What to Expect...

...When Nothing's Gone as Expected and You are Still Figuring It Out Over 4 Years Later: A Helpful Guide for Mothers of Children with Siblings Who Died in Infancy

Chapter 12 - Pre-K

You should expect to see more exclamation points than you ever thought possible in a paragraph about your dead child.

TO: Pre-K Teacher

FROM: TracyOC

Mrs. H,

I just wanted to give you a heads-up that C is bringing a picture of her sister, R, for show-and-tell tomorrow (for 'R' week). R was C's twin sister who died a couple of weeks after they were born. I'm not sure if she'll mention that part. I'm also not sure what picture she'll choose but I'll steer her towards one that has as little medical equipment in it as possible. At the very least, I can guarantee that R will be alive in the photo that C brings in.

I don't think you have to worry about C getting upset. She's pretty matter-of-fact about the whole thing--because there isn't really any other way to be about it, I suppose.

We tried to talk her out of this but, we didn't want to push too hard. We try to be as open about R's death as possible and let C guide our discussions. Every once in a while that means that R gets mentioned in an awkward situation.

My guess is that most of the kids won't even realize what's going on but I didn't want you to be blindsided.

Thanks,

T

TO: TracyOC

FROM: Pre-K Teacher

Thanks so much for the email. I LOVE how matter of fact children are about death! They are so truly accepting! I was aware that C had a twin sister that had lived for a short time at her birth,however, I did not know her name. I think it is so cute that she remembered R for R week! Don't worry -I am sure the other children will be just as accepting as C is. Thanks for the heads up though-in truth I can't wait to see a picture of R-It will be so neat to see how much they looked alike.

By the way- were C and R born early?(I just want to be sure we have the story right).

I am sure C will do a great job at it.

Mrs. H

I can't really form a coherent thought about this. It's funny and baffling--maybe even a little refreshing. I can't tell if I should be offended. I don't know. Just seemed worth sharing.

Sprung

There's a little crack of light along the horizon when I walk to the train in the mornings now and a mist of promise and intention clinging to the treetops. Each cool breeze has a hint of warmth at the back.

Spring is here. And just in time too. T's been down for the count with pneumonia and pleurisy for a couple of weeks. For an otherwise healthy 40-year-old man, pneumonia probably isn't something to get overly worried about but, I'm afraid I'll never be able to take a visit to the hospital lightly again. As I waited to hear the verdict on his chest x-rays and CT scans and a bone scan for a closer look at an area of increased bone density on his ribs I learned that I was wrong about something. Seems I haven't lost all of my ability to expect after all--I am still completely capable of expecting the worst.

Fortunately it looks like he's on his way to a full recovery and spring is coming.

Every year, just when I grow itchy with thoughts of hopelessness and tired of listening to my family eat soup, comes relief. The days grow longer and I resolve to stop plotting my escape from misery and slurping.

I feel anxious in spite of my four-and-a-half year old resolution not to get ahead of myself.

From here spring seems like the most unbelievable thing. Death and rebirth and it happens every single year. Incredible.

We should all be gawking in wonder at the annual miracle but we're still about our business. Even those of us who seemingly have more cause for wonder.

Circumstance dictates that I plod, one shovelful at a time, in a state of constant under-wonder until all of my piles have been dealt with. Laundry, meetings, errands, laundry. "Look up," says my inner optimist, "Look up and see the daffodils blooming." I look up from a sinkful of dishes and see a drainage problem in my back yard. And I remember to worry about what spring will mean for the overgrown shrub that's pushing against the power lines along the side of our house.

I don't plod because I lack the imagination to wonder. I plod because, if I think about any of it for too long, I'll exceed the limits of my envelope. The everything that my daughters showed me will expand to its full size and I'll come apart at my hinges. As I float away into the ether, the laundry basket will slip right through the spaces between my particles and T and C will be forced to wear dirty underwear for all eternity.

I want to lie facedown on the grass as it comes back to life. Sink my fingers down through the thatch, into the soil and let it ooze through the tiny space between nail and finger. Push my nose beneath the greening clover and inhale until spring has been applied directly to my brain and I've learned the trick of it.

