Month: December 2018

A Confession of a Dilemma

On By SimonneBraden2 Comments

I was a sophomore in college.

My best friend David from high school had dropped out of Bible college after freshman year to marry his girlfriend he met at said college. My boyfriend at the time was up visiting me over Christmas break when we stopped by to see their new baby, Eleanor, who was less than a week old.

She was so little with a lot of black hair. We oohed and ahhed over her. David’s wife offered to let me to hold Eleanor and I said yes. I should mention my only experience with a newborn was my sister and I was four years old at the time.

I picked the baby up under the arms, much like picking up a cat. Her little head snapped back and she screamed.

“Gah, what do I do?” I said as I held this poor unhappy infant mid-air. I sat down and put her on my lap. I had no idea how to cradle a baby in my arms. She fit perfectly on my lap from knee to hip and stopped crying after a moment.

I couldn’t get over how cute she was and her tiny features. I looked at my boyfriend with those gooey eyes. “I want one someday.” He grinned. I was pretty sure I was going to marry this perfect guy after graduation. Our kids would be cuter than this one.

As Eleanor was in my lap, her belly button stump fell off. Of course it did. “Okay, you can take the baby back now,” I said. “I’ve done enough damage for one night.”

Boyfriend turned out to be a rat and I haven’t held a baby since (Eleanor will graduate high school in the spring).

Part of it was my complete inexperience. The other part was, I said to myself, that the next baby I would hold would be my own.

I managed to avoid babies and then decided I wasn’t cut out to be a mom. I had a nephew born a few months after our marriage, and when we went to see the baby at a few weeks old, I declined to hold him. My husband held him and even got him to stop crying when his mother couldn’t. I was in awe. My husband tried to shuffle the baby into my arms at one point but I jumped back. We weren’t having kids, this was not something I could handle, especially after the Eleanor debacle.

My rule was I’ll pick up babies if they’re older than 13 months. They’re sturdier and could run away if they so chose by that age.

And then I wanted kids and convinced my husband to try. And then there were the infertility doctors and they suggested a specialist or adoption. My husband said no.

And it’s taken me about three hard, long years to be okay without having kids.

This summer I learned my sister is pregnant with a little boy. They’re naming him Conrad because all the other awkward names were taken.

I’m at a crossroads: do I hold this baby?

On one hand, this kid and I share a genetic code, unlike my other nieces and nephews by marriage. Someday, Conrad may be the only direct bloodline family I have. Like those couples who wait for their first kiss to be shared at the altar, there’s no use in waiting to hold my own baby first. That ship sailed and sank on her maiden voyage, taking the dream with her to the ocean floor.

I don’t want to ache with want, now that I am fully recovered from the baby fever syndrome; yet I don’t want to miss out on something so special because I’m being a complete stick in the mud (Principles! Honor! All that stuff in my head!)

I have a few more months to figure it out. I’m already dreading flying up there for the sole purpose of meeting him. I should also add that my family has no clue I ever wanted children or that I can’t clinically have any. I wanted to avoid the pity and the censorship; very few people knew, it was a battle I faced mostly alone.

Any suggestions for someone with a baby-sized hole in the heart that has overgrown with scar tissue on what to do?

Hygge Days

On By SimonneBradenLeave a comment

A coworker and I were chatting, lamenting the dark rainy day and how winter was upon us. Both of us are summer children and this cold sunless weather was not boding well for her.

I mentioned something about experiencing hygge – the Scandinavian answer to winter. 

Hygge Definition and meaning

As 1/8 Danish ancestry, I heard this word a couple of years ago and after researching, immediately put this into practice. It becomes an act of doing things consistently and with intention – much like living the Christian life. They say it best:

Danes created hygge because they were trying to survive boredom, cold, dark and sameness and the undefinable feeling of Hygge was a way for them to find moments to celebrate or acknowledge and to break up the day, months or years. With so many cold, dark, days, the simple act of a candle glowing with a cup of coffee in the morning or a home cooked evening meal with friends can make a huge difference to one’s spirit.

from hyggehouse.com

While the seasons do not affect my mood, the lack of warm beach days does. To pull through winter, I try to make my house as cosy as possible. There are always quilts lying about, a season-scented candle burning, and fresh tea from the kettle. I also try to find drinks to fit the season too: this year I am going to attempt a hot buttered rum. The apple pie sangria I made for Thanksgiving kicked off the hygge season in our household.

