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Years ago. A girl, mother of two boys, finds herself carrying a third child. She is still so young and lost. She doesn't know that the decisions she makes today will carry with her for her lifetime. She thinks whatever happens now will be left there by the side of the road with no way to find it’s self back to her.

A man. He is the man whose seed implants into her body to form the baby she is now carrying. He’s older by 8 years. He knows that the decisions you make now will carry with you for a lifetime. He cannot let the world know of his imperfection. Had his sin have been an infected limb he would have cut it off an buried it. It was not an infected limb. It was a baby out of wedlock. He tells her that she can have the baby but he’ll take it away or she can abort it. He’s done it before; taken a baby from it’s mother’s arms.

She won’t let him have the baby. It’s better in her mind to release the soul of the unborn baby back to it’s origin than to let the man, standing before her asking for it’s death, take this child . She won’t let the man have the child she loves. She doesn’t know how people spread their legs to take a child out of their body but she raises all the strength she has and lets it happen.

She goes home and cries for the child she allowed to be taken from her. She turns cold to touch. She cannot let anyone into her space. It’s better to keep people at arms length because allowing people to care for her hurts so much. It feels much better to not accept care. She goes through all the motions of being a loving mother to her other children but any love given to her is put in a little box that she keeps but never opens.

More than 20 years pass and she never thinks about what happened with the baby. She left those thoughts by the side of the road she thinks.

She walks into her meditation spot and has a seat one morning. Sitting there quietly she remembers back to Christmas day. After taking her youngest son back to his apartment she is about to leave and she hugs him and kisses him on the cheek. In her meditation she thinks on this and what a big step it was for her. She generally just kisses her sons goodbye. Hugs always make her uncomfortable and she assumes it is because her parents did not hug her when she was a child.

During the thoughts on the hug a baby/toddler appears to her wearing a lions costume like she is having a dream. It feels like the child comes out of her thoughts and stands to face her almost nose to nose. The baby giggles and walks away. Her mind goes completely silent and empties like a black screen. She has a feeling that this was her baby. She decides she needs to name the baby, something in all these years she never did. A thought comes back to her, “Marley.” She says to herself, “no I would never name a child Marley, it has to be something else.” Then a thought comes back to her, “this soul is Marley and I was never yours to name.” Then the word “vessel” pops into her mind. She knows what this means. She was merely the vessel for which this soul fulfilled it’s reason for taking form inside her body in this lifetime. It occurs to her that even when she thought she left that decision on the side of the road more than 20 years ago she has been holding this soul with her all these years. This morning they said their goodbye. In the darkness of her mind that was still so empty she said to herself, I’m letting you go but I just want to pretend to hold you for a second and she did. With tears pouring down her checks she let that soul she carried with her for all those years go, knowing now it was never really hers to keep.