Resurrection.

I wonder if C knows the trick.

Part of me thinks that I could drop her off in the woods and her fairy kin would come and claim her or that should stop forcing her to eat vegetables wrap her in gold cloth and flower garlands and build a shrine around her instead.

My logical brain reminds me that we've all had our near misses with wool socks on wooden stairs and daydreaming in traffic. Her 'almost' was closely observed and exhaustively documented but that doesn't make her survival any more unexpected than anyone else's.

And there's the other side of this thought too. If C is touched with magic, what's left for R? Was she less than magic or did some other kind of dark magic require a trade to keep C alive?

I try to tell myself that there's probably no trick to it at all. It's only a limited rebirth, after all.The lawn mowers will bring an end to this line of magical thought and remind me of the truth. All of these big doings, whether animal or vegetable, are stored inside vessels that are totally inadequate for the task. And when it's over, it's over.

Despite the plodding, I can never quite make it stick.

Last spring C and I took a walk around the neighborhood to enjoy the weather. As we approached our houe, the giant Linden tree at the end of the block flung its fruits at her. A cloud of potential in the guise of electric green bracts swirled around her tiny body as her hair floated up and she spun and giggled.

The hardworking, yardworking neighbors paused over their rakes and pruning shears to watch. "My tree just said hi to you, little girl," said the owner of the tree.

Angie's Bea says that dead sisters go into the trees. C says that they fly.

Spring is coming and I say, "Maybe."

i bet we've been together for a million years

I've been mulling over the questions about family posed by the Glow contributors. I haven't finished mulling but, alas, January is almost over. The muddle below is what passes for my response-

Here's my alternate theory...

I picture them all in a drab waiting room with shoddy overhead lighting and molded plastic chairs. The doors all have that wire mesh glass like you'd see at a junior high school. Actually, it looks almost exactly like the area outside my junior high principal's office (not that this law abiding citizen ever spent much time at the principal's office).

This is the anteroom to the Great Beyond, brought to you by a childhood with plenty of TV watching. New arrivals take a number and wait for it to be called. A nebbishy guy in an ill-fitting suit takes your ticket, gives you a once-over decides if you dissolve into the cosmos, go on to your afterlife, or get sent back to occupy a new body until you've earned your pass. In one corner there's an electronic crawler announcing the numbers and the upcoming destinations for the detached souls.

My Dad was never good at waiting. He'd drive 20 miles out of his way to avoid sitting in traffic even though it saved no time because it felt less like waiting. His last words to us before he lapsed into unconsciousness were, "let's get going."

I imagine him taking his ticket and pacing around, ignoring protocol and approaching the 'decider' behind the counter. He'd shove his way to the front and ask if there wasn't some way to make the process go faster. "Nope. Usually takes a decade or so. Why don't you have a seat and watch the announcements," they'd say. He'd scowl in reply and stalk back to the seating area.

A whole year he waited and then he saw it. His daughter's name on the crawler. Her baby waiting to be born. Too perfect! We can double down.

I can see him running toward the counter and jumping over it, leaping through the doorway. Back to his family.

The decider didn't even look up. He just shrugged one polyester-clad shoulder and heaved a small sigh. It happens all of the time and they always come back.

Some things can't be rushed.

****

I can't really think about R and grief and family without thinking about my Dad. When he died I felt like the universe had punched me in the stomach so hard that I doubled over. Then, not quite two years later, while I was still bent over catching my breath, the universe decided to finish the job by kneeing me in the face.

The punch in the gut was a surprise. And though the universe has an impressive knee, that second blow to the face wasn't a surprise. I'd already lost my trust. I'd also already learned the ways that you have to toughen up when you're grieving a loss. Two years of that awesome post-death advice that everyone loves to dispense (because they learned so much when their cats died). I was tired of being sick and tired.

When the universe took my daughter I barely made a peep.

It's one thing to listen to people compare Dad to a dead cat. He'd probably think it was sort of funny. But I knew that I'd have to remove everyone who made similar comments about R from my friend list forever. And, at least a small part of me suspected that I'd recover eventually and would still like to have some friends. So, once that initial wave of mind-obliterating sadness and terror passed, I focused on C and barely spoke about R.

