There is so much about this year that has gone on like
normal without Magnolia. The outside
world—and even the inside world of our family—continues to churn and move
forward because in reality life does go on.
It is so hard to see this and also so hard to live with it. There have been so many times this year when
I just wished life would stop, to acknowledge the fact that Magnolia is gone and
nothing should be the same. But it is
the same, whether I like it or not.
Delphinium’s birthday (also Magnolia’s birthday) came and went with
celebrations and parties, D hunted for easter eggs, we attended the Passover
seder at Sasha’s parent’s home, the school year ended and we went to Denver for
the summer, where D made a cake with grandma to celebrate our birthdays.
School started this fall along with a new
pregnancy for me. As I began to feel
more and more sick, I decided that if the world wouldn’t stop moving forward, I
would just exit the world for awhile. It
is a huge luxury to leave my job, and was grateful for the opportunity to just
give up on the world for awhile.
The truth of our life without Magnolia was inescapable once I took a vacation from my life. The weeks and months of constant nausea and throwing-up kept her ever present in my
mind. The truth of this pregnancy is that
we wouldn’t be having this child if Magnolia were still alive. Another fact of this pregnancy is that I
would do almost anything to have Magnolia here rather than this new life that is
forming inside of me. I miss the child I knew and loved and cuddled every day. In so many ways, I just don't want this new child—I want Magnolia. This was my new reality, since I exited the world.
I am grateful that my months in my personal physical and
heart-sick bed have allowed me to miss many of the ways that the world
continues to turn without my girl. My
mother took care of D’s Halloween costume.
She sent all the parts—there was nothing for us to do except help her
get dressed and to help her get her make-up on.
There were no jack-o-lanterns on our stoop and I barely made it through
the gathering at our house before people headed out to
trick-or-treat. But there was very
little for me to do and in that way it felt different from other years—different
in a good way. My mom did all the work
because she knew I couldn’t or didn’t want to because Magnolia was gone and it
was too hard. It should feel different. It shouldn’t be just the same as always.
D was aware of the differences and let us know that she
wasn’t o.k. with it. She asked, “Are we
even going to have latkes and a Christmas tree this year, or is it like the
pumpkins? We just won’t do it.” For her sake, we knew we had to pick up our game and actually make a bigger effort, or at least enlist more support. So, we asked Sasha’s parents to host us for
latke making—again, so we didn’t have to do it.
On the morning of Thanksgivikah, Sasha went to the basement
to look for our Hanukah and Christmas boxes, so that he and D could take their
menorahs to Thanksgivikah for lighting later that night. He looked for a long time, and then we went
down together and looked for a long time.
The boxes were buried somewhere far from their normal spot. We both were shaken momentarily to realize,
that they weren’t in their usual (easy to find) spot by the door because a few
weeks before Magnolia’s death we had completely rearranged the basement to
consolidate all of our stuff into one room, so that we could begin a big
renovation project. Our thinking at the
time was that the project would be done and we would have everything sorted out
and rearranged by the time December came around again. So, moving the boxes to the back of the
basement wouldn’t have mattered.
That renovation work is one of the ways that our internal family life
stopped—we put off the oil-to-gas conversion, and cancelled the renovation
work. A year has passed and we just
began the conversion in October and are hoping to do the renovation work this
spring. So nothing had changed in the
basement and the boxes were buried.
The inability to find the boxes made so much sense to
me. Our life really had stopped—and here
was evidence. I was dreading these
holidays so much, and here was actual proof that they wouldn’t and couldn’t be
the same. Our whole life stopped a year
ago—in some ways—and this was proof.
Secretly, I was grateful for this revelation and for the absent boxes
which meant that the holidays were going to have to be different. So, D and Sasha lit candles on borrowed
menorahs and we celebrated Hanukah the best we could, with our diminished
resources (physical and emotional). And
it felt right to me.
As Christmas approached and we thought about what to do, we
decided we would get a tree—for D and also because I wanted one in the house,
mostly for the smell and to make an attempt at some holiday normalness. My mother, Jim and Sarah were coming
to visit (to see Delphinium in her first play) and so the lead up to our departure for
Denver was already different than usual.
I figured we would wait for their arrival and then ask them to help with tree set-up and trimming.
Sasha was still hopeful that we would find the Christmas boxes with our
ornaments, and I was wondering what we would do with a bare tree if we couldn’t
find them.
On the Monday before their arrival on a Friday, I picked D up from school and we went to get a
tree. It felt important to do it before
everyone arrived, for some reason, and I wanted to take D since she had never
gone to get a tree with me before. We
picked out a tree and then went shopping for a few other things. As we passed the Christmas decorations area,
D asked if we could get some ornaments in case we didn’t find our boxes. I thought it made sense and she proceeded to
pick out the tackiest, most glittery and bright, ornaments, foil garlands, etc. I took lots of deep breaths and let her
choose stuff that she wanted. I was
firmly placