My Dear Daughter,
When I write to you, I don’t have to pretend. I don’t wonder if you can see the pain in my eyes. I express it to you outright. As friends and family begin new chapters, I reach for you… searching for my voice and a path forward. It’s not easy to mourn something so intangible as a life and future that never was. People don’t understand that. I could remain silent… talk to you privately… it would make everyone more comfortable… but then our story would never be told… and we deserve more than that.
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Spring has finally sprung, and your father and I have been hard at work in the backyard… digging up tree roots, planting flowers, and creating a backyard paradise that feels warm and inviting. After almost 9 years in our home, the yard is finally starting to feel finished and even that is difficult for me to say.
When we first moved in, we tore down an old wooden swing set left by the previous owners. I always said we’d install a new one when you were born, but that hasn’t happened, and I’ve had to readjust my plans for the yard many times now.
For years, we tried to grow vegetables but those efforts, much like our efforts at the fertility clinic, did not yield fruitful results. Admittedly, I’ve been quite bitter about gardening for a while now. I often say to your father, “Growing vegetables is just a painful reminder that I can’t grow a child.”
I know the two are unrelated. You’re not a cabbage patch doll after all, but years of Catholic scriptures teaming with agricultural metaphors has hijacked my inner farmer.
Still, there’s a small part of me that can’t give it up… and if I had to guess, I’d say that same part… the part that dreams… that believes in growth and new beginnings… that part of me is the reason I’m writing to you now.
This year we installed a small flower box beneath a trellis and planted pole beans and mini pumpkins. The beans probably make more sense than the pumpkins, but just the sight of that orange fruit makes me smile and I think that’s ultimately why I continue to plant them.
I adore Halloween and I would give anything to be able to carve a pumpkin with you and sew you a Halloween costume like your grandma did for me. Since neither of those things can happen, I’ll have to settle for growing those festive gourds in our backyard and reading good books on your behalf.
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Book #2: The BFG, By: Roald Dahl
Of all the Books I Can’t Recommend to you, I’m particularly sad that I can’t show you any of the books written by Roald Dahl. Now there was an author with a genius imagination! I have a whole box set of his children’s books. Your father bought them for me from Costco (before they stopped selling books).
So many of Dahl’s books have been turned into movies and they’re all wonderful! Matilda has always been a favorite of mine, but James and the Giant Peach, The Witches, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are also superb.
The Roald Dahl box set has sat on my bookshelf for several years now, and I’ve delayed reading any of them because again… I hoped the first time I read them would be with you.
But since this blog series is about helping me accept the reality of our situation, I decided to pick one and read it for you. I chose The BFG because I haven’t yet watched the movie adaptation (produced by Steven Spielberg) and the story was completely unknown to me… I figured that would help me get through it, even if the process was a little triggering.
It turns out I need not have worried because I really enjoyed the story and it taught me a few things…
- Made-up words are infinitely more fun to read than real words.
- Life isn’t measured in ‘snozzcumbers’ and…
- The witching hour is filled with ‘Phizzwizzards’ and ‘Trogglehumpers.’
Made-Up Words
I was halfway through the book when your father asked me how it was going. I told him it was cute and that the Big Friendly Giant used a lot of funny new words that I quite enjoyed. He asked me what they were and I told him about ‘Frobscottle’ and ‘Whizzpoppers,’ but my explanation paled in comparison to the BFG’s so I can’t help but share the excerpt with you:
‘Here is frobscottle! He cried, holding the bottle up proud and high, as though it contained some rare wine, ‘Delumptious fizzy frobscottle!’ he shouted. He gave it a shake and the green stuff began to fizz like mad.
‘But look! It’s fizzing the wrong way!’ Sophie cried. And indeed it was. The bubbles, instead of traveling upwards and bursting on the surface, were shooting downwards and bursting at the bottom. A pale green frothy fizz was forming at the bottom of the bottle.
‘What on earth is your meaning, the wrong way?’ asked the BFG.
‘In our fizzy drinks,’ Sophie said, ‘the bubbles always go up and burst at the top.’
‘Upwards is the wrong way! Cried the BFG. ‘You mustn’t ever be having the bubbles going upwards! That the most flushbunking rubbish I ever is hearing!”
‘Why do you say that?’ Sophie asked.
‘You is asking me why? Cried the BFG, waiving the enormous bottle around as though he were conducting an orchestra. ‘You is actually meaning to tell me you cannot see why it is a scrotty mistake to have the bubbles flying up instead of down?’
‘You said it was flushbunking. Now you say it’s scrotty. Which is it?’ Sophy asked politely.
‘Both!’ cried the BFG. ‘It is a flushbunking and a scrotty mistake to let the bubbles go upwards! If you can’t see why, you must be as quacky as a duckhound! By ringo, your head must be so full of frogsquinkers and buzzwangles, I is frittered if I know how you can think at all!”
‘Why shouldn’t the bubbles go upward?’ Sophie asked.
‘I will explain,’ said the BFG. ‘But tell me first what name is you calling your frobscottle by?’