Friends and neighbors would come to visit and I'd greet them at the door, hands full with some contrived task. Given that I had a newborn and a 24-hour pumping schedule, it wasn't too hard to run them off. If they stayed, I talked about C or the trumped up chore that was consuming me or the weather. Some of them would persist and sneak in a story about cat grief. But I never started it because I was damned if I was going to cry in front of these people who wanted to pretend to understand.

Judging from the confused looks on their faces when I stonewalled them, I can tell that they wanted to talk about her. They probably needed to talk about her. But I needed silence and the complete lack of doubt and regret that goes with it.

Sadly, I extended the same silent treatment to my family.

After Dad died, it had also been two years of long, depressing phone conversations with my mom and two years of logistical work filling the hole that he left. The initial burst of togetherness that his death brought to our family wasn't sustainable. At first we treated grief like any other challenge. We'd work hard. We'd be gracious. And it would pass.

But it doesn't pass. You say the words at the funeral and send the thank you notes. You remember the good times. You smile through the tears. You help Mom with the paperwork and the home repairs. But it's hard work. And it's neverending work. And I knew that I didn't have the energy to get back in the trenches with my family and go through the same drill again. Frenzied togetherness followed by the collective realization that this is forever, followed by the sad, silent hopelessness that drives everyone deep inside of themselves to contemplate the temporary nature of existence.

And the anger. And the theories about what we could/should/would have done differently. And the cold, creeping onset of acceptance that feels more like defeat.

I'd thought that I was bringing a ray of light back to our family. The first grandchild born after his death and, glory hallelujah, there were going to be two of them! That would put an end to this tragic mess.

When I remember that brief feeling of victory over death and misery...man, does it sting.

I would have been more than glad to celebrate with my family but I couldn't run out to meet the sadness I'd caused them head-on.

****

C is very much my Dad's granddaughter. When they brought her to me for the first time, wrinkled and red and angry, I laughed at the resemblance. Looking at the pictures later, my aunt said that it reminded her of Dad's look of suppressed rage during our mid-80's family trip to Epcot. R was too swollen with fluid during her 12 days of life to get a good look at her features but I know that it was there too. T's eyes and build and hair but Dad's scowl and Dad's smile.

It extends beyond the smile all the way down into her where her personality is stamped into the center of each cell. When C is in a hurry (and she's always in a hurry) she claps her hands together just like Dad used to when he coached my tee-ball team--CLAP Let's go! CLAP CLAP.

Death had been trying to catch Dad for years before he finally succumbed. Sophomore year of high school spent home sick with unexplained internal bleeding, a car accident and a traumatic brain injury at 16, countless subsequent car wrecks, a horrible, yet hilarious, run-in between a vacuum cleaner and his necktie. He'd already had his last rites twice by the time he actually died but somehow he'd always spring back, you know, like a cat.

By August 14, 2007, I'd been holding my breath for weeks waiting for that final, fateful sonogram that would show us that C's heart had stopped beating. But, somehow she hung on. When the doctor reached in and yanked her out from under my ribcage he said, "Oooo. This one's feisty!"

They both remind me of him. One for his exuberant, insistent life. The other for his hard death.

****

We got a stocking for R this year at Christmas. I think it was the first time that we ever acknowledged her existence so openly and purposefully at a family event.

There was no memorial service for her. We couldn't work out the logistics with T's family and, in my reluctance to spare the energy required for collective grieving, I didn't force the issue on my family's behalf. She doesn't have a gravesite that people can visit or decorate for various holidays.

It's not that we ignore R or pretend she didn't exist. We include a spare candle for her on C's birthday cake and we talk about her with C and the other kids in the family. T and I are both happy to answer questions about her. But I think we're both concerned about the possible negative reaction if we forced her on our family members.

But C thought that it was ridiculous that our dead guinea pigs had stockings while R didn't. You've already seen a demonstration of C's hardheadedness and, honestly, it's hard to argue with that logic. So, I bought R a stocking.

My mom followed suit and retrieved the stocking she had purchased for R before she was born from the closet.

