Poland, Part One

A maze of unnecessary gates

I sat at the crowded gate waiting to board, feeling lucky to have a seat. The gate area was small, with folding chairs lined up in rows facing a large open space, a check-in desk behind it, and a series of retractable gate barriers the flight attendant kept moving to allow access. Everyone around me spoke Polish. I leaned in to the conversation next to me and tried to catch something familiar, while regretting that I hadn’t even learned how to say “hello” in this difficult language. I tried to ignore my doubts. Poland? Why Poland? I have no idea. But teaching children English was what hooked me.

At my feet were my carry-on suitcase and a smaller bag, heavy with my computer, a jacket, a book, an empty notebook and pens, and 20 pages of ideas for teaching English to Polish students while keeping it interesting. I had tried to get through the pages multiple times, but was more bored than inspired. I also had no idea what ages I’d be teaching, and many of the ideas were age-specific.

This would be my most difficult journey in 19 months. A long journey to a place I had never been for 3 weeks, 2 of them teaching. I wouldn’t have a family member or friend at the other end of the journey to pick me up from the airport, reassure me that I was doing the right thing, listen to me, and comfort me as needed. I felt fragile, tired, and haunted by the stack of papers that were supposed to help me accomplish the task ahead, that I was choosing not to read. And I felt sad. Regardless of the situation, grief always pushes her way to the shotgun position with me, especially when I’m feeling weak. Wanda (the personification of my grief) was not going to be left out. She was coming to Poland.

I would be volunteering with 2 other women, who I had never met, but who knew each other and the assignment. It would be their 3rd time volunteering in Poland. I would be paired with another woman, while the third would be teaching adults in another town.

After navigating the complicated maze of retractable queue barriers, I walked down the jetway and boarded the plane. I was overcome with memories of doing the same thing multiple times before, starting with Emery in Perú.

My first impressions of Warsaw were that it was beautiful and charming, and that the old town area where I was staying was clean and felt very safe. Unlike most other countries I’ve been in, very few people spoke English. When I stopped at an outdoor cafe for an early dinner, I mentioned that it looked like I was the first one there, but didn’t want to seem too excited. I smiled, which usually works, right? I was met with an expressionless face. She didn’t understand what I said or respond to my smile. She handed me a menu and pointed to a table. I had been in the country only a few hours, but I was already struck by how serious the Polish people were.

Words weren’t familiar. Signage wasn’t familiar. The food wasn’t familiar, and neither were the menus I was ordering from, unless they had an English version. The only thing that felt familiar was my heart, and, as with so much of the past 19 months, we were once traveling solo again.

The two women behind the front desk at my small hotel spoke enough English that, when I mentioned Chopin and a possible concert, one of them handed me a brochure. A small concert venue was within walking distance, and I immediately went online and booked a ticket for the next day. The concert, or recital, as it was called, was in a small, high-ceilinged room with about 100 chairs, half of them filled. I took in the moment, letting it sink in. I was in Warsaw, in an elegantly furnished room, waiting to hear a pianist play Chopin. I was in heaven.

I remember my Dad playing Chopin on the stereo in our living room in the mornings as we got ready for school, and although I didn’t know the names of the pieces, I knew my favorites. Several years later, I snuck the same album in between Jackson Browne and Carol King and took it to college. My roommate didn’t understand why I wanted to listen to Chopin in between what everyone else was listening to, but I think she secretly liked it, or at least she didn’t tell me to turn it off. And now, 50-some years later, there I was, in the 2nd row, listening to a pianist who brought the phrase “tickling the ivories” to life for me, while he played my favorite, Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2. I was smiling ear to ear, and sobbing at the same time. His performance of pieces I had heard many times before uncovered the living pulse behind the notes, cracking open my vulnerable heart and soul. I sat in the room, half-filled with people, yet alone, with my heart, my emotions, my memories, my Emery. So moved, I returned the following afternoon. I thanked the women at the front desk. They nodded, but without smiles.

The next day, a different pianist played with much more aggression, bowing after every piece, unlike the first pianist, who seemed to be inside the music he was creating and didn’t break that spell until after his last piece. I knew those two hours listening to Chopin in the salon would be highlights of my trip that had barely begun. I was right.

The following day, I explored Warsaw with a guide I hired. Poland’s sad, tumultuous history was palpable in the walls of the many buildings we entered that were still standing after being bombed. I felt the sadness in the people, and my guide, Jola, was no exception. We connected easily, and she spoke English beautifully, but we shared experiences without humor. I found this with most people I met in Poland. After spending the day seeing Warsaw through her eyes, she asked me if I wanted to go to a nearby mall. I wasn’t necessarily interested in going to a mall, but she reassured me that this one was different. It had once been a power plant, and during WWII, workers at the plant were active in resistance activities against the occupying Nazi forces. The factory management helped the Poles living under Nazi rule, offering them work or sheltering them from roundups. It was an interesting space, still holding the industrial feel of the power plant in its walls and furnishings. We stopped at a coffee shop for tea and paczki (POONCH-key), traditional Polish donuts, which were very good, and connected over our shared experiences as moms. She told me she had one son, who was also a tour guide, and I told her I had two sons and a daughter, intentionally leaving out that one was no longer living. It felt easier.

My last day in Warsaw, while I wandered through Old Town alone, I heard someone call my name, which surprised me in a city of 1.8 million people. It was Jola. I greeted her with “Dzień Dobry,” the words for good morning she taught me the day before. They ended up being the only 2 words I could speak with confidence after my 3 weeks in Poland. “Dzień” is pronounced like “gin,” which explains why I struggled so much with Polish signage. We exchanged a few words while her small group of tourists waited patiently, then said our goodbyes. I regretted not getting a photo of us together. Later that day, as I walked back from the Chopin concert, I saw her again and got the photo. We exchanged WhatsApp information so I could send her the photo. We said our goodbyes, and I left with the strange feeling that we’d see each other again.