I also know my coworker is going through a rough patch too – her job is stressful, her kids have a lot going on, and her marriage is sinking. She is in desperate need of some hygge.

My Sunday afternoon plan is to relax, so I’m inviting her over and share some hygge with her: what could be better for the soul than making Christmas cookies, this hot chocolate recipe (never tried it before!), and a candle burning with the soothing lyrics and canticle of Salt of the Sound playing? And hopefully she’ll take some cookies home so I don’t eat them all!

Summer will be here soon. Until then, I hygge.

The First Time

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“I think you’ll really like this one,” my high school boyfriend said to me as he handed me an old tattered copy of The Black Shrike by Alister MacLean, a Scottish author, published in 1961. My family was leaving for our yearly retreat at the cottage on Lake Huron and I was in need of a novel. He assured me it was an adventure book and a real page turner. I had no idea what a shrike was, let alone any color variations of it, yet I trusted his recommendation. 

I would be in my thirties before I found out a shrike was a bird. It had nothing to do with the title. Then again, maybe it did?

I remember sitting on the beach, sun tanning in a bikini on a towel when I began reading. A few paragraphs in, I had to stop for air.

Oh. My. 

I was only 17, but astute enough to be completely blown away by MacLean’s writing style. As someone who had not yet experienced alcohol or sex, this was the literary equivalent to both of my vices. His words hit me like a shot of expensive high quality vodka and washed over me like the first touch of a lover’s naked skin against my own.

I was hooked.

I tore through the book as if someone else was paying my bar tab and it was a passionate one night stand that would end with the sunrise.

The story is told by John Bentall, a scientist who was also a secret agent for British Intelligence. He got pulled to a top secret mission with a co-agent, Marie, who was to pose as his wife, much to John’s chagrin. The duo get sucked into a treacherous web of lies and double crossings, complete with a bait and switch minefield. The ending has so much of a twist that you’ll find yourself upside down on the last page, wondering what on earth just happened.

John was a loner, like myself, and his bluntness combined with a parched British sense of humor, need for the truth, flawed logic, cunning intellect, and ability to push through anything by sheer determination melted my heart. If he were real, I’d have dated him.

I got serious about writing in 2016 and looked to authors who came before me for inspiration: Alister MacLean was at the top of my list. I read Where Eagles Dare – my German came in handy for deciphering the play on words in the title – the flawlessly executed banter between the two main characters delighted me as both a reader and a writer. The Blake Shrike never left my beach bag this summer, as I re-read it for the third time – this time through the eyes of an author. I’m still amazed at his ability to craft words and scenes. I wish I could share a drink with Alister, picking his brain about life and writing. I’d love to know his inspiration for this story, but he died when I was in elementary school.

I may never hold a candle to my writing hero Alister, but I’d certainly love to try.

An excerpt from the second chapter:


But there’s no perfection in a very imperfect world: the locks on the bedroom doors of the Grand Pacific Hotel were just no good at all. 

My first intimation of this came when I woke up in the middle of the night in response to someone prodding my shoulder. But my first thought was not of the door-locks but of the finger prodding me. It was the hardest finger I’d ever felt. It felt like a piece of steel. It was a dully-gleaming .38 Colt automatic and, just in case I should have made any mistake in identification, whoever was holding it shifted the gun as soon as he saw me stir so that my right eye could stare down the centre of the barrel. It was a gun alright. My gaze travelled up past the gun, the hairy brown wrist, the white coated arm to the brown cold still face with the battered yachting cap above, then back to the automatic again.

“O.K., friend,” I said. I meant it to sound cool and casual but it came out more like the raven–the hoarse one–croaking on the battlements of Macbeth’s castle. “I can see it’s a gun. Cleaned and oiled and everything. But take it away, please. Guns are dangerous things.”

“A wise guy, eh?” he said coldly. “Showing the little wife what a hero he is. But you wouldn’t really like to be a hero, would you, Bentall? You wouldn’t really like to start something?”

I would have loved to have started something. I would have loved to take his gun away and beat him over the head with it. Having guns pointed at my eye gives me a nasty dry mouth, makes my heart work overtime and uses up a great deal of adrenalin. I was just starting out to think what else I would like to do to him when he nodded across the bed.

The Black Shrike, by Alister MacLean