We filled ours with baby items to be donated to a local shelter. My mom filled hers with special gifts for C and her other two granddaughters.

Since we're raising the girls in an amoeba style of full-family parenting, it felt right to include my nieces in this new tradition.

C and my nieces were completely silent when my mom gave them their gifts from R's stocking. Imagine a 4-year-old, a 6-year-old, and an 8-year-old silent on Christmas morning. The only thing I could hear was the shutter of my brother's camera as he took a hundred or so pictures and the rustle of wrapping paper underfoot as his wife moved closer to get a better angle for the video footage. Finally, a productive outlet for this complicated grief, four-and-a-half years in the making.

****

Sometimes I think that I never would have survived if I had been in C's situation. I feel so floppy and beaten anymore.

But then I remember the years of competing with my brother for everything and insisting that that it didn't hurt when he punched me in the arm. I remember the way I have to suppress my urge to rush things. I look in the mirror and see Dad's smile and Dad's scowl.

The feisty apple never falls far from the feisty tree.

C had T's hair and eyes and build but, my smile and my scowl.

My hard-headedness.

****

Given their relief at finding a way to remember R, I suppose I could think that it was an asshole move to give my family the grieving stiff arm for so many years. But, I don't feel like an asshole.

I think of all of the harsh words that weren't exchanged and don't have to be taken back or hugged out and I feel almost vindicated.

After twisting and turning and going to great lengths to avoid the issue, we've arrived together at something that feels right for the kids and healing for the adults. I drove an extra 20 miles but I've avoided so many red lights.

And some things truly cannot be rushed.

****

So, there you have it. My thoughts on the birth/death/life/grief/family interface. I'm just going to wrap it up with this video that reminds me of C and me and me and Dad. A tribute to impatient kids and parents everywhere.

Noise

There's a guy who works at the newsstand where I sometimes buy a pack of gum on my way in to work. He won't give me my change until I look him in the eye.

Somewhere deep in my grouchy, little soul, I applaud this practice. We ought to see each other. See each other. Love each other.

But at 7AM, I can barely stand myself much less anyone else.

The reassembling process has become more efficient with time but not really any easier.

Emerge from the primordial ooze of sleep.

Remember that I am a wife.

Remember that I am a mother.

Mother.

Baby.

Is the baby breathing?!?

Yes, the baby is breathing.

Not a baby anymore either. That's good.

Baby...

Baby...

The other baby.

Oh my god! One of the babies died!

My daughter died.

Everyone dies.

And existence is just a happy accident anyway.

In fact, compared to the vast sweep of time and space, my entire lifetime is just a blink.

And if I take the long view--the geological time view--we will be apart for hardly any time at all.

Snooze a couple more times.

Wade back into the ooze of wakeful human-ness.

Take shower.

Walk dog.

Catch train.

Remember all of those other things that are supposed to be important...

...buy gum...

Why can't Mr. Eye Contact realize that I've assimilated the entire human experience already this morning? I've swept aside our differences. I've demoted my daughter and placed her unbearably short life back in its place as not-the-worst-thing-that-has-ever-happened-to-anyone-ever-ever-ever.

Even though I think he's being a presumptuous shitbird, I celebrate Mr. Eye Contact. His continued existence, our continued joint existence, is a glorious thing. Whatever struggles he may be having right now are important to me. But I haven't even had coffee yet.

The people at the coffee stand don't force me to look at them.

Just saying.

****

I read an article a couple of weeks ago about bird songs. Apparently birds in urban settings tend to sing in a different register than their rural brethren in order to be heard over traffic and the general bustle of city life. I'm assuming this is also why Philadelphians (including yrs trly) sound like we're trying to shatter glass or convene a pod of helper dolphins when we speak to each other.

The implications are pretty heavy for birds. Birdsong is a learned behavior that has everything to do with mating. The researchers who supplied the source material for the article speculate that the changes in songs could impact mating choice so drastically that it could lead to speciation. I'd put an exclamation point at the end of that sentence but it would be way too nerdy.

On the human side of things it also seems akin to working out internal noise. Think of all of the stereotypes and assumptions that you have to wade through to even begin to have a real conversation with another person. What would it be like if we could just understand each other or if we had the tools to at least try? Is Mr. Eye Contact an oppressive dick or is he onto something?

