Field of dreams

I stood there quietly, humbled, in front of him. Eyes closed, head down, ashamed of myself, terrorized nightly about what had transpired. Snapshots in my brain of a tiny curious hand curled tightly around menacing black steel. Images of her smile, now with a hint of pearly white baby teeth. Sounds of her sweet giggles. Such contrasts, those images that wake me drenched in a cold sweat.

"Well," He said to me, "it's a place of lost innocence, of broken dreams. No matter what the situation is, it boils down to somebody's world being shattered."

I looked down at the markers, the ribbons and flowers, the stuffed animals and toys that decorated the rows of tiny rows of flat granite plaques nestled neatly in the well manicured lawn.

After he said that, I felt like I could relax a little. Yes, my dreams of safety and security were crushed but my baby was alive and I learned a valuable lesson. The innocence lost was mine, not hers, and I didn't have much left anyway.

What are dreams anyway? They're the plates you can afford to hurl against the wall as long as the important things escape unscathed.