I looked away while the nurse put my IV in because I can never watch needles go into my arm. It was September of 2023, and I was getting a new left knee. My two sisters and my daughter were with me, seated together on a small couch in the pre-op room, providing moral support; my line-up of love. I was scared, and they knew it, because I couldn’t hide anything from them. They know me as well as I know myself. Emery told me I’d be OK, and I knew I would, but it was what she said next that stuck with me.
“You’re the strongest person I know.”
When I felt afraid in the hospital room later that night, those words — you are the strongest person I know, echoed in my mind and gave me comfort.
I don’t know why I returned to an essay I wrote in September 2023; I don’t usually reread my essays. But last night I did, and that’s when I found the words I think I was meant to see. You’re the strongest person I know.
Several days later, after my sister-care team had left, Emery would come over at least once a day to tidy up my house, remake my couch bed, and bring bone broth for me to drink, because if there was ever any healing to be done, Emery was always at the ready with bone broth. On one of her visits, she stood behind the couch where I was seated and began gently braiding my hair as we both listened to my occupational therapist talk about self-care. It took me back to the days when I would French-braid Emery’s hair, but never with the same success she had when she did it herself. Emery could French-braid her hair like a pro at a very young age and was totally self-taught. I thought about that moment later that evening, while working through pain. Emery braided my hair.
Love can be quiet and unexpected, and sometimes it can be unwashed hair being lovingly arranged into a braid.
A nurse at St. Joseph Hospital braided Emery’s hair. When Emery had arrived by helicopter two days earlier, her hair had been pulled back by the ICU nurse using the end of a surgical glove as an elastic. She had been intubated, and her hair was pulled away from her face to keep it out of the way. Two days later, the messy ponytail had been replaced by a neatly formed braid. It was the first thing I noticed when I entered her room. I asked the doctor about it, and she told me the nurse had braided it. It was my family’s last day with Emery; the day we gathered at her bedside to say goodbye. The intimate gesture of braiding my girl’s hair touched me deeply, and my thoughts went back to the day she had braided my hair and the intimacy of that gesture. Miles told me later that he had the nurse cut the braid off, and he was saving it for me. I had forgotten about the braid, but really, I didn’t, but thought maybe it was too hard for Miles to give up, so I let it go. The day before they moved to Costa Rica, I saw the braid curled up in a small bowl next to some photos of Emery, a small dish holding her rings, some stones that held significance, and a candle. Miles apologized for not giving me the braid yet, then told me it had become part of Muna’s morning routine. She’d sit at the table and look at the photos of her Mama, while holding the braid up to her face to take in her Mama’s scent. I told him the braid needed to go to Costa Rica with them. Muna needed it more.
I remember the comfort of holding Emery’s braid in my hand while I tried to tell her goodbye on the morning of January 4th, but couldn’t. I didn’t have the strength to tell her goodbye, even though I say it over and over again to her now.
I recently read that when a woman is pregnant, some of her baby’s cells enter her bloodstream and remain in her body for many years. These tiny cells don’t just stay there; they help heal the mother if she is injured, sometimes repairing her heart or other organs. Could Emery be the one who ultimately will help heal my heart? Will the cells left behind when I gave birth to her help repair the hole in my heart, in my life, that her death left in its wake?
I remember before my knee replacement, Emery reaching down to hug me before the nurse wheeled me to the operating room. It felt backwards, like I should be taking care of her, but the roles were starting to reverse. How many times did I tell Emery that I was awed by her strength over the course of her short 34 years? The most emphatic was when she excitedly walked through the back door, introducing an almost 9-pound baby girl they named Muna, just hours after giving birth. My daughter was five feet two. That was some serious strength.
I’m trying, my darling girl, to hold onto that strength you knew I had, and somewhere, deep down, I know you’re right, but strength doesn’t look like I thought it would almost a year ago. Strength, some days, is setting a goal to take a twenty-minute walk. Grief is a heavy load to carry, and there are days when a twenty-minute walk feels like a two-hour uphill slog. Strength is opening the box of memories, even though I know it will make me cry. It’s saying Emery’s name out loud to let people know it’s only okay to talk about her. My strength today is lining up the words to articulate emotions I never thought I’d share, because holding them in is too difficult. It is crying unapologetically, even with the discomfort of those around me, because that’s what my heart needs to do, and it is my heart that I listen to first.
At a time when I’m looking for the strongest person my daughter knew, I have found her in unexpected places.
Holding my daughter’s hair, beautifully braided by her nurse, moments before the machines that were keeping her alive were turned off, took strength I didn’t know I had. Everything else in my life in this early time of grief is just survival. And that is strong enough.