The sign and symbol of Warsaw is a mermaid… always with a sword and shield to protect.

Jola and me in Old Town Warsaw

After 3 wonderful days of exploring, I left my hotel in Warsaw and met up with the two women I’d be volunteering with, along with our in-country manager, Olga, a Ukrainian woman who happened to be the same age as Emery, who had fled her country at the onset of the war.

My time in Poland was a 3-week series of moments. I suppose most of life is a series of moments, some standing out, others mundane, all connected by the breath of varied emotions. My Poland moments felt different. Maybe it was the grief and my slowed-down pace in life, or maybe it was my first journey of this nature since Emery died, but it felt distinct and with a depth of intention that felt new.

Next up: the children, the school, the manor, Reymontowka, where I stayed, and my random and surprising invitation to the manor’s employee party.

Today, October 2nd.

Screenshot

Today, Emery would have turned 36. A day that was one of my happiest has now become the hardest day on the calendar for me. In the grief world, Emery is F34. I know things now that I never would have known before. In the months that followed Emery’s death, I found comfort on sites of mothers who had lost children. There is comfort in shared grief. Comfort in reading another mother’s words that I could understand intimately. Comfort in not feeling so alone. The first time I commented, adding F34 to Emery’s name, it felt awkward and impersonal, but also like a connection. Connected by the letter F. Forever. I couldn’t help but think of Forever 21, and the many times I sat in the dressing room with Emery, trying to share her exuberance for the outfits she had selected. I will never know my daughter as a 36-, 43-, or 52-year-old woman. Emery will be forever 34. Even though she was an old soul, 34 was far too young. She was 9 months younger when she died than I was when I gave birth to her. The numbers in my family history have been rearranged in a way that is hard to understand. Emery, my daughter, has become my ancestor.

Charlie and I chose the name Emery shortly after learning we were having a girl. Jane, her middle name, was a quick response to the nurse holding a clipboard who waited at my hospital bed. She had one more blank to fill in on her paperwork. Even though she said, “Take your time,” she seemed to be in a hurry. Charlie said, “How about Jane?” adding that it was easy to spell. So, Jane it was, but the decision felt rushed. On the drive home from the hospital, I told him I wanted “Greer” or “Glenn” as her middle name. With the surge of post-birth hormones flowing through my body, I honestly had no idea what I wanted. Charlie suggested waiting a few weeks and if I still wanted to change it, we could. After a few days, Greer and Glenn no longer mattered. Our girl was Emery Jane. Charlie knew. Emery loved her middle name, so much so that it became her daughter Muna’s middle name.

Emery arrived at 9:06 a.m. on October 2, 1990, one day after her due date. I had my first and only sonogram at 7 months, and when the technician asked if I wanted to know the sex, I said yes. Three of my friends were also pregnant, due within weeks of me, and all were having girls. I needed to know. I told others, and I told myself that I would be happy with three boys, and of course I would have been, but I also knew I wasn’t fooling myself or anyone else. I wanted a girl. When the technician said, “I’m almost positive it’s a girl,” I mentally eliminated the “almost” and ran with it. I bought pink onesies. I bought pink yarn. I knit pink sweaters and bought tiny pink dresses, and I don’t even like pink. When Charlie and I decided on the name “Emery,” I knit it into the top of her Christmas stocking. It was preparing my nest for a girl, and I was in it deep. On our way to the hospital on the evening of October first, the technician’s addition of the word almost came back to me. She was almost positive. What if I was wrong? 4 1/2 year old Thomas had instructed us that if it was a boy, to leave him at the hospital. Grant, age 3, had picked out a small doll for her. Charlie wore a pink polo to the hospital. We were set for a girl, and thankfully, the technician was correct.

My family is on the second round of anniversaries. Thanksgiving, Christmas, family birthdays, Emery’s birthday, and the date I’m not sure what to do with, but can’t forget: January 4th, the day Emery died. The date is a recognized anniversary, but it’s hard for me to use that word, anniversary, as anniversaries are usually associated with celebrations. What does one do with a date that will never be forgotten, but that doesn’t want to be remembered at the same time?

I had my beautiful girl for 34 years and two days shy of 3 months. Last year, the family honored her in Carlsbad, California. We bought a beautiful cake and flowers, and I brought the two candles, a 3 and a 4, that I found in a basket on a shelf in my kitchen and had no idea where they came from. It was a hard day, a sad day, and a beautiful day with my two sons, their wives, and 3 of my grandchildren. I’ll be with family again this year.

When my children reached an age when gifts didn’t hold the same importance they did as children, I started writing them letters instead of giving them gifts. I’ve saved them all, in folders in a trunk and in later years, in files on my computer. Recently, I reread some of the letters I gave Emery in a book before she got married. There is an overwhelming theme of letting go, and as my youngest child, and the one to leave my nest last, that makes sense. I read some of the lines from those letters at her celebration of life. The following words are from one of those letters. The words carry the difficult theme of letting go, but they read so differently now than when I wrote them.

November, 2012, shortly after Emery’s engagement to Miles.

I needed you far more than I ever wanted you to know. Instead of holding you on my lap or holding your hand as we walked across the street, I hold you in my heart and know you do the same with me. From the time the sonogram technician told me she was “almost” positive you were a girl, I knew you. I knew your energy because it was my energy, and I could feel it while you grew inside of me. I knew your eyes would be curious and your hair wild, and we’d connect over things only we would understand. I knew you would sing made-up lyrics to familiar tunes with me and speak with British accents between sips of pretend tea from mismatched china cups because British accents make the tea taste fancier. I knew you’d share my sense of adventure and curiosity, and I would spend the rest of my life enjoying that with you. What I didn’t know was the pain that would come when I’d have to let you go. My youngest child. My last bird to leave the nest. I would give you roots, and I would help you with your wings. I always knew the wings would be the hardest. I love you, my darling girl.

