she had perfume that smelled like grapes and sometimes she even let me try it on. This time though she was only there to read me a bedtime story and also watch over the house while I slept, to protect me from the bad guys that sometimes came.

I said goodbye to mommy and daddy and we gave the special wave and also daddy said “See you later alligator”, and to that you answer “After a while, crocodile” which is what I said. Then they left and me and Lenny were alone.

That night Lenny read me a story about a super cute doggy that wanted to dance ballet and it was so funny I almost peed my pants. Then I brushed my teeth and brushed my hair and took a bath and snuggled under the covers with Jin-Jin the camel who isn’t real, just a stuffed animal and Lenny turned off the lights.

I had a funny dream that night but I don’t really remember it. I just remember that there were a lot of clouds and I was eating so many of them that my tummy got so big it was even bigger than Jin-Jin, who was a real camel in the dream. When I woke up it was light outside and I was really happy, because of the funny dream, and also because it was Saturday and on Saturday mommy always always always makes the yummiest hot chocolate in the whole entire world and I get an entire mug all for me.

I made my bed like Lenny taught me once a long long time ago and got dressed, with my very favorite Elsa dress because it made me like a princess and also with powers. Then I went outside my room to the kitchen so mommy would make me her hot chocolate.

Only mommy wasn’t by the stove top making hot chocolate. That was super duper weird so I went to find her. Sometimes when she was sick she didn’t wake up and so even on Saturdays there wasn’t hot chocolate. I wondered if maybe mommy was sick.

But she wasn’t in her room.

Daddy was on the sofa. He was sitting down but his head had fallen on his shoulder and he was also snoring. That was super funny so I giggled a little bit. It’s funny when daddy snores.

Maybe I giggled to loudly because daddy jumped and woke up. His eyes were red like he had been rubbing them a lot, which was weird, because he only rubbed them when he was really sad or when he was super duper tired. Maybe that’s why he had fallen asleep on the sofa, he was tired. Or maybe one time when I was in the shower than shampoo got into my eyes and it burned a lot, and also afterwards my eyes were really red. Maybe daddy had gotten some shampoo in his eyes.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said, and that was even weirder because he always called me Char, which is short for Charlie which is short for Charlotte which is actually my name. He only called me kiddo once, and that was when Granny Esme was so sick that she had to move to another world called Heaven. I wanted to go visit her but mommy had said it’s not allowed, you can only go when you’re as old as Granny and your hair is all gray and your skin is all wrinkly. That meant I needed to wait a long time, your hair got gray when you were really old, even older than daddy who was 33.

“Come here, a sec, alright?”

I went to sit next to him on the sofa. He ran a hand through his hair and wouldn’t look into my eyes. I wondered if the shampoo hurt him too much to look into light, because the window was showing the sun and it was behind my head.

“What happened, daddy?” I asked, because he looked really sad. I gave him a hug super strong like he liked it, with all of my super strong muscles. One time he had told me the story of Samson the Strong, with his really long hair, and daddy said I was exactly the same because I was super powerful and with long hair just I’m not a boy.

Daddy just hugged me back. “I need to tell you something.”

I looked up at him. His eyes were worried and he hadn’t shaved that morning, so there was a little tiny beard on his chin.

He was scaring me just the tiniest bit.

“Daddy?”

He cleared his throat. “How about… some hot chocolate first?”

But I shook my head, because only mommy made hot chocolate for me. If daddy did it wouldn’t be right and it would also taste wrong. “No. Tell me.”

Daddy sighed. “I’m so sorry, kiddo.”

Maybe… maybe he had used my shampoo and now it was all done and he was so worried about that it had gone in his eyes. I smiled a tiny bit because my shampoo was especially for little kids and daddy wasn’t a little kid anymore.

“No, Char. Look at me. Something… something terrible happened.”

I nodded, because I knew from the movies that when somebody says something like that you need to act all grown up and understanding. And one day I was going to be in the movies, that’s what I told mommy every single night because that was my biggest dream. I was going to be the biggest movie star in the whole entire universe, even bigger than Mickey Mouse and Sophia the First.

“It’s okay, daddy, you can tell me.”

He closed his eyes, super tight. “You know I love you very much, and that mommy does as well, right?”

“Yeah,” I smiled a tiny bit, then hid it behind my hand because I knew this wasn’t the time for smiling. “From the bottom of the ocean and all around Earth and the universe and all the way back to our hearts times infinity squared.”

Daddy nodded. “That’s right. The thing is…”

He paused. I cocked my head. “Daddy?”

“The thing is… mommy. She, she won’t be able to live with us, here anymore. She got lost, and now, now she lives in-in another world.”

Daddy was talking so softly that I could barely understand him. “What do you mean?”

“She’s… mommy, she can’t come back home.”

“Then - "

“I’m so sorry, Char. I’m so sorry.”

“Then…” I felt tears were starting to come to my eyes. I loved mommy so very much and living without her was the worst thing in the whole entire world.

“I am so, so sorry, Char. So sorry - ”

“… never ever? Not even next week?” my voice sounded funny, like when I had a cold and it was all blocked with gross snot.

Daddy didn’t answer. He just hugged me super tight, even tighter than me, on the couch, and kept saying he was sorry. I think he was crying but I wasn’t sure. All I could hear was this roaring in my head, super loud, like when I was at the beach, and the stink of daddy’s sweaty shirt, and how it was grey and that made me see black, and also how he kept saying he was sorry, again and again and again, and also this thing in my heart that wouldn’t let me catch my breath, until everything hurt and also I couldn’t really see. I think daddy was squishing me too hard, but maybe it wasn’t that, maybe it was just I was too sad to breath.