‘One is Coke,’ Sophie said, ‘Another is Pepsi. There are lots of them.’
‘And the bubbles is all going up?’
‘They all go up,’ Sophie said.
‘Catasterous!’ cried the BFG. ‘Upgoing bubbles is a catasterous disastrophe!’
‘Will you please tell me why?’ Sophie asked.
‘If you will listen carefully I will try to explain,’ said the BFG. ‘But your brain is so full of bugwhiffles, I doubt you will ever understand.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ Sophie said patiently.
‘Very well, then. When you is drinking this cokey drink of yours,’ said the BFG, ‘it is going straight down into your tummy. Is that right? Or is it left?’
‘It’s right,’ Sophie said.
‘And the bubbles is going also into your tummy. Right or left?’
‘Right again,’ Sophie said.
‘And the bubbles is fizzing upwards?’
‘Of course,’ Sophie said.
‘Which means,’ said the BFG, ‘that they will all come swishwiffling up your throat and out of your mouth and make a foulsome belchy burp!’
‘That is often true,’ Sophie said, ‘But what’s wrong with a little burp now and again? It’s sort of fun.’
‘Burping is filthsome,’ the BFG said. ‘Us giants is never doing it.’
‘But with your drink,’ Sophie said, ‘what was it you called it?’
‘Frobscottle,’ said the BFG.
‘With frobscottle,’ Sophie said, ‘the bubbles in your tummy will be going downwards and that could have a far nastier result.’
‘Why nasty?’ asked the BFG, frowning.
‘Because,’ Sophie said, blushing a little, ‘if they go down instead of up, they’ll be coming out somewhere else with an even louder and ruder noise.’
‘A whizzpopper!’ cried the BFG, beaming at her. ‘Us giants is making whizzpoppers all the time! Whizzpopping is a sign of happiness. It is music in our ears! You surely is not telling me that a little whizzpopping is forbidden among human beans?’
‘It is considered extremely rude,’ Sophie said.
‘But you is whizzpopping, is you not, now and again?’ asked the BFG.
‘Everyone is whizzpopping, if that’s what you call it,’ Sophie said. ‘Kings and Queens are whizzpopping. Presidents are whizzpopping. Glamorous film stars are whizzpopping. Little babies are whizzpopping. But where I come from, it is not polite to talk about it.’
‘Redunculous!’ said the BFG. ‘If everyone is making whizzpoppers, then why not talk about it? We is now having a swiggle of this delicious frobscottle and you will see the happy result.’ The BFG shook the bottle vigorously. The pale green stuff fizzed and bubbled. He removed the cork and took a tremendous gurgling swig.
‘It’s glummy!’ he cried. ‘I love it!’
For a few moments, the Big Friendly Giant stood quite still and a look of absolute ecstasy began to spread over his long wrinkly face. Then suddenly the heavens opened and he let fly with a series of the loudest and rudest noises Sophie had ever heard in her life. They reverberated around the walls of the cave like thunder and the glass jars rattled on their shelves. But most astonishing of all, the force of the explosion actually lifted the enormous giant clear off his feet, like a rocket.
‘Whoopee!’ he cried, when he came down to earth again. ‘Now that is whizzpopping for you!’
(Dahl, 56-60)
Needless to say, whizzpopper, is your father’s new favorite word and I’m going to go ahead and give you credit for that because you’re the reason I read this book in the first place. I’m a little sad that we don’t have access to frobscottle, but it’ll just have to live in my imagination with you.
It’s hard not to smile when I read words like delumptious, catasterous, and redunculous… which is why reading this story wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be.
In an alternate universe, I can see myself reading it out loud to you, stumbling over the made-up words and their spellings as my adult brain attempts to see the world through your little ‘human bean’ eyes. We would teach your dad the new words and laugh whenever he fit them into our everyday conversations… because there’s no doubt that he would!
We would have so much fun reading Gobblefunk (the BFG’s official language according to Roald Dahl) that you’d pick another book to read from his box set, then another, then another… And then we’d have to watch all the movie adaptations with your dad so he could learn the stories too… and make you homemade popcorn and a playlist of trailers to watch before each film.
Such is the wish my heart makes.
But in this universe, I’ll read this book (and others) quietly to myself, smile at the whimsical made-up words and tuck them away to share with your father… and then laugh whenever he complements the dog on his whizzpoppers.
Snozzcumbers
When I chose to read The BFG, I wasn’t expecting a direct connection to gardening and the unpleasant taste it can leave in your mouth. (Hello metaphor, thy name is infertility.)
It turns out that the Big Friendly Giant is a vegetarian, and that’s the main reason he’s not like the other giants. He chooses not to eat people, but unfortunately, nothing grows in Giant Country “except for one extremely icky-poo vegetable…called the snozzcumber” (Dahl, 40).
Half as long as a man and as thick as a “perambulator,” — I had to look that up. Ironically, it means of all things… a baby carriage — this black vegetable with white stripes and coarse lumps, is “repulsant, filthing, disgusterous, sickable, rotsome, maggotwise, and foulsome” (Dahl, 43), but that’s all that the BFG can grow so, that’s all he can eat.