My heart holds two timelines, my before and my now. I loved you all of your life, my darling girl, and I will miss you the rest of mine. On this joyous and painfully sad day, the day you would have turned 36, I not only grieve for the loss of what was, but also what never will be. My heart aches. My F34 Emery Jane.

And there you are.

And there you are. In a small village in Poland, where I am stumbling through teaching English to 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders, who know far more English than I do Polish. After 10 days, I can only say Good Morning with confidence.

You were there when I caught the smile of an 11-year-old boy who didn’t think he knew the word for bored (I hope it wasn’t my lesson), but got it right, and we smiled at each other with pride. Smiles have no language barrier and can sometimes communicate far more than words. Especially Polish words.

You were there on the 15-minute drive to the school when a ladybug slowly made its way across one of my thighs, stopped on the other, and stayed there for the duration of our drive. You were there when a small cloud of yellow butterflies flew in front of me as I approached the school door on my first day. Seeing them felt significant because the night before, during an almost sleepless night, I had a dream that stayed with me. A stranger approached me and told me to pay attention to yellow butterflies circling because they are a gift, and I needed to know about them. The next morning, they were there, just as he said; they circled in front of me, and I paid attention as I clenched my teeth to hold back the tears and made my way to the school door.

You were with me when I found the Polish coin on the back patio during a lesson, and it felt like finding a dime. The signs keep coming. Signs that to many may seem like ordinary, everyday occurrences, but when you have lost what feels like a part of yourself, your soul, and your heart, those occurrences become lifelines. I slipped the coin into my pocket, and when I got back to my room, I placed it next to a picture of you and your brothers that is on my bedside table. The date on the coin was the year you died, not the year you were born. I had hoped for the opposite.

You have been with me at the end of every workday, when I retreat to my room, exhausted. That feeling of mental fatigue, braided with accomplishment and curiosity, takes me back to our volunteer days in Perú and the recaps we’d do at the end of the day, in our room at the volunteer house. We’d almost always end up in tears because something had happened that made us sad that day. Something sad had always happened. We’d sit on our lower bunk beds, a stretched-arm distance apart, and through the tears I’d reach out and hold your hands while wondering if I had made the right decision in bringing you to Perú. You were only 18. Then you’d say something wise, and worldly, and beyond your years, and I’d know we were in the right place at the right time, and what a beautiful gift it was to be sharing the experience.

I remember our bunk bed recap of the two young children whose caskets we sat in front of in the small living room in Villa el Salvador, one of Lima’s poorest districts. They had died in the fire, and when the mother learned we were in the neighborhood doing home visits, she invited us into her home. This grieving mother, who we had never met, ushered us into the small room and offered us chairs, less than a foot length away from the two small caskets. As the only non-Catholics in the room, with call-and-response prayers being said in Spanish, we weren’t sure what to do, so we did what felt right. We bowed our heads and shed tears for the two children whom we had never met. Those memories of sitting before two caskets that were so small it took us a moment to realize what they were would be the first ones to surface when someone would ask us, “What was the hardest part?”

Immersing ourselves in the joys and the hardships of another culture had a lasting impact, an impact that is hitting me hard today, as I sit alone in my small but cozy room and do my recount of the day by myself. The memories we made 17 years ago in a poor district of Lima hit hard, and though the work is very different, the emotions feel the same. Because you’re not here to help me unwind the day’s tangles, my touchstone has become my words, the scarf I wrap around my shoulders like a hug, and the collection on my nightstand – three photos, a heart-shaped rock, a rose quartz bracelet, and a Polish coin. It’s you and your presence in your overwhelming absence that make me smile and cry at the same time. It’s you, my darling girl. It’s you.

I know you’re here, maybe even more than I am on some days because this is hard. It’s rewarding and inspiring, but it is hard. I feel your presence and your words. There you are, my guardian angel. Just go, Mama.

I’m going, my darling girl. I’m going.

Just Go, Mama

Manicure day with the Abuelas

Machu Picchu

I was nervous. I had made a decision and was questioning my timing. It was a dear friend who told me the words I needed to hear and will not forget.

“The angel on your shoulder is saying, ‘Just go, Mama.’”

And so I am. I leave for Warsaw, Poland, in a few days, where I’ll be teaching English to Polish and Ukrainian children. I’ve not been on a trip without a family member or friend on the other end of my journey, and I’m nervous. I started waffling. Was it too soon? Could I do this? It will probably always feel too soon, but I wanted to feel the spark of joy that comes from immersing myself in different cultures as a volunteer. I felt Emery’s familiar nudge, as if she was seated right next to me on the couch telling me I could and I should.

17 years ago, Emery graduated from high school a semester early and decided we needed to go to Perú. First, to see Machu Picchu, she told me, then to volunteer. Our priorities flipped after spending a month volunteering with the elderly in one of Lima’s poorest districts. As excited as we were to explore more of Perú, we both admitted that we would trade Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca, and the Amazon for two more weeks of volunteering (thankfully, we didn’t). Our shifting attitudes surprised us both. We were unwrapping a gift that neither of us knew existed; a gift that would change who we were and how we saw the world.


Although Emery talked about Paris and shopping at the flea markets and lingering at sidewalk cafes, it was Perú that caught her attention. I was awed by my 18-year-old daughter’s decision. Paris would come later, she told me. We were getting close to that later part now that both of her children were in school. So close.

She nudged me then, and she is nudging me now.

Just go, Mama.