****

My internal voice barks orders at me all day long. Everybody has problems! Nothing is guaranteed! No one said it would be easy! Vada a bordo!

I robot my way through it. Take shower. Walk dog. Catch train. Get paycheck. Assure that C will not have to worry about you. Make it as easy as you can for her. Fix it.

Fix it.

So many paths up the mountain and this is the one that made the most sense?

Entrust her daily care and nurturing to someone else.

She'll be happy when college is paid and we are able to take awesome vacations. Someday she won't even notice that her sister is gone. Soon she'll stop asking when I'm going to grow another baby. Next Christmas she won't look for a new sister under the tree.

The cashier thinks that I don't look at him because I believe he isn't worthy of my time. If I wasn't in such a goddamn hurry with trying to fix the unfixable, we could grab coffee and and I could share many opinions about worthiness.

But I don't have time and he's an asshat for making me think about all of this shit before coffee.

Buy gum anyway.

Look for a different newsstand.

who do you think you are?

Note: I should mention that this post owes a heavy debt to a conversation I had over the weekend with Angie who is one of the most upright citizens I know.

Last week I accidentally tipped the pizza delivery guy $14. It's not worth going into the mechanics of how you accidentally hand $14 to someone. If you've seen American money, you'll know how easy it is to mix up those bills. But, the thing that's been bugging me is the split second that I considered asking him to give it back.

It wasn't a particularly long drive from the pizza place to my house. It wasn't a complicated order. But, driving is always dangerous and rolling up to a stranger's house and knocking on the door is no small thing.

Do I really think that I deserve that $14 more than the pizza guy does?

I could go off on a tangent about capitalism and the free market and how it isn't really free at all but, I'll spare you my opinions about the 'science' of economics. We're all so tangled up in the quantification of each other and the debt that we clamor to gain from the mortgage lenders. It's just not even worth going down that road.

The point is that I stood there in my doorway, looking at someone's precious son and considered telling him that he isn't worth $14.

****

Every post that I've written on this blog has been about the same thing.

Nothing.

More specifically, I know nothing. About anything. Including myself.

And, maybe, that's everything anyone needs to know.

****

I think I've mentioned before that I work for a government agency. Without disclosing too many details, I'll tell you that the agency that I work for is much maligned by the press, elected officials, TV newscasters, and pretty much anyone who's up on current events. We do too much. We don't do enough. We compress dollar bills into emery boards that we use to sharpen our horns and hooves before riding out to tromp all over the American dream.

If I delivered pizzas on behalf of my employer, I think 25% of Americans would grudgingly tip me $1, 25% would have no idea what I was talking about, 25% would tell me to get fucked and slam the door in my face, and 25% would open fire.

Of course, I already said that I know nothing. Maybe none of that would happen. Maybe the ones who slam the door are right. Maybe my colleagues and I are doing more harm than good.

Like I said. I know nothing.

****

I think I've also mentioned that I live in Pennsylvania, the home of Rick Santorum (aka Rick Santorum), Vince Fumo, and now, the illustrious crew up at Penn State who unleashed this guy on the world.

Let me pause for a moment while I hang my head and emit many forlorn sighs.

I just don't have the words.

****

Every day we hold those around us in our hearts and judge their worth. The pizza guy. Those good for nothing government employees. The neighbor with his neat-as-a-pin yard.

Maybe you've managed to rise above the urge to judge. If so, kudos. I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Here in Pennsylvania we're deep into the business of judging at the moment. A group of grown men got together and determined that ensuring the welfare of a little boy wasn't worth damaging the 'reputation' of a heralded institution. This apparently happened upwards of 20 times. The fact that a large group of adults managed to put 20 little boys on a scale and determine that they were collectively worth less than one man, just because he happened to be one of their own, is deeply troubling.

Even worse than the fact that it happened is that it's not terribly surprising.

Yet, the newspaper comments sections are full of outrage and declarations. If-I-knew-that-kids-were-being-molested-in-my-workplace/neighborhood/parish/state/country/planet-I'd-do-something.