Given the parallels I now draw between gardening and our failed quest to meet you, I found this both humorous and incredibly unfair. After all, the BFG has been around a looooong time. So long, in fact, that he doesn’t even know how old he is!
To avoid eating humans, he’s probably been consuming this terrible vegetable for millennia and yet his big friendly personality remains intact! How is that possible? Even his new friend Sophie confirms that snozzcumbers taste like “frogskins… and rotten fish” (Dahl, 43) before she eventually leads him to a more delectable form of nourishment (no spoilers… sorry).
It truly baffled me, this giant’s resolve, until I saw the bigger picture (no pun intended): the BFG takes pleasure in drinking ‘frobscottle’ and ‘whizzpopping’ whenever he can, and instead of going out with the other giants to eat humans, he finds other ways to spend his time using his unique talents.
The BFG is considered a runt in Giant Country because he’s half the size of all the other giants, but he’s also special because he has “enormous truck-wheel ears” that are “extra-unusual” and allow him to hear “absolutely every single twiddly little thing” (Dahl, 35). He can hear ants talking, singing spiders, music from the stars, the hearts of trees and flowers, and dreams… yep, dreams (Dahl, 36-38).
Every morning, he travels to Dream Country and listens for dreams that are “floating around in the air like little wispy-misty bubbles…searching for sleeping people” (Dahl 34), and he catches them with a butterfly net and stores them in jars in his cave. Then at night, during the witching hour, when all the other giants are running around eating humans, he blows those dreams into the bedrooms of sleeping children (Dahl, 34).
Now, I don’t have ears the size of truck wheels, and I certainly can’t hear dreams, but I’m choosing to listen to the BFG’s unspoken advice: When life feeds you ‘Snozzcumbers,’ look for ‘Phizzwizzards.’ …And you don’t have the ask, I’ll tell you. A ‘Phizzwizzard’ is what the BFG calls a really great dream. They’re rare and precious, and they make kids really REALLY happy.
I feel like writing fiction is a lot like dream catching. Here’s hoping that’s my ‘big ear equivalent’ talent. I won’t live for 1,000 years, but perhaps one of my stories will. Will that make losing you and the future we didn’t have more palatable? I guess only time will tell.
The Witching Hour
I am what’s classified as a ‘Wholesome Halloween Enthusiast.’ Therefore, I prefer goblins, ghosts, and ghouls who jump in a conga line rather than out of dark corners, but my love for the holiday extends beyond October 31st and often bleeds into the other 364 days of the year (…365 on leap years).
So, you can imagine my delight when I discovered the plot of this story begins during ‘the witching hour.’ Not strictly tied to Halloween, ‘the witching hour’ has many interpretations, but it’s generally considered to be a special time during the night and associated with supernatural events… where witches, ghosts, and other mythical marvels (like giants) are at their most powerful. Halloween and the supernatural go hand in hand so it’s right up my alley.
Fun fact though… it’s also often used to refer to the period of time when an infant cries for 1 to 2 hours before bed for unknown reasons. Possibly they’re just enthusiastically overtired and clinging to consciousness. Or maybe they can actually see the things that go bump in the night and lack the words to say so. I wouldn’t know. You don’t exist. So, I’ve never experienced it. Either way, I prefer the first definition.
Dahl uses the witching hour to explain why humans don’t believe in giants.
“The witching hour… was a special moment in the middle of the night when every child and every grown-up was in a deep deep sleep, and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world to themselves.”
(Dahl, 2)
You miss a lot when you’re sleeping, but if you’re awake during the witching hour, like Sophie was, you may learn that giants are real and they scoop people out of their beds and eat them. I understand why the general population may not consider this a positive experience. After all, it sounds like the thing of nightmares, or ‘Trogglehumpers,’ as the BFG calls them.
Things always look different in the light of day and there is a ton of research about how our brains function differently in the evening than they do in the morning, after a good night’s sleep. Of course, if the BFG is blowing ‘Phizzwizzard’ in our heads perhaps he’s responsible for that good night’s sleep after all… just something to consider I suppose.
Still, the good can’t exist without the bad and that’s why I love tales that include the witching hour… it can go either way. It’s my belief in that see-saw possibility that keeps me hanging on ’till the end of the story and The BFG did not disappoint.
Sophie and the Big Friendly Giant eventually use something bad to create something good and it changes their lives forever (again, sorry… no spoilers).
You will never be a ‘Trogglehumper’ in my eyes, but sometimes this journey we’re on without you certainly feels like one. (If I asked your dad, Right or left? He’d say, right.) So, the only choice we have is to live with the knowledge that maybe one day, like Sophie and the BFG, he and I can use the bad we’re feeling now and turn it into something good later.
Writing to you often feels like a dream that I’m creating for myself… not quite a ‘Phizzwizzard’ because I can’t hold you in my arms, but one that brings me comfort when the ‘snozzcumber’ is tough to swallow. I wonder if writers are responsible for the dreams in Dream Country… if I’m ever awake during the witching hour I’ll have to ask the BFG.
Until next time,
Your Fictional Mother