Your Daughter is Calling

Recently, while in a store purchasing a card, the woman ringing me up commented on how lucky the recipient would be. Not a text or an email, but an actual card, in the mail. Given that I was in a store with a large selection of greeting cards, I wasn’t surprised by her comment, but it was her age that surprised me, as she was several decades younger than me. She said that in a world of texting, sending cards was a nice gesture, and that their store had one of the best selections in Boulder (she was right). She told me her friends prefer texting and they rarely speak on the phone. I agreed and told her that my daughter was the same, communicating mostly by text. I added that when she calls, I always know she is alone in her car on a drive longer than 15 minutes.

As she was handing my credit card back to me, my phone rang. My phone is always on mute, so hearing it ring startled me, especially with the ominous timing. The woman raised her brows, smiled, and said, “Well, it must be your daughter calling…on her longer than 15-minute drive!” I smiled and, without hesitation, said, “Yes, probably so.” Spoiler alert, the call was from a solicitor, which was not surprising, but it came through on my muted phone, which was.

For a brief moment, I felt a sense of calm and peace I hadn’t felt in a long time, like finally being able to exhale, and Emery was alive and calling me because she was alone in her car and bored. I held the moment for as long as I could, because it felt good.

Grief is strange. It’s living on railroad tracks, with my normal day-to-day life on one track, and grief running parallel on the other. Grief is the trickster of the two and will show up without warning with unexpected waves of emotion. Sometimes it’s a powerful surge that has me bracing, and other times it’s unknowingly using the present tense, not the past, when I talk to a stranger about Emery. Always, it is a reminder of the love that continues.

When I walked out of the store, I realized I was smiling.

The Slide

It wasn’t anything I had planned on doing, and I didn’t discover it until my last day. Had I had time to give it serious thought, I likely would have opted out. But I didn’t. I went down the slide, into the pond. Last year’s family vacation had me maneuvering 38 steps to my bed in the tree house I was staying in while wearing a boot because of a broken ankle. I wasn’t sure I could top that, but I did, or at least in my grandchildren’s opinion, I did.

It was a steep slide that began in the dark, with two loops in a covered tube that opened onto what felt like a vertical drop into the pond. I heard a comparison to being shot out of a cannon at 40 miles per hour. I am not someone who lines up for the thrill of a roller coaster or anything else that is tall or pulls Gs. Instead, the Tilt-a-Whirl is usually enough of a thrill for me. So, climbing up wooden steps that wove their way through tall trees before landing on a platform with a steep slide into a pond was not my norm. My grandchildren made me do it. More specifically, Muna. I don’t know how it happened, but I went from sitting on the small sand beach with Muna pleading with me to “at least try it, Laudie,” to following her up the wooden steps, while she gave me advice.


“Count to ten, Laudie.…slowly…”


And so I did, switching to Spanish at four, which made her turn around and smile. Then I added that mi corazón was beating very fast, only to be corrected on my pronunciation of the word, which made me smile (even though she was wrong, as my pronunciation was perfect and didn’t sound like the word raccoon as she insisted).



When we were both on the slide’s platform, she said,
“Laudie, you are the strongest person I know.”



I looked at the large, dark tube in front of me as I absorbed her words, then turned around to thank her, but she was gone. Clever girl, I thought. There was no way I was going to back down the steps in a descent of shame. The chorus of grandchildren on the beach chanting, “GO LAUDIE! GO LAUDIE!” wasn’t helping matters. I was going down the slide, coerced by five children who called me Laudie.

And so I did, and it was every bit as scary as I had anticipated. Would I have gone down the slide without the push of my 5 grandchildren, Muna, specifically? No. Probably not. Instead, I would have praised anyone who did from my comfort on the beach and would have shown them the videos I took afterward. But with Muna’s encouragement, I pushed into the dark tube, made a few turns, then flew straight down into the water and surfaced to the beautiful sound of my grandchildren cheering. I knew I wouldn’t be going down again. I was a one and done. Meanwhile, my daughter-in-law, Katie, was headed up the steps to go down the slide again because she said it was so much fun. I marveled at her bravery and her kid-at-heart spirit that saw those few seconds as fun.

Later that evening, Muna told me that in her horseback riding lessons she had started trotting and was going to start doing some small jumps. She added, “I’m kind of scared, Laudie.”
Her words surprised me. She’s six, and she’s fearless. Her candor and honesty touched me deeply, and I leaned in closer, looked into her beautiful eyes, and told her,
“You are the strongest person I know, Muna. I know you can do it.”
She looked up at me and smiled.
“Hey, that’s what I told you, Laudie!”
“And it worked, didn’t it?”

When Emery graduated from middle school, I took her and a group of her friends to Worlds of Fun, an amusement park in Kansas City. I don’t remember much about that day, except for a Suburban full of excited middle schoolers and a daughter determined to ride the roller coaster for the first time. Emery, who, like her mom, did not like roller coasters or anything tall that pulled Gs, had an “I think I can, I think I can” attitude, and I knew she would accomplish what she set out to do, regardless of her fear. Afterward, out of earshot of her friends, she told me how scary it was and how proud she was of herself for doing it and not throwing up. As far as I know, it was her first and last roller coaster ride, much like her mom. Her brave act was minutes of terror, whereas my slide into a pond was seconds, but I know our anticipation and our rapidly beating corozóns were the same.

“This one is for you, Muna,” I had said quietly before I pushed myself into the tube. It wasn’t until I was wading out of the pond that I realized I had heard the words she told me before. Her mama, my Emery, had said them to me often, most recently before my knee replacement. “You are the strongest person I know.” Those seven words, spoken to me during a time of anticipated physical pain, hold more weight today than the day she told me. They are the same seven words I would repeat back to her while she lay in a hospital bed in Denver fighting for her life.

And now Muna is the carrier for the words I heard so often from Emery. Words we both needed to hear. For reassurance on a steep, scary slide or small jumps on a horse, “You are the strongest person I know.”

