It’s a Girl 💗

October 1, 2018

The boy came thirteen months after David and Sabrina wed. The girl came thirteen months after that.

It was an exciting time. A second time around the whirlwind of pregnancy high and lows, this time with a little more knowledge and tools in their armour. The emotional bliss and fear were all solidified, wrapped up perfectly in the bubble that was their existence.

And on that rainy day, Madison arrived with a little less drama, but a whole lot of love and excitement. They were pros now. Nothing could stop them. The pregnancy itself was a bit of a touch and go in the beginning, but Sabrina was grateful that once again miracles could happen and luck was on their side. Madison was meant to be here and nothing was going to stop her. This became the core of who she would one day become…a true and utter force to be reckoned with. Her name would represent the energy of a city that held a special place in Sabrina’s heart and much like a concrete jungle, she had passion and an energy running through her veins from the moment she took her first breath. A beautiful dichotomy of strength and progress with a soul of dreams and grit.

Life was different. Two hands for two humans. Sabrina realized that even though the first child changes one’s life completely, like a snow-globe turned upside down, the second proved to set precedence to a whole new playing field. The two siblings were inseparable, but Madison needed to forge her own path. She was headstrong, determined and taught Sabrina that adult or no adult, this child would be calling the shots. Where Matteo was water and calm, Madison was tempest and storm. Both opposite ends of the same chord of love. She was the one who would defy at all costs, but also smile and giggle and melt one’s heart in two, with her bouncy dark curls and wide eyed beauty.

Her journey was a challenging one from the very beginning. Three days into this world, she spent a week at Sick Kid’s Hospital. Tied up, tubed up and unable to feed. Life was dark in that week, but David and Sabrina held on to her tiny hands and prayed and sat silently by her bedside. People came and went and none of them mattered except for one (god rest his soul).

As Sabrina sat by her baby’s bedside in complete and utter emptiness, she looked at David with his bloodshot eyes and started to question all that was. Is this pain and fear worth it? Why doesn’t anyone tell you life is going to be this hard? Why must I feel utterly consumed by fear?

She remembered looking around the room and feeling dread. The walls were closing in slowly, the sounds of the machines were torture. They lived tethered to a beeping screen that was hooked up to their newborn’s heart and for every bump and high and low, hers and David’s heart responded in the same. The invisible red thread, the chord that connected to three of them was violated by machines and doctors and needles and sounds. God those sounds.

And then the door opened and in walked George.

George.

Of all people who came and went, this was the one person who pulled her attention and fed her heart the elixir it needed to feel like it could move forward. Sometimes in life, it’s the unexpected that breathes air back into one’s lungs. It’s the little acts that have the greatest ripple effects.

And it would be the last time she would see him alive and in all his bear-like presence. For you see, it mattered little to Sabrina what the world may or may not have known or seen when they saw George. They could all go to hell. To her, he was the man who came to her home and hung out. He was the man who would share deep life conversations as they snuck in the stairwell with the dog for a quick butt when they no longer smoked in the home. He was the one who treated her mother like gold when they went on a trip to New York, and where he proposed to his beautiful girlfriend.

He was also the one who had the courage, honour, loyalty to come out of hiding and sneak to the hospital to see the baby girl his friends had just had and who was fighting for her life.

He came for her. He came for them.

That was the moment she broke down inside. When faith in humanity was restored. When she held true to the belief that it’s in the things people do, not say that one recognizes the true worth of a man. George was a bear with the heart of a lion. He would never know the impact of that visit on Sabrina because she never had the chance to share her gratitude, but it mattered little because in her heart she knew he could feel her love wherever he was in heaven, riding his bike and smoking his butts.

Life moved on. Progressed. Days turned into nights. There was laughter and tears. Love and pain. As a family they grew and grew and grew. But Madison was brought to teach. She was brought to bring out the very best and the very worst in her mother. She was very much her father in character and spirit. Everyday she would demand of Sabrina growth. She would plate new experiences and beg of her to eat. Sometimes the dish was sweet, sometimes bittersweet. She was her catalyst. The first one in her life that would remind her that life is a challenge, that there is no love without hate, no joy without pain, no highs without lows.