Having been a child and having worked with children in my former life, I believe that you could walk into any elementary school cafeteria right now, ask the kids which grown-ups are sexual predators, and get a pretty good response rate.

Cast back into your memories of childhood a little bit. I can think of three adults that the other kids would talk about right off the top of my head. All three of them were in prison by the time I reached adulthood.

I could probably go to any major city in the world right now and ask a cab driver to take me to a child prostitute.

Anyone could get this information and take action to protect these kids.

I don't know. Maybe the comments sections of newspaper websites is where all of the upright citizens and child advocates hang out. But, if we're all so shocked and outraged, why aren't we doing more? What are we doing with our time and resources that is so much more important than protecting children from those who want to hurt them?

What am I doing?

How can I do better?

Resting in Peace

Out here in the 'burbs, yardwork is close to religion. The state of your lawn is treated as a proxy for the state of your soul and the judgments handed down are decidedly Old Testament in nature.

The neighbor two doors down has his routine set in stone. I don't even think the man has to rake. The leaves are simply too afraid to sully his perfect grass and his perfect brick walk. The pansies are already in for the winter, planted exactly 12 inches apart at the base of a beautifully maintained dogwood. His yard is the culmination of all things that are possible by noon on a Saturday and everything that I have deemed 'unimportant.'

Our yard demonstrates a decided lack of devotion to the fine art of yardwork and, possibly, character defects that are long past the point of remediation.

T and I like it this way. We don't let the grass get a foot-and-a-half high or anything but we sure as hell aren't going to spray carcinogens around to control the weeds. Sporadic raking is our form of rebellion. We have bigger issues than the lawn.

We held out until this past Sunday, when the state of the yard had reached a point somewhere below our pathetic standards.

C entertained herself by playing in the leaves and pointing out that we'd be able to play sooner if we worked faster and took fewer breaks. Too smart by half, that daughter of mine. She wanted me to hurry up and finish so that we could walk to the cemetery at the end of the street.

C is beyond excited about Halloween. She wants to hear scary stories and watch scary movies. She's been talking about ghosts (ghost-ehz) and graveyards for weeks.

"The dead people are sleeping in there," she confides as we drive past our neighborhood cemetery, "but you won't put me in the ground when I die."

For better or worse, T and I have just decided to give it to her straight about death. I'm not a huge believer of telling kids the truth about everything. There's something to be said for blissful ignorance but, we don't have much choice in the matter. It's a virtual death parade around here and she spends the day with her older cousins and their theories about the afterlife while I'm at work.

Naturally, she's curious about her sister and her grandfathers and I don't think I'd be doing her any favors by answering her questions with lies. But it's just so dismaying to listen to her wrestle with such big issues in her raspy little voice. She can't even figure out if you pronounce it 'death' or 'deaf' but she sure knows what it is.

As we walked, we talked about the weather and the autumn leaves...and death. "R can fly, " she told me, "and when I die, I'll fly away too." I kicked at the fallen leaves and fretted about her emotional development. Am I raising her to be sort of creepy with all of this talk about death/deaf? Was this her idea or mine?

A few of the perfectly maintained yards we passed were tricked out for Halloween. Pumpkins, light-up pumpkins, fake spiderwebs on the boxwoods. Fake headstones artfully placed in the shrubs. I silently added another item to my list of things that make me feel like a social misfit--wrong political leanings, shabby lawn, takes four-year-old, possibly death-obsessed daughter to visit graveyard yet, finds headstone decorations offensive

The graveyard is old by American standards, founded in 1776 by the Lutherans. Despite the age it was just as tidy as the yards of the living. I quirked a judge-y eyebrow at the neatly trimmed grass. Do we really have to impose our freakish opinions about lawn care on the dead too? Unless the cemetery residents are imposing our local brand of fastidiousness from beyond the grave. Why push the daisies up when you could be pulling them back down instead?

"There are a lot of babies," C noted after I'd read a few of the inscriptions. She sounded surprised, and maybe a little relieved, to find out that other families had dead babies too.

Truthfully I felt a little relieved too. Who needs to fit in with the living neighbors when there are all of these families with dead babies right down the street?