She was with us. And we both knew it.

Smells, the generator of a story.

Day 4

From my 30 days of grief prompts.

Emery making lilac sugar.

I can smell her. It’s more than the scent she rolled onto her wrist that I’ve now adapted, or the rosewater she had in every room that she’d spray on her face regularly, which I’ve also adapted. It’s putting my face into a jar of herbs for tea that Emery blended for me to help me recover from fatigue, COVID-19, depression, or digestive issues. She smelled like the earth, like sunshine, like roses in bloom, and the sweaty heads of children who had been playing tag in the yard. She led with wafts of cinnamon, lavender, and her favorite, lilac. They were easy smells to like. Emery also liked the smell of a musty cabin, something that I could never understand. She said it smelled like history, like stories that were hiding in the wall. I tried to appreciate her view, but never could. I thought musty cabins smelled forgotten. Emery smelled like the essence of life, and it’s a thread of her that still exists in her absence.

Emery and I shared our love of all things lilac — their scent, their beauty in a vase or on a bush, treasured even more by their fleeting appearance. My neighbor has a large lilac bush that is on the property line between our houses. He once told me that because the bush extends into my yard, I should feel free to cut blossoms. I told him the same about my peach tree, whose branches extend into his yard. We shared. Cutting the blossoms and putting them into a glass pitcher of water, never a vase (for reasons of nostalgia), evoked memories of my childhood. Mom would fill a large white pitcher with the blossoms from the large lilac bush outside our back porch every spring. Emery would use the lilac blossoms from my shared bush or from one in her yard to make lilac sugar for baking, something I had never seen or heard of lilac sugar until I saw her use some for a Mother’s Day cake. I liked that she had found a way to extend the blossoms that never lasted long enough. There were random years that my neighbor’s shared bush didn’t bloom, and maybe that is typical for a lilac. I don’t know, but the spring after Emery died was one of those years.

During Emery’s period of discovery in her freshman year of college, she underwent near-weekly transformations as she tried to understand who she was in this new phase of independence. It began with dyeing her hair red, one of her more difficult transformations that involved a lot of washing and empathy on my part. As her Mom, it was hard for me to watch some of the transformations, knowing what the end result would likely be, but having gone down a similar path myself, I understood my role. Stand back, reserve comment, and be at the ready to help her undo what she had done if necessary. She wanted to find a scent that people would associate with her. Applying a personal scent was a lot easier than getting red dye out of her hair. She found that scent in a shop near campus — I’m guessing next to the incense sticks and patchouli oil.

She told me that shortly after she began wearing it, she was approached by a man in the grocery store checkout line. He told her he didn’t know what she had on, but she should continue wearing it because it was amazing; her fragrance choice was confirmed, and she now had her scent. She bought more of the small bottles and gave a few to me as she thought I, too, needed to be singled out by a handsome man while I waited to pay for my groceries. The bottles were the size of a tube of ChapStick, with Chinese characters on the front, and likely had a buy-two-get-the-third-free pricing. The scent was OK, but not good enough to complement a perfect stranger. I’m guessing the man who complimented her may have been more interested in her than the scent she was wearing.wearing. I used the oil once or twice, then threw it away. Emery eventually did the same. Unlike Emery, though, I was not approached by a handsome stranger bearing compliments in the grocery store.

Years later, after I moved to Boulder, Emery bought me another scented oil for my birthday from a local boutique near my house. I loved it and quickly went through the small bottle. It was ten times the price of the oil from several years ago, and the label was in English, not Chinese. Emery had graduated to the more refined, more expensive scents, and no doubt, the strangers still complimented.

When I was helping two of her friends go through her toiletry items in her bathroom after she died, I discovered another of her scents, and I have rolled it onto my wrists every day since because it smells like her. It was what I smelled when I hugged her. It was what her clothing smelled like when we went through her closet. It was the scent I searched for in her clothing as I instinctively held her clothing to my face, item by item. It was more than a curiosity. It was tangible, immediate proof of her existence that remained even when she no longer did.

A few months after Emery died, when I was staying with Thomas and his family in Portland, Brooke hugged me, and as she pulled away, she told me she wanted to share something about Emery that she hoped wouldn’t offend me. I told her to tell me everything, as I needed to hear every story, every memory, every everything about Emery. She told me that my lines of connection with Emery went deeper than I might have realized because Emery and I smelled the same. It wasn’t from the perfume or anything we put on our bodies or hair; it was our essence, and we smelled the same. She told me that Emery had borrowed one of her shirts while kayaking in Florida a few months before she died. The next time she wore the shirt, she pulled it close to take in its scent and smelled Emery. When she hugged me, she smelled the same scent. She told me she smells Emery in the guest room after I leave.

Scent is a primal connection that begins in the womb and continues as babies imprint on their mothers from birth. I wondered, had I noticed that same scent when I hugged Emery? Or was it too embedded in who we were for either of us to notice?

I thought about the story Miles told me about Muna and the braid of Emery’s hair that had been cut and saved after she died. He told me that every morning, she would hold the braid up to her nose and take in its scent. It felt primal to me, like she was trying to find her Mama in the braid as she held it to her face. She was looking for her Mama in the same way I search for Emery in my memories, my photos, the signs she sends me, and in her scent.

The same thread of scent that began in utero and was passed down from me to Emery continued from Emery to Muna. Out of it came the strong maternal drive to protect and bond, which has endured even after death. Connecting to that thread now is putting my face into a jar of herbs and inhaling, spraying my face with rose water, and taking in the scent and the nostalgia of a pitcher of lilacs in May. Like Muna, I’m trying to find her any way I can.

