One year. 365 days. Twelve months of not feeling well, emotionally or physically. Twelve months of missing my girl. On Emery’s birthday, a friend, who has gone before me on this horrific journey, told me, “The scab will continue to get thicker over your heart. Anything can pick at it…important events, special days, a memory. And one day, you will be able to take really deep breaths and not feel the stabbing pain. I promise. It gets better. Not ever gone, but livable.” I’m not to the better, but livable part yet, and I don’t think my scab has formed. Another friend who speaks from experience told me, “A patch will appear in time. It will be careworn from sorrow, love, and loss, but in time, it will be there.” I hold these words close to my heart.
I’ve read or listened to countless books on grief, taking what I needed and leaving the rest. I realized that in the essays that I’ve written for the past year, I’m writing my own manual of grief while my care-worn patch of healing is being woven, one thread, one word, one emotion at a time. I’ve also learned that my grief is not a tunnel that I will make my way through, with solace waiting for me on the other side. Instead, it’s a cave. Sometimes light comes into the opening, and other times it’s dark. I’m learning to navigate in the dark, but it’s a difficult, unsure journey. Emery’s Dad, Charlie, and I were with her for her first breath and 34 years later, for her last, witnesses to the entirety of her life journey and its duality of joy and sorrow, beginning and end. It’s the circle of life, with the beginning touching the end, yet nothing about it feels complete or connected to me.
My New Year’s tradition of writing down my highs and lows of the past year, followed by my goals and dreams for the following year, didn’t happen. My journal, with a pen poised next to it in anticipation, remained on my desk until mid-summer, the pages still blank. I finally closed it in July and tucked it in a drawer. Instead of year-end journaling, I drove to my daughter’s house in a panic after my son-in-law, Miles, called to say 911 had been called. Life stopped. Calendar pages weren’t turned. December became February. We wanted to skip January, and in many ways we did, as we huddled together as a family in a rental house in Boulder, blocks from my house. My tears woke me up in the middle of the night in that rental house, with my desperate need to hug Emery, because we always hugged before we parted. During my waking hours, which seemed few, I tried to find the words I would say at my daughter’s celebration of life, insisting to my sons that I couldn’t do it, and yet I did.
I am still here, but it’s hard to find me some days. In the early days at the rental house, I often woke up with my cashmere scarf tangled in my arms, like a child’s blankie. I didn’t go to bed with it, but somehow I would find it in the night. My body and soul knew what I needed and were helping me with a gray cashmere shawl that offered the same kind of comfort as a child’s stuffed animal.
There is a hole in the fabric of my life… and maybe, as my friend told me, a patch will form, but the hole will always be there. I became a different person on January 4th. My life has been split into the biggest before and after I have ever known, and I’m trying to figure out who I am in this after part, as there are many days when I don’t recognize myself.
Emery became my teacher, roommate, and confidant after my divorce. The child became the teacher. She taught me to believe in myself, to stay in the moment, to find joy in the mundane, and to see the world with an open heart and mind. So much of me is better because of Emery, and so much of me is lost with her death. Life hides in landmines. It’s relentless and tiring, yet beautiful in the sparkles that love has left in its wake.
A mother saying a final goodbye to her child is not what we are ever meant to do, and yet I’ve been saying goodbye for a year. Emery and I often talked about what my later years would look like. She reassured me that she would keep my chin whisker-free and my clothes and hair as hip as I’d allow, most likely, hipper. We didn’t know where that “ending place” would be, but we always knew we’d be close to each other, because I was her mother, and she wanted to take care of me. Emery got to spend her entire life with me. I wish I could say the same of her, but I spared her the pain of saying goodbye to me. It was my last gift to my daughter.
I don’t know if my grief will become easier to carry with the strength I develop in time, or if it will be something I will continually need to set down on days when I feel incapable of doing much more than getting dressed and feeding myself, sometimes neither being done very well. But I know what Emery would tell me… be gentle with yourself, Mom. And so I am. Or I’m trying. Wrapped in the memories that began with a positive pregnancy test to last January 4th, I continue to look for the light in the cave, trying my best to follow her words…be gentle with yourself, Mom. She is everywhere, and she’s nowhere.
My drives from Boulder to Kansas City and back for Christmas this year were challenging, with high winds on the way there and dense fog on the way home. I remembered telling Emery, who was a timid driver when she left for college, to watch for car lights ahead of her and follow them, as the light would keep her on her path. I didn’t realize until driving back to Boulder, with fog so dense I couldn’t see the lights in front of me, that I was trying to do just as I had instructed Emery… follow the lights, as they will keep you on the path. I slowed to a crawl and eventually saw car lights ahead that I followed. I didn’t rush. I didn’t panic. I just kept searching until I found something to follow. I’m no longer in my car, but I’m still searching for a light to follow. Something that will keep me on the path.
I miss you, my darling girl, and this journey I’ve been forced to endure is my hardest one yet. I will continue to search for the strength you saw in me. My deep grief, whom I’ve named Wanda, is my love for you, Emery, with no place to go. I look for you everywhere, and some days, when I need you the most, you’re a rainbow in the sky, a favorite song of yours playing unexpectedly, or a photo of you popping up on my phone. You were even a heart-shaped flock of birds flying overhead immediately after I blew out the candle on my 70th birthday cake at Lake Tahoe with your two brothers. You are everywhere and nowhere.
When Emery was 3, I thought I had lost her. It is a story I’ve told very few, perhaps because of the shame I felt as a mother almost losing her child. We had been shopping at the mall, and as I was paying, I moved towards a nearby rack of clothing next to me as something caught my eye. Emery must have looked up at that very moment, didn’t see me, and panicked. In an instant, she was gone. I told the store manager in a panic, and the employees quickly searched the dressing rooms, then closed the store and made the most dreaded announcement any mother could ever hear…We have a lost child. We pulled the clothing to the side on the carousels, looking for hiding spots she may have found, but didn’t see her. I was overwhelmed with panic and fear, barely able to breathe, while trying to think of what I was supposed to do next.
I stepped outside the store, thinking maybe she had wandered into the mall, and saw a woman holding Emery’s hand walking towards the store. I ran to her, picked her up, held her close to me, and sobbed. The woman, who happened to be a kindergarten teacher, said she saw Emery walking by herself. When she asked her where she was going, Emery told her she was looking for her Mom. The woman asked Emery where they had been shopping, and Emery responded confidently, “The Gap.” Thankfully, my girl knew her stores. I have never felt so afraid or so relieved to be reunited.
I often dream I’m searching for Emery. A kind woman holding her hand does not bring her to me, nor do I check the dressing rooms or the clothes carousels, but I still search. My mind and my heart, even after a year, can’t understand how she could be here one day, then gone forever.
Emery’s still gone. I’m still here.