Losing Rene?

Ch1

Sitting on a little wooden bench, I watch shadows of the clouds overhead race across the open expanse of lawn before me. Deep are my thoughts as my mind filters through and processes that which got me to this exact moment in life.

Glancing down at my watch, I see the dial reflect the sun as it breaks through the clouds.

I squint at the sudden glare, angling my watch face so I can better see the dial. It is ten minutes till two. I have only forty more minutes until the child I raised will be committed for the rest of life, to a new role.

I lean forward and place my elbows on my knees, allowing the half empty water bottle that I've been holding, to dangle.

My thoughts drift back to that fateful day so long ago when I lost my precious wife, Renee. Inhaling deeply, I knew I couldn't be sad - not today.

Renee had been the love of my life, taken from me by a decision she had made to proceed with a pregnancy even though the doctors had warned her that it could harm her. I will not end an innocent life, to save my own, she had told me.

On the very day she passed, a son, little Rene entered the world. It was as though part of me was heartbroken, while the other part of me was relishing in bringing forth a life that she and I had both created.

Why Rene? It was a less commonly used spelling of his mother's name, Renee, and meant reborn, which I felt was perfect since I believed our newborn son to be a part of his mother, literally reborn.

He was four pounds nine ounces, and a mere fourteen and a half inches in length. He had come five weeks early. Even our family doctor was surprised at how tiny he was, and yet still perfectly formed.

As he grew, Rene could only be thought of as tiny. Mentally he was right there with others his own age. He was always a kind boy, sympathetic and as tender-hearted as a child could be.

I smile at that memory.

Unscrewing the cap of my water and taking a sip, I begin to think back to when I first realized that there may be something wrong.

Rene was four and I had just moved him from a sitter to a local preschool. It was his first day and we were fine when we approached the building, even when I introduced him to his teacher.

However, when we got him to playing with a few of the other children to distract him so that I could slip away, he screamed and cried so very loudly.

Thinking that this was nothing more than a form of separation anxiety, I figured eventually he would grow out of it... but he didn't.

The first day of Kindergarten, I felt as though my heart was ripped from me as he stood in the very back of the school bus and bawled. He was frantic and pleading for me to help him.

Feeling like the most terrible father on the planet, I hung my head and cried as the bus disappeared into the distance. It was like that for five straight weeks, thankfully though, through the bus driver's sympathetic nature, the school and his teacher, we were able to get beyond the sheer terror he had been expressing every morning.

Upon a suggestion by the school counselor, we arranged a meeting at the school with a local psychologist that may be able to help shed a light on what was causing Rene's severe separation anxiety.

I thought it may have more to do without having his mother, than anything. When I met with the psychologist for the initial visit, he asked for background on both Rene and me. Naturally, the loss of his mother came up and even though the doctor didn't state it then, I suspected that he too felt Rene's issues were rooted in this fact.

Just four and a half weeks into his meetings with the psychologist, the doctor's findings came back with severe separation anxiety brought on by the traumatic loss of a parent.

I could have told them that.

I recall one Saturday morning, sitting at the table with Rene after breakfast, as I was reading the newspaper. He could have only been seven or eight at the time. He was busy drawing a picture and we were making small talk.

I stood to get myself a cup of coffee and as I passed behind him, I noticed what he had been working so hard at. It was a drawing of a woman with three small children. I stopped to observe his artwork.

"That's pretty good, Rene."

"Thank you," he replied, his voice was sweet and soft.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to guess that it was of our neighbor Connie and her children. However, I was perplexed because there were two girls and a boy depicted in the drawing, and Connie had three girls. I thought I would mention that to him.

"While your artwork is exceptional, son, you do realize that Connie has all girls. Right?"

He continued to color.

"These aren't Connie's girls..."

He sat the crayon down and picked up another without looking up.

"They're mine."

"Oh? Did you happen to get married, have a family and I wasn't invited to the wedding?" I said with a little chuckle.

He glanced up smiling. "They're mine from before."

I raised my eyebrows.

"From . . . before?"

His comment perplexed me and so I thought I would move forward and just ask.
"From before when?"

He shrugged.

"From before I was born."

Intrigued, I pulled out a chair and set down beside him as he continued to draw.

"Rene, before you were born you were just a twinkle in the eyes of your mother and me."

"I had a family back in a time before I was born this time."

He began to color again, trading one color for another. I smiled and inwardly congratulated Renee for passing on to our son such an imagination.

Standing, I went over to the counter and began to fill my cup. I thought I would just humor him and commented on the figure he was coloring at that moment.

"Well from the looks of your drawing, you sure had a beautiful wife."

He paused and studied his drawing for a moment, and then looked up at me.

"That isn't my wife, daddy - it's me."

I felt my brows knit.

"It looks like a woman, Rene."

He giggled.

"That's because I was a woman."

I fought the urge to pepper Rene with questions, but once I had really thought about what he said, many of my assumptions about him up to that point were beginning to make some sense.

That evening, long after Rene had gone to bed I fired up my laptop and began to research Past Life Experiences. I found that Rene's story was not all that uncommon, and there were countless thousands of children across the globe insisting they'd had a past life.

Only, this was my son.

I lean back on the bench and take another swig of my water. Those days started the stress that led me here today.