The E-Harmony Experiment

She did it. I was surprised, not surprised, and am still amused.I got an email from Emery shortly before my 60th birthday that began with:

Don’t get mad, but…

Any communication that begins that way puts me on alert, especially when it’s from my children. Emery was living in Ft Collins, Colorado, newly married, and I was living in Kansas City. The email continued…


You’re going to be getting an email from a guy named Mike, and he’s going to ask you out on a date. Please give him a chance. He seems like a really nice guy.


I immediately picked up the phone and called her. “A guy named Mike, whom I’ve never heard of, is going to ask me out on a date? How is that going to happen, Emery?”
There was a notable pause on the phone.
“Well, I kind of signed you up for E-Harmony.”
“What do you mean, kind of? How did you kind of sign me up for a dating website?”
“Well…(another long pause), I pretended I was you.”
“You pretended you were me?” “Yeah, I did. And I wrote your profile and used some great pictures of you. My favorite ones.” You wrote my profile?”
“I did! And Mom, you would have totally approved of what I wrote. It was really good.”


She went on to explain the details. She had signed me up a few weeks earlier, and E-Harmony had selected a man named Mike as a match for me. Mike agreed. Emery, acting on my behalf, had been emailing him. Evidently, there was a spark between us in our email conversations. My reactions were conflicted. I was touched that Emery had gone to the trouble and expense in hopes of finding me a partner. Then I felt sad; sad that she had gone to the trouble and expense in hopes of finding me a partner.


A few days later, before Mike could reach out to the real Laurie, Emery texted me and said, “No need to worry about Mike. He won’t be reaching out.” And again, I picked up the phone to find out why my potential love interest was no longer interested. Had “I” said something to offend him in our conversations? Emery told me no, she just decided she no longer thought Mike was a good match for me. She didn’t go into further details except to say that the communication with Mike had ended. In fact, the whole E-Harmony experiment had ended, which she also didn’t go into any detail about. I’m guessing Emery had made the discovery through her brief encounter with online dating that it wasn’t as easy as she had assumed. Mike and I were finished before we got started. Case closed. Dating site done. I later asked her which photos she had posted and if I could read what she had written about me. She said no. She didn’t want to share my profile with me because she thought I might be overly critical, which would have been true.

I hadn’t given any thought to the online dating experiment until now. Now, I would like to see the words Emery chose to describe her mom on a dating site. Now I want to see the traits of mine she led with, and the ones she purposely omitted. How had my daughter chosen to describe me to a stranger?


E-Harmony wasn’t Emery’s first attempt at playing matchmaker with me, although it was the one that she put the most effort into and made for the best story. Her college Anthropology professor, with whom she went to the Amazon on a study abroad, was the first. Or at least the first that I knew about or can recall. This “set up” happened when she returned from her studies in the Amazon. She arranged for the three of us to meet in his office at the University of Kansas with the intent of discussing anthropology, or so she said. Given that my degree was in anthropology, I understood her line of reasoning, but I knew it was his charm and good looks that were driving the train and not our shared field of study. It didn’t go quite as Emery had planned, as he spent the hour ranting about a clothing company with local roots that he felt was taking advantage of the Peruvian people with their overpriced clothing, while giving very little back to Peru. I agreed with him, as did Emery, but it wasn’t the direction she planned. She later learned that there was a girlfriend, or possibly a wife, so thoughts of her mom and her anthropology professor getting together were quickly dismissed. It was a failed attempt, but a winning moment. When you have a daughter who loves you so much that she starts planning and scheming with the end goal being your happiness, you are blessed beyond measure. And I was. And I am.

The E-Harmony experiment has left me with questions that hold more weight now that I will never have the answers. “Why did we…? Who was with us when we…? What was the name of the girl who was with us when we…?What were we talking about during that magical moment when we watched the sunrise over Machu Picchu? I remember it was important, but I don’t remember what it was. The answers to those questions and countless more hold more value now that I know they will never be answered.

E-Harmony is just one more missing piece in an ongoing puzzle I’ve worked on since Emery died that will never be completed. It’s like the jigsaw puzzle I tried to complete during my time on the Oregon Coast. I could see what the finished puzzle would look like on the box lid, but I didn’t finish it because many of the pieces were missing. The missing details of our shared stories are the holes in the puzzle, spread out on the yellow linoleum table.

I no longer have the person whose memory was always stronger than mine and could fill in the details I had forgotten. But the picture, missing pieces and all, is always the same; a deep love between a mother and a daughter, who were so connected that sometimes it was hard to see where one person ended and the other began (words borrowed from Emery).

My world has been rearranged, and I’m stumbling through the dance of holding love and grief together while learning how to carry Emery into a future where she will never exist physically. There are days when I see the picture and not the missing pieces, and other days, when grief is the driver, and all I see are the empty spots in the puzzle. The threads of joy—the E-Harmony memories, the time spent in a professor’s office while my daughter played matchmaker between the handsome professor, who may or may not have been married, are my counterbalance to the sadness and the missing. They make the unbearable a little bit more bearable. Sometimes, they even make me laugh.

Airports

Airports. I’ve been in them a lot lately, and I’ve recognized a pattern. They make me cry. Or at least now they do. This, I discovered several days ago in Terminal B of the Denver airport. Cycling through memories has replaced reading a book while I wait at the boarding gate. They hit me hard, both the beautiful and the difficult. They make me cry.

The last time I flew with Emery and her then-3-year-old and 5-year-old children, Emery insisted on driving to the airport. She wanted to control the schedule, and, as the one with two small children, she had earned that right. She also wanted to leave at least an hour later than I would have, which made me nervous. I like to be early, really early, for the “just in case” situations that have yet to happen.

