Imagination

This is the story that Z told me about she arrived in our family.

"I once was a baby lion and I lived in Ireland. My momma lion loved me very much and would lick my forehead all the time. I never really saw the daddy lion, but he was big and strong.


One day while I was walking along smelling flowers and chasing butterflies, a big bird with a very long mouth (beak) scooped me up and put me in his clouch."


"Clouch? What is a clouch?", I ask.

"A clouch is a bag that the birds carry to get things. They can't carry things in their mouths. Mouths are for eating. 


Stop asking questions, Momma. I am telling you something important.


So, the bird flew me very, very long way. Very far. And while we flew I turned into a human baby. All of my fur was gone and my tail disappeared. I was sad about my tail. I liked it a lot. 


When I was all human, the big bird delivered me to you at the hospital."


"Why was I in the hospital?"

"You were in the hospital because your heart was broked. You wanted a baby and when I got there, your heart was fixed and we could go home.


Do you think someday, when I am bigger that we could go back to Ireland so I can have my tail back? I really miss not having a tail."


I am not going to tell her that lions do not live in Ireland or that babies do not get brought in by birds. She will learn those things soon enough.

What matters is she knows how much we wanted her and that she was a missing part of my heart.