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.