We drove row by row through the parking garage at the Denver airport for longer than I was comfortable with. Emery reassured me that we were fine on time, but after 30 minutes of driving up and down full row after full row, she said we probably should have left earlier, and that was when the real panic set in for me. We eventually found a spot and, loaded down with luggage and two children, rushed to our gate, arriving ten minutes before boarding. Emery told me her timing was perfect because, when she travels with her children, she likes to cut it as close as she can given the limited patience kids have with travel. As a mom, I understood. As someone who is always early, I didn’t, but I loved traveling with Emery, anxiety and all. She was teaching me patience with each of our trips, although I still can’t let go of my “can’t be there too early” timeline.

Today, while I waited at the same airport, with an hour and a half to spare, I wondered how many flights Emery and I had taken together. How many places? How many different airports?

The day after Emery died, my sons and I were at the Denver airport. Thomas was flying to his home in Portland, and Grant and I were flying to LA. My daughters-in-law had been by themselves during the horrific 2 1/2 days, with constant updates on Emery’s condition via phone calls, texts, and FaceTimes. We needed each other more than ever. We needed to meet each other at doorways with tearful embraces. When we returned to Boulder two days later, we would spend the next 3 1/2 weeks together in a rented house. Our non-Jewish family sitting shiva.

While we were returning the rental car Thomas and Grant had gotten when they arrived, the attendant, in a happy, overly cheerful voice, asked us how our trip had been. Thomas responded, “Not great,” and left it at that. The agent wasn’t satisfied and continued, “How can anyone come to Colorado and not have a great time?” Thomas looked at Grant and me, shook his head, and started unloading our luggage from the car without responding. That odd feeling that life had continued without stopping after our trauma, hit hard. He was only doing his job.

When Grant and I found our seats at the gate, only a few gates down from where Thomas was, all the passengers seated near us were mothers and daughters traveling together. Or at least that’s what it looked like to me, given the emotional state I was in. So much of me was missing. I didn’t feel like a whole person. I was weary. I was lost. I couldn’t have made it through TSA, onto the train, and to the gate without Grant and Thomas directing me. I didn’t hold back my tears. Grant put his arm around me, and maybe he was also crying. I don’t remember. I was carrying the unfathomable burden of a mother’s worst nightmare, and my sons had lost their only sister. We were pacing through this new version of our lives with open wounds of grief, confused and still trying to make sense of what had happened. It had taken me multiple tries to book Grant and my flight the day before, hours after Emery died. Although booking flights was something I had done hundreds of times before, after several attempts, I ended up calling the airlines and letting them do it for me. The next day, Thomas and Grant guided me through the traveling process the following day. It’s no wonder airports make me cry. Those traumatic moments now live in every cell of my body.

The unseen burden of missing is my other piece of luggage, which I’m dragging behind me through TSA, to the gate, and onto the plane. It has me in tears at gate 49, an hour and a half before my flight. I laugh through the tears. Emery wouldn’t have even left her house yet had she been on the flight.

John Denver’s Take Me Home starts playing. Maybe it always plays, given that it is the Denver Airport, but today was the first time I heard it, and it hit me hard enough to stop typing this essay on my phone and listen. Emery loved John Denver. She also loved Elton John and Billy Joel, and once told me she had the musical tastes of someone at least 30 years older than she was. “Like me, Emery?” “ Exactly, Mom. Like you.” When she was a freshman in college, she asked me to go to a concert with her, which, along with the thoughtful gesture of inviting me, meant I would be the one to buy the tickets. She wanted to see Elton John and Billy Joel. Again, the musical taste of someone twice her age. As we were walking to the concert hall, I was confused as to which one it was being held in. Emery said, “Just follow the Land’s End jackets, Mom. They know where they’re going.” I’m not sure if there were any Land’s End jacket-wearing people on the crowded sidewalks, but I knew exactly what she was saying. It was a middle-aged crowd who knew the words to every song and sang along, my 19-year-old daughter included. She was an old soul in every sense of the word, including her taste in music.

Now I’m crying, and people are staring, and honestly, I’m so used to it that I don’t bother covering my face. I watch people walking down the concourse, wondering what their stories are and where they are going. Making up stories about the travelers was something Emery and I were very good at, a pastime that originated with my sisters and me. This time, my made-up stories were derailed by a curiosity I had never seen before at the airport. Several people, I’m guessing in their 20s, were clutching stuffed animals as they made their way to their gates. Heads bowed over a cell phone had been replaced by stuffed animals held tightly to the chest, like the ones my granddaughters would carry. It looked strange, but at the same time, it made sense because it represented comfort. I don’t own a stuffed animal, but if I did, it’s possible I’d be taking it out of my pack about now.

I have an overpacked backpack and a carry-on, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll be able to lift them into the overhead bin given their weight, but the heaviest load is the one no one can see I’m carrying: the weight of carrying love and grief at the same time. I think about the early days traveling with Emery and having her lead us to baggage claim upon arrival. I wanted her to feel comfortable navigating airports, and finding our way to the baggage claim seemed like an easy start. I was successful. Emery became more confident with airports and schedules than I’ve ever been.

Passengers begin lining up to board, and I take my place in the line, slowly making my way to the counter, where my boarding pass is scanned. I walk down the long jetway, wondering how many jetways I’ve walked down in the past 16 months. Too many. Not enough. I’ve left more than I have stayed because, even with the difficulties airports now present for me, leaving is still easier than staying.

I make my way to my seat, always by the window, and turn away from the passenger seated next to me. Tears flow down my cheeks while I look out at the familiar hive of ground activity on the tarmac. Countless flights to various destinations, and it hasn’t gotten any easier.

There is no mystery as to my new relationships with airports or why they have become so difficult for me, yet it is still hard for me to admit.

I’m going on without her.

Where would I take you?

Day 14, from my 30 days of grief prompts.

