Month: July 2025

Some of the stories…

I’ve kept journals for as long as I can remember.  Most of them have January 1 as their first entry and trail off mid-March or so, leaving half of the journal blank. I’m a Virgo.  I like January starts, new journals, pens fresh from the pack, and the hope that comes with blank pages and intact spines. My journal entries, brimming with enthusiasm on January 1, usually fade by spring.  When the next year rolls around, I start all over again with new journals, because I don’t like starting fresh in an old journal.  That has left me with a box filled with quarter-to-half-filled journals. The writing never stops though, but the journaling takes a break, at least until January.  I’ve found I prefer writing on my computer, but still love the idea of a journal and continue to buy them. I’m the family-appointed, self-proclaimed keeper of the stories in my family.  I’d be hard-pressed to put my hands on last year’s personal property tax bill, but I can tell you when and where Thomas lost his first tooth and how long my friend, Cath, and I swam around the bottom of the shallow end of the pool in search of it. We came home without a tooth, but recounted the story in a letter that went under his pillow instead.

The only journals I’ve filled are the ones about my children, all of them beginning on the day I saw a plus sign on the pregnancy test.  When I look at them now, I see them as a monumental task, yet one that was met with ease for me, as writing about my children always came easily. Daily entries, even when time was scarce, felt endlessly important because they were of the moment. If I didn’t capture the moments when they happened, I was afraid I would forget them.  In rereading a few of the journals recently, I was right, some of the most memorable ones, I had forgotten.

Within the pages of sleepless nights, long days with short tempers, and the many recorded firsts are the gems that have become threads to a growing blanket of memories that offer me warmth, security, and the all-important laughs. The value the pages hold for me today is immeasurable.

Yesterday, I found this:

Thomas, age 7

“Wouldn’t the world be a nice place to live in if everybody had the personality of  Emery?  She’s always so happy.”

Those words hold far more weight today than they did in 1993, when Emery was three.  I didn’t write my response to what Thomas had said, but I am guessing it was an enthusiastic yes, because I knew he was right.  And today, I can confirm that with everything I have.  Emery was happy, in a way that was deeper than her outside expression.  People were drawn to her joy and warmth. 

There is an overriding theme of letting go that began in my journals and progressed into letters I wrote to my children, especially with Emery, as she was my last. I’m writing the same words now, but through the lens of loss, disorientation, and an unrelenting battle with reality.

High School Graduation, 2009:

     From the time the technician with the sonogram monitor in front of her told me 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 on things that were so ridiculous that they’d not even be worth trying to explain to other people.  I knew you would sing made-up lyrics with poorly executed accents in between sips of tea from imaginary cups while we got gritty, sweaty, and happy in the sandbox.   I knew that because I could feel it.  The little girl in me was anxious for you to come out and play with the little girl in me.  

What I didn’t know was the pain that would come when I’d have to let you go and find your duets with other people who were not me.  It is what I had been preparing for all along, yet now that it is really happening, I feel like I’ve forgotten the wings part of my teachings and can only remember the roots, and that the whole process is making my heart hurt.

Maybe it’s not that unusual for mothers to express fears of separation from their child, from the first day of school to the emptying of the nest.  The letting go is hard because it means unlearning all that I have intuitively known about being a mom from the moment I saw the plus sign on the pregnancy test.  First, I held my babies to feed them or comfort them or because I didn’t want to set them down. Then, I held their hands while trying to keep them safe and close by. Finally, I held their things, as moms always do, even after telling them not to bring what they couldn’t carry.  They’d ask with drawn-out e’s in their please, and I’d shake my head no, as I hoisted more cargo to my already full arms because I’m a mom and that’s what moms do.

Unknowingly, I had started letting go the first time I held on because that is how life and love work.  How could I have known that the words I wrote about my fears of letting go would go much farther than my tearful goodbyes on Emery’s first day of school? Or unloading overly filled cars with far too many clothes for a small dorm room closet, then driving home and not seeing her car in my rearview mirror,  both of us missing each other before I even pulled out of the dorm parking?  Or seeing her walk down the aisle, towards her soon to be husband on her wedding day?  Letting go, one moment at a time, is what I did.  It’s what every parent does. Until January 4th, when I had to let go for the last time, yet my arms are still holding on six months later.  The missing that I will endure for a lifetime is the gift I’ve been given for having loved so fiercely and so deeply.  As a mom, as Emery’s mom, I would rather miss her than have her miss me.  It is the last pain I can carry for her because I couldn’t step in front of the metaphorical moving train to save her.

Holding on while letting go is a balancing act I’m trying to learn.  Right now,  I’m just trying not to fall and break my other ankle.   Grief has rewritten my map of the world, and I’m learning to find my journey between the past and what comes next, all while remembering how to move when so much inside of me has stopped. I’m purposely getting lost while asking my purpose to find me.

On an ordinary day, at the beginning of a year that ended in a five, which are usually lucky for me, the unthinkable happened. Ordinary turned to tragedy, and there I stood, in the mess of it all, knowing with certainty that January 4th had become the day that would be my marker of before and after.  It is the forever marker to all who loved Emery.

I write daily letters to Emery with my morning coffee. I write to obtain clarity.   I write to share what I would have texted or called her about.  I write to unburden myself.  I write to understand and to discover who I am and the journey I’m on.  In those early childhood journals, I wrote to remember, but also to remind myself that I was a mom and a very good mom.  My reasons for writing haven’t changed, but has grown to include my ongoing understanding of grief and that it is not to be feared or avoided or ashamed of, but rather, it is to be embraced, as its origins are love. I need to welcome it while feeling its sting, and offer it a place at my table, with a cup of tea or a shot of tequila, depending.