June 19th, 2009 Milan

As Sabrina was placing Samantha on the toilet seat, she heard the screams. Complete chaos erupted from the previous second of silence and the mundane, to a war zone energy that no one saw coming. Life doesn’t prepare one for moments like this because this is life’s cruel trick. One must experience the plunge into the deep, dark waters of terror in order to ever remotely prepare for the next. She literally dropped her daughter and ran out the door to stumble upon a scene she would never forget and would haunt her forever.

Across the hall stood David, facing her with a look in his eyes she had never seen before. If fear had a smell, Sabrina could literally taste it coming off of David’s presence. Madison stood, back to her father’s thighs, facing her with David’s hand holding the side of her face. All Sabrina registered in that moment, as the sounds faded somewhere off in the distance and as her vision narrowed on her baby girl, was red. Red everywhere. On Madison’s favourite yellow dress, on the grey cement floor, covering David’s hand. Life was seeping out of their daughter and running a river to the ground.

She grabbed her and instinctively placed her hand on her David’s to replace the pressure being applied to the war zone she couldn’t yet fathom. She walked her to the sink and as she took those few steps, a new mother was born. A fierceness was ignited, but so was a calmness summoned from the depths of her terror and as she took her hand off to examine the flesh and wash what she hoped was a superficial injury, she saw her precious lifeline ripped and shred to pieces as though God didn’t realize that this body housed her life. Her body was just a house of flesh and bone and in that moment it was in pain and jeopardy. She was torn apart. Her eyelid flopped open, her cheek bone exposed, the flesh on her temple gone.

‘Mommy, I want to go home. Just put a bandaid on it and take me home. Back to Canada.’

Calm mother explained that unfortunately a bandaid would not help and they would need to go to a hospital and have her looked after. Fierce mother screamed to the heavens and prayed, bargained and made promises to the gods. To anyone who would hear her silent screams.

David and Sabrina would spend another week of their lives held up in a hospital where children’s pictures of painted hands hung on the walls, IKEA tables and chairs were carefully placed in a makeshift library and play area for kids and men and women dressed in whites and greens and smelling like ammonia would trail their scent everywhere. They would deal with the uncertainty of not knowing. The waiting game of life.

Police, doctors, family and friends. Sleeping on her child’s bed all day and night in clothes she couldn’t remember ever owning. David sitting on the side of the bed, holding her tiny little five year old hand with tears in his eyes and breathing softly so as not to wake his sleeping beauty. Bandages. The scent of fear and pain. The new yellow dress her grandmother bought. Her Nonnas and Zia from Canada who arrived the very next day. Mino, who saved Sabrina’s life in more ways than he would ever know. The Doctor who sat with Sabrina on some little, plastic green chair long after the lights were out and she sat staring at the pictures on the walls as David held Madison’s hand when she was being put under for her operation to repair her face and save her vision. He held her, let her cry and tried to appease her fear.

Nausea was her companion. Fear was her muse. Dread seeped through her veins.

So, Bella, it’s time. I’m going to turn you around so you can see now. Are you ready?

Yes, mommy. But I’m scared.

Don’t be baby. You are beautiful. In fact, I think you’re more beautiful now than you’ve ever been. I never thought it was possible, but you are. And in time you will learn this truth. Maybe not now, but you will. Now you will be scared and it will look worse than it is because it needs to heal. But trust mommy. Mommy doesn’t lie.

And she slowly turned her little head that was finally freed of the bandages. As Sabrina held her in her arms so she could look in the mirror for the very first time and see the new and improved her, she held her breath and placed her heart in a higher power’s hands.

Madison turned. And looked. And shook. And trembled. And sabrina nuzzled her head in her daughter’s neck and breathed four little words…I love you beautiful.

That summer, David and Sabrina became parent warriors. They firmly placed their foot down as a team and carried their children through a vacation none of them would ever forget. They healed their family and themselves with a weaponry of love, patience and hope. Laughter, tears and communication was flowing freely. Memories were made and forever cherished. Siblings grew stronger and bonded by the unexpressed knowledge that life can change in an instant and there were no guarantees. David and Sabrina stood firm and tall. They fortified, protected and wrapped their arms around their family.

However, the summer before was a much different story. The summer before was about destruction. The summer of 2009 was about healing, but that tale comes after the birth of their final miracle.

To be continued