The random, previously unnoticed, has become significant. Unexpected connections are finding their way into my life on a regular basis. My memories of 34 years spent with my daughter, Emery, are now finite. Every moment, every thread of her I can still touch has become valuable beyond measure.
I’m not sure who I am without her. My search for her continues, even though I know she’s gone.
It was because of Emery that I now live in Boulder, Colorado, a return to the state where I was born. She asked me if I’d consider leaving Kansas City to move to Boulder after her first child was born. Emery became my caregiver when I needed help. It was Emery who drove me to colonoscopies, four rounds of gum surgery, a stem cell procedure on my knee, followed by a knee replacement 2 years later, when I needed her the most. She bought me bone broth every day after my knee surgery, braided my hair, remade my couch bed, and continued to give me encouraging words. She brought food and flowers when I had COVID (3 times), and FaceTimed daily during the lockdown. After delivering bags of groceries to my porch, always with flowers and surprise sweets, we would stand on opposite sides of my yard, maintaining a safe distance, and talk. We’d both be in tears when we said goodbye.
She once told me we were so intertwined that sometimes she didn’t know where I ended and she started. I had thought only moms said things like that. Not only does it feel like a large part of my heart is gone, but it feels like a part of my very being has also left. The memories, which often come without warning or reason, are tiny sparks of connection that feel like gifts.
I was at the doctor’s office earlier today to see how my ankle is healing. Before meeting with the orthopedic doctor, a nurse came in to go over my information. She asked if Emery Golson was still my emergency contact. I bit my lip and said, “No. I’ll change it.” She didn’t comment, but why would she? She didn’t need to know why Emery Golson was no longer my emergency contact. A few minutes later, when Dr. Kramer told me my ankle was worse and I needed a different boot, one that came to my knee, and would need to wear it whenever I was upright. I asked, “Even in the middle of the night?” and he interrupted me before I could finish. “Yes, when you go to the bathroom,” adding it’s the first question patients ask. He added that if it isn’t better in three weeks, we would need to talk about surgery.
Tears started rolling down my face. It wasn’t the surgery that brought on the tears. It was doing all of the hard stuff without Emery; without having Emery to call on my drive home, who would tell me it would be OK because she’d be there for me every step of the way. Without Emery to bring the bone broth and anything else I needed because I was also told I can’t drive (it’s my right ankle). I had not seen Dr. Kramer initially, or he would have said no to my drive to Sedona. Instead, I went to Urgent Care, and they said the drive was OK, and also put me in the wrong boot. I had driven over 1,500 miles in the past few weeks, which I’m sure didn’t help my injury, and now, I’ve been told not to drive, not even around the block. Dr. Kramer noted the tears, then went on to tell me that although the recovery would be longer, the surgery would be pretty simple. I nodded and thanked him. He told me there was no need to thank me as he knew he had just ruined my day. I thought about the woman at the bar in Santa Fe who saw my boot (my very short, incorrect boot) and said, “You just never know, do you?” No. You never know. Those words have become my mantra.
Later, on my way home, and the last drive I would make for the next three weeks, I passed a park I used to go to a lot with Emery and Arlo. I instinctively pulled into the parking lot, not sure why, parked my car, and looked out at the grassy areas dotted with playground equipment, and was drawn to the bright orange teeter-totter on the blue metal base. I didn’t remember a teeter-totter at the park, or Arlo ever getting on one, since it’s not a piece of equipment common in parks today; they have been replaced by equipment far more enticing than a plank on a fulcrum. I followed the lead of a teeter-totter that became a door to so much more than a piece of dated playground equipment.
I recalled a park where Emery and I used to go when her brothers were in preschool. There was a playground area and a trail that went around a small lake. After she had had enough of the swings and slide, we’d walk around the lake, with her in the stroller or her stuffed animals in the stroller while we both pushed it. There was a teeter-totter in the playground area, and she was curious about it and wanted to “try it.” I put her on one end while I gently added weight to the other, lifting her slowly in an up-and-down motion. She was not impressed. I slowly lowered her to the ground so she could get off and make her way to a more interesting piece of equipment. My thoughts on the teeter-totter were similar, but I was more afraid of it than bored by it. I don’t remember the specifics of what brought on the fear for me, only that I was knocked to the ground when the person providing ballast on the other side exited without warning. When you’re a small child and don’t anticipate being dropped to the ground, it’s scary. Teeter-totters only function if someone is on the opposite end, and there is an element of trust that they won’t leave you up in the air or worse, won’t drop you when they’re done. Without the other person, the piece of equipment is useless.
So there I sat, in the parking lot of a park, completely devoid of children, focused on a piece of equipment that I had grown to hate as a child.
Playgrounds. Memories. I let my mind wander and thought about Emery and me as adults on a teeter-totter, with me having to adjust my placement as she was the lighter one. Of course, this wasn’t a memory as Emery and I had never been on a teeter-totter together as adults, but the visual came to mind. The teeter-totter was a picture of how I feel these days. It feels like Emery abruptly left the teeter-totter, leaving me to crash to the ground unexpectedly. She is no longer on the other side of the plank, offering ballast. I’m on the edge of the teeter-totter, my knees bent up to my shoulders, looking up at the other end where Emery should be, but she’s gone, and no one is there to help lift me off this spot where I’ve crashed. There are things you have to carry solo, and the grief of a mother losing a child is one such thing. A hug, a phone call, a FaceTime, or an attentive listener who hands over a Kleenex mid-story are all beautiful and helpful, but at the end of the day, I am navigating this journey alone. It is a solo job.
Nothing makes sense, including me sitting in the parking lot at a park, staring at a teeter-totter that conjures up memories and made-up stories. Yet, in the stillness, where I live now, I see what I need to see: the pieces of a very large puzzle whose placement has become a daunting task, not knowing what the puzzle will ultimately become. It’s hard to put a puzzle together when a significant portion will be missing. Emery once told me while we were working on a jigsaw puzzle, “Border first, Mom, then the rest will be easier.” She was good at putting puzzles together, a skill her son, Arlo, also has. She was also good at denying she was good with puzzles or even liked them, for that matter.
Well, Emery, I’m remembering what you told me regarding puzzles (whether you liked them or not). I’m searching for pieces with straight edges that will serve as a frame for everything else, then the rest will be easier. I don’t think the teeter-totter was a border piece, but I know it fits in there somewhere.
I believe with more time ahead, you should write a book about grief. Your words, your writing, draw a clear picture even if you don’t know the characters. But when you keep reading the characters come to life as if they are seated next to you. More time ahead, a book is in your future.
Thank you, Kim. Unknowingly, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I was on the 2nd edit of another book, but it has been “shelved.” Grief is what I know right now and where I live.