The blue couch… so much joy and so much sadness

Where would I take you? If I could. I didn’t have to think long on this one. The answer felt as if it was waiting for the question to be asked. The Oregon Coast. I would take you to the Oregon Coast, Emery. It would be April, because it is April now, and even though you prefer sunny days to rain, I’m not worried. You are going to love it as much as I do.

After Dad died, and my sister was diagnosed with an incurable cancer, Emery helped me with daily calls and reminders to breathe, promising it would get better. “Put your hand over your heart, Mom, and inhale and slowly exhale. I’m here.” In my journal pages, I found the only entry written from those days.
“I know I’m depressed. I know I should go hike or, at the very least, walk around the block. I don’t ever remember feeling this down.” I felt like I had hit rock bottom, and Emery was helping me find my way out.

I remember during those dark days, Emery telling me she wanted to take me somewhere, anywhere really, because we needed a mother-daughter trip. She mentioned pink champagne and shopping for things we didn’t need. She wanted to mother me, and I wanted to let her. Four months later, Emery died, and what I thought had been my rock bottom would go deeper than I ever could have imagined. I returned to Manzanita, Oregon, a few months after she died, to the same house I had rented the year before, but this time it was vastly different from the previous year. I was deep in grief. My rock bottom became a dark cave with only slivers of light coming in. I don’t remember much about that month, and given the state I was in, I’m not sure how I fed myself or functioned with the day-to-day tasks of being human. I returned to the coast because I wanted to be inspired and held by the ocean while I wrote, walked the beach, cried, and grieved. I responded to writing prompts focused on grief, and in doing so, I’m playing out the fantasy that Emery is still here. At least in my words. We are still planning.

We are sitting on the blue couch, looking out at the ocean from the living room’s large picture windows. We could sit outside on the deck, but it’s chilly this morning, and inside feels cozier. I turned on the fireplace and poured a cup of coffee for each of us. I’m sorry, Emery, I don’t have matcha, as I know that’s what you’d prefer.

The beach is empty except for one man and his dog. He’s out every morning, rain or shine. He and the dog will be back for sunset. I know you’ll be watching the dog more than the man, wondering its name and wishing you were on the beach so you could pet it. The sun is out now, although there will likely be a pop-up rain shower later today. You sigh. I think you love it as much as I do, and I think you’re surprised by that, because, as my sun-loving daughter, you didn’t like rainy days.

You tell me how beautiful it is, the waves crashing up on the beach. We feel so close, even though we are inside. You tell me you’ve always considered yourself a mountain girl, and now you wonder if maybe you’re an ocean girl instead. I tell you, I think you can be both, as I feel the same way. You tell me you understand my love for this magical place. That makes me happy. And now I sigh as I write, because you didn’t see the beach or the small town where I rented the house. You did, however, see Cannon Beach, just north of where I was staying. We went with two other families and spent several days there. You were five. You liked everything at five, except naps, so of course you liked Cannon Beach. I know you‘d remember that vacation, or at least pieces of it, because one of your best friends was also there. We were a group of 14. We didn’t move through the coastal town without a lot of attention and likely exasperated sighs from the waitress at the restaurant we claimed ours for every breakfast and several lunches. So you had been to the Oregon coast, but not where I have landed now, and not as an adult, nor have you ever sat on the blue couch with me while looking out at the ocean. I set those thoughts aside and return to the fantasy I’m writing.

We quietly watch the sea, seated next to each other on the blue couch. The sun comes out, and we bundle up and head down to the beach. You wear one of my jackets, and it’s huge on you, but, like everything else, you wear it well.

We walk across the street to the six steps leading down to the beach. You stop at the bottom step to soak it all in and marvel at the beauty that I’ve talked about so much. We turn right, towards Neahkahnie Mountain, the beach nearly deserted. You ask me if it’s always like this, so few people, and I tell you yes, but then again, it’s April, not a popular time for beach goers. Even a dozen people would feel crowded to me. I’ve been spoiled. I’ve gotten used to the solitude of this beach in April.

We find a large piece of driftwood and take a seat. I point down the beach to the tide pools, and tell you it is where Thomas and his girls walk from the house they rent to look for starfish. You tell me you want to go there later and look for yourself. She’s making plans. She loves it.

You tell me it is the perfect place for a writer, and I agree. You asked me to show you the spot on the beach where I saw the lineup of people and the girl in the yellow raincoat holding the box, which I believed contained ashes. I pointed it out to you, and you told me you thought the story I wrote was one of your favorites. I didn’t know when I wrote it that less than nine months later, you would factor into another essay inspired by the girl in the yellow raincoat with the box of ashes, but the actors would be different. It would be your family. A mother, a father, two brothers, a husband, and two children.; all trying to make sense of something that doesn’t. All grieving your death. But now, you’re with me, while I experience the gift of having you, in a fleeting moment of creativity that I have formed with my words.

As we walk back to my rental house, you stoop down to pick up a heart-shaped rock and start to put it in your pocket, but then hesitate and set it back down on the sand. Why didn’t you take it, I ask? You know, for a little souvenir? You tell me that you don’t need to take the rock because you have the memory of finding it while walking on the beach with me, and that’s enough. Of course, that’s what you say because that’s who you are. I remembered being with you once and you finding something on a sidewalk. Was it a penny? Probably. You decided not to pick it up, but instead, wanted to leave it for someone else to find. I think about that now when I see a coin on the sidewalk or the floor, but I pick it up, because now, I see it as a gift from you, intended for me.

It starts to rain, so we return to the house and our place on the blue couch. You lean into me and put your head on my shoulder, your eyes fixed on the beauty of the ocean through the filter of light rain. I can see why you love it, Mom. I’m so happy you’ve found this piece of heaven.

That is where I would have gone. That is where I would have taken you.

I shift out of my fantasy and back into my reality. I have a deep longing for something I have never experienced. A longing for the endless possibilities I thought lay in front of us.