{"id":890,"date":"2007-06-18T17:12:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-18T17:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2007\/06\/dreamchild\/"},"modified":"2007-06-18T17:12:00","modified_gmt":"2007-06-18T17:12:00","slug":"dreamchild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/dreamchild\/","title":{"rendered":"Dreamchild"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This is the third time I am using this blurry photo in my blog. <\/p>\n

When I first saw this picture on Ned’s computer screen, I could not take my eyes off it. There was something about it. Soon I found tears streaming down my face and I knew what it was. <\/p>\n

This, to me, is a flash of possibility, a little trick of What If. <\/span> There is something here about his smile that is more open and wiser than usual, as if he is laughing at something tangible, rather than something in his own head. There is something so typical teenage-boy about his stance, something so expressive and confident about his eyes, maybe because they are blurry, that tricks me into suddenly knowing what Nat would have been like if.<\/p>\n

I can’t help it. I love Nat with all my heart, the Nat I know and have adored since the moment I felt him in my womb. But in this photo I see the Nat I might have had, truly older than Max, mischievous, teasing, strong, his own person, about to go off into the world without me.<\/p>\n

And then I blink, and he’s himself again. And it’s okay. The soreness recedes mercifully fast, and I’m back, and it’s just a cute photograph. It’s him and it isn’t. You can’t construct people from your wishes, I suppose. That’s why we have novels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the third time I am using this blurry photo in my blog. When I first saw this picture on Ned’s computer screen, I could not take my eyes off it. There was something about it. Soon I found tears streaming down my face and I knew what it was. This, to me, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-em","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}