We walked down the rows looking for the oldest marker but many of the stones were worn down by time and weather. There were many familiar names, the founding families of our town, names I remember from childhood.

Once we found the oldest grave, a revolutionary war soldier, we set out searching for the newest.

I was surprised to see how recent it was. 1961. I was even more surprised to see that it was my neighbor's infant daughter. The neighbor from two doors down with the perfect lawn that I was passing judgement on a few paragraphs ago. His grave and his wife's are there waiting for them, the last two spots to be filled.

When will I learn?

Somewhere

I have a memory of my dad. The Phils on TV with Harry K calling the game, a summer breeze through our open back door and the smell of rain on hot asphalt. We used to sit together on the couch and eat oranges. He'd hold each wedge up to the light to check for seeds and hand it over to me. I was allowed a few sips of his beer, a completely un-ironic PBR. Anything with a blue ribbon has to be good

I picture him in a small house on the water with a big porch. Fishing tackle piled by the door. A cold beer and a bag of pretzels. Harry K died last year so he can listen to him call the game again. Some of the players are the same as they were when I was a kid too thanks to death, that crazy motherfucker.

These are his things. At least they're the things that I think of as his. His things that were our things and, I guess, are now my things even though I like to think we still share them. Somewhere.

C has a few things. A few of the same things as my dad, in fact. We sit on the couch together and eat pears. I let her have a few sips of beer. I play music that he liked on the car stereo so that she can sing along. His things, my things, and now her things through some combination of nurturing and genetics.

I suppose C came into the world with some things but it feels like she was an empty vessel waiting to be filled. At first, T and I did most of the filling but she's starting to branch out on her own. Favorite songs that I don't know. Favorite games that she learns from her friends. For now our shared things hold her tightly in our little family orbit but, eventually, the weight of her other things will pull her away.

We have some toys and books that were intended for R stored in a dusty box along with a snipping of hair and a faint impression of her foot. We say that these are her things but they really aren't. She arrived empty and departed the same. Thingless.

I used to think death was her thing. Or maybe I thought her death was my thing. Or maybe that death was just such a substantial thing that it would hold us both in its orbit forever. Nothing or all things? It's so hard to tell from here.

My under-occupied brain has created some things for her. I imagine that she's quieter than C. She is wise beyond her years. Despite the fact that my daughters share 100% of their genes and sit at the tail end of two noisy, sarcastic, opinionated families, I envision R as infinitely serene, beyond the concerns of worldly existence. Here, C cackles hysterically at fart jokes while R smiles gently in appreciation of C's laughter. Somewhere.

****

I wrote most of this post a couple of weeks ago while I was eating leftover crab bisque from the Still Life 365 open house. That's right, y'all, if you arrive early and stay late, you get to take home leftovers. And, Angie can cook just as well as she writes.

At the open house there was some crazy hijinks with an errant water gun, stories about koala encounters, an 85 lb dog that tried to curl up in my lap, old friends, new friends, people who seem like friends even though we'd never met before. The rainbow babies that I'd hoped for so hard while staring at my computer screen were up and walking around looking just as wonderfully ridiculous as toddlers always look.

It was all so ordinary and easy. But it wasn't like the ordinariness of my life before. This was hard-won ease, a collective decision to share a burden or to set it down all at once. It's a challenging maneuver that takes a village (or at least one Angie-like person) but, once death doesn't have to be the thing, other things rush in to fill the space.

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The objects piled in R's memory box have never really felt like they had anything to do with her. Some day I'll pass them along to C and she can decide whether she needs physical reminders of R's brief stay on this side of the somewhere.

R never chose a favorite color or favorite song. She'll never arrive home with her pockets full of interesting things she found on the playground. But she wasn't empty when she arrived and she wasn't empty when she departed.

We all have a space where we keep other peoples' things. We can use it to store things that we learn from them or just to remember and appreciate them. R's life and her death have expanded this space for me, my internal somewhere. The people I've met because of her. The kindness they show each other. The way that they continue to enjoy and appreciate the world that they shared with their children so briefly. These are her things. And, because of her, they are my things. The things that we share. Somewhere.