My words have been collected in books I’ve made, in journals, on sheets of paper that sit in piles in a large trunk, and on my computer.  Someday, I will gather them all up and put them in one place, but for now, I find what I need when I need it rather serendipitously. 

March, 2009 

 On our flight home from Peru, after a month of volunteering and three weeks of travel (Emery’s reason to graduate from high school a semester early), Emery said,

“No one else will ever understand the value of our time in Peru, Mom, and how it changed us,  but at least we will always have each other to carry the memory and when the time comes, when we need to, we will share it together.”

As the guardian of those stories and so many others we shared, I will preserve every laugh, every tear, and every moment of wonder for Arlo, Muna, and everyone else who loves Emery. Our stories are my treasure, and I will safeguard them in my heart, and when I can’t remember what I’ve forgotten, I’ll find them in the notebooks and computer files where they live.  They are me.  They are who I am, who I was, and who I am becoming. 

Most people would tell me it was a terrible idea.  I did it anyway.  I would probably say the same thing to someone who was in the stage of grief that I’m in, that watching Steel Magnolias would not be considered a good idea.  Not now.  And maybe, not ever. I could hear both of my sisters saying, “Seriously, Laur?  Do you really think that’s a good idea?”  And I’d say yes, but in a voice so high-pitched that they’d know I wasn’t sure.  I did it anyway. 

It was released in theaters in 1989, when I had a three-year-old and a two-year-old, and going to the movies was out of the question, unless it was animated and less than an hour long and even that was iffy. When the movie eventually made its way to television, I had three children, more chaos, and no time to indulge in movie watching. The wedding preparations at the beginning of the movie were familiar, but nothing else.  I’m guessing I started watching, but turned it off when one of my three children needed me and never returned to it.  It’s probably not the only movie that I didn’t finish.

I didn’t go into this blindly.  I knew the ending, but only learned about it recently.  I met with a friend a few months after Emery died, and was trying to describe to him the huge swing of emotions I had been going through, from deep sadness to raging anger, never knowing which one would hit and when. He told me there was no way he could possibly understand, as he hadn’t experienced what I had, then asked me if I had seen the movie Steel Magnolias.  I told him I wasn’t sure, but that I guessed someone died in it.  He confirmed my guess, then got out his phone and started scrolling. He told me he was sending me a video but didn’t want me to watch it until I got home.  I don’t always follow instructions when it involves waiting, but I did as it didn’t seem like something I should be watching at a stoplight.

Once home, I sat on my couch and pulled up the video.  It was Sally Field’s deeply emotional scene with her girlfriends in the cemetery. Although I hadn’t seen Steel Magnolias in its entirety, I knew what I was watching was the crux of the movie and likely the scene that most viewers remembered.  It not only showed the raw grief of a mother dealing with the death of her daughter, but also the beautiful bond she had with her friends as they gathered around her to offer support with love and unexpected humor.  The scene brought me to my knees.  The anguish and heartbreaking grief on display were so familiar, and that familiarity gave me comfort.  I watched it again. I sobbed again.  I didn’t feel so alone in my emotions.  

A few years ago, after discovering the book Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, by Susan Cain, I was relieved to know that my tendency to seek comfort and relief in what some might call the “dark side” was a recognizable trait that was neither crazy nor due to depression.  The book validated my love of rainy days, gloomy music, and sad movies, not because of a depressed mood, but rather, because that is where I can connect deeply to my soul.  It makes sense that I wanted to watch Steel Magnolias in its entirety after seeing the brief clip. I needed the connection.

I have friends who have lost children, but I don’t know anyone who has lost a child who had children. Sally Field’s character, M’Lynn, had a daughter who died, and her daughter had a son.    I knew she was playing a role and it was not real life, but as I watched through my tears, I found a relatable connection, and in that moment, it was no longer fictitious.  It was as real as the tears that flowed down my cheeks, and I found solace in our shared experience.

Her words were my words. 

“We turned off the machines…I just sat there.  I just held Shelby’s hand.  No noise.  No tremble.  Just peace.  Oh God, I realized, as a woman, how lucky I am.  I was there when that wonderful creature drifted into my life, and I was there when she drifted away.  It was the most precious moment in my life….I’m so mad, I don’t know what to do. I want to know why.  I want to why Shelby’s life is over.  I want to know how that baby will ever know how wonderful his mother was.  I want to know why.  I wish I could understand. No.  No.  It’s not supposed to happen this way.  I’m supposed to go first. I was always ready to go first.  I don’t think I can take this.”  (Sally Field’s monologue in the cemetery scene from Steel Magnolias.)

I couldn’t help but wonder how many others in the thirty-five-some years since the movie came out had sat through that scene with the same reaction of deep anguish, laced with a sense of comfort in the shared pain that I had? The constellation of my life forever changed in 2 1/2 days. Trying to make sense of that and my existence without Emery has become the tapestry that all of my life is now woven into.  

I recognized Sally Field’s words, even when she checked her hair in a compact mirror and acknowledged that her daughter was right and her hair looked like a brown football helmet.  I understood and I laughed because Emery had once made the same comparison with my hair and she was right.

Grief is a homing device that finds its way to other grief because that’s where the comfort lies. I don’t seek out the sad movies that mimic what I’m going through, but sometimes they find me, if only for a five-minute monologue. I’ve returned to that clip countless times, not because I want to sob uncontrollably, but because it feels like company to me.  And when you’re going through the hardest thing you’ve ever been through in your life, company with someone doing the same thing is what you want.