That night me and daddy went to sleep and Grandpa’s house. He was daddy’s father and his name was actually Frederick Raoul the 3rd, that was because his father was also called that and also his grandpa and also his great grandpa, but I just called him Grandpa because he was my grandpa.

When we came into his house then he wrapped me in a super long hug and then told me I had a present in the living room. I ran to go check and grandpa hugged daddy, which was weird because no grown ups ever hugged daddy, except mommy.

Then I remembered that because mommy was in a different world now, maybe he would need somebody else to hug him that was a grown up, because mommy couldn’t.

I didn’t know what to do with that thought, because it made me super sad and being sad made me cry, but I knew daddy was sad now so if I cried it would make him feel bad again, so I tried to think of happy things like the present grandpa got me that was waiting for me in the living room. I was curious to see what it was so I ran to check, and sure enough, on the sofa was a plastic bag. I opened it and saw a beautiful small dress for Jin-Jin my camel. Grandpa knew how to knit because after grandma went to live in Heaven he said he needed something to do besides watch TV.

I hugged the dress and I ran to my bedroom in Grandpa’s house which was also his storage room, so it was a very funny bedroom, but my bag was there and also Jin-Jin. I put the dress on Jin-Jin and then an idea came to my head.

I wondered if maybe mommy was in Heaven, with grandma, and they were together so mommy wasn’t lost and alone, just lost. And that grandma would be able to help her find her way back to us.

But then I thought that if Grandma knew how to get back she would have come too, but she didn’t, and so that meant that it was true, mommy would never ever ever be able to come back.

I closed the door so daddy wouldn’t see super quick because the tears started flooding my eyes. I crawled into my bed and hugged Jin-Jin and cried so much I got super tired and I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

And then something amazing happened.

I saw mommy.

She was looking at me from the window.

I jumped up and ran to open the window, but it wouldn’t budge. I pounded on the glass, and her eyes turned to me. She was crying and her hair was a mess.

I was crying too and I was so sad and I missed her even though she had only just disappeared, but it felt like a million years already and I loved her so much that I couldn’t stand it.

I tugged at the lock and mommy was still crying. She was reaching out to me as if to touch my face, and her fingers were so close I could almost feel them.

I tried to tell her to come in from the front door, that I missed her, that I needed her to come back. She was also talking to me but I couldn’t hear her through the glass, just myself, my voice in the room echoing, my voice that was mine and not mommy’s.

She was still crying, now even harder. I needed to go get her. I needed to save her. I needed to.

I ran out of the bedroom and to the front door. Grandpa and daddy were nowhere to be seen so they couldn’t stop me. I pushed open the door and was about to rush outside when I realized something horrible.

Grandpa lived in a building, on floor nineteen.

That meant that Mommy was falling, and then she would be like the dead body of the bird I had seen once, the bird that couldn’t fly -

I rushed back to my room, to the window, and I was so scared I almost didn’t see her. But then I did. Barely, as if she were fading. I reached out to open the window again but it still didn’t work.

“Mommy -”

I pressed my face against the glass, so she would be able to hear me, but she disappeared. Just like that. I cried out, terrified that she fell and now she was like the bird, and I couldn’t stop crying, and then suddenly she was there again, crying as well.

It was always like that. When I cried she cried, when she cried I cried.

And now my heart was breaking.

I needed to break the window so she could come in. I needed to -

I grabbed the stool from under my bed and rammed it against the glass. I closed my eyes because I was afraid of glass so I couldn’t see mommy, but the window didn’t break.

When I opened my eyes mommy was also holding a stool. I wondered how she got one. Maybe she would try to help me break the glass so she could come and hold me tight and tell me she loves me again, because if she stays in the other world she would never be able to tell me that ever again -

Somebody was pulling me back, away from mommy in the window, and it was grandpa, and he was hugging me and saying everything would be okay, but I needed to save mommy before she fell so I fought against him with my super strength.

But Grandpa just hugged me.

Suddenly I looked at the window. Grandpa was there too.

He was hugging mommy.

That didn’t make -

“It’s your reflection, Char. You’re mommy isn’t here. I’m sorry.”

Everybody was apologizing to me. I didn’t know why. Mommy would have explained it to me.

“You always looked so alike,” Grandpa said, but I couldn’t hear him over my sobs. “You and your mommy.”

He grabbed Jin-Jin from the bed and I hugged him so tight I felt a tiny bit better. But I was still really super duper sad.

“C’mon. Let’s take you to your daddy, alright?”

He didn’t wait for my answer, just picked me up and carried me to the other spare bedroom. Daddy was there. He was sleeping.

“Go to sleep, Char,” Grandpa said. He put me on the bed besides daddy and covered me like a mummy. “I love you, kid.”

I hugged Jin-Jin and tried to go to sleep. It didn’t work.

I was just too sad and my chest was too heavy. There were rocks weighing my heart down.

I got out of the bed and went to the window. This time I could see that it wasn’t mommy, it was just me. I was still crying.

I pressed my face to the glass and wondered where the other world mommy was in was. I wondered if I could visit.

I looked down at the sidewalk, so far away. All the people looked like ants. Then I looked up at the sky.

There was a cloud there, a huge cloud, and it was her face, it was her face. And she was smiling at me and waving and saying that she loved me.

I cried and waved and tried to smile back. I said I loved her too. That I missed her.

I watched the cloud until it drifted away, until I couldn’t see it anymore.

Jin-Jin hugged me. I hugged him back.

He told me we would be okay, and even though he wasn’t a real camel, just a stuffed animal, I told him that I knew that.

Then I went back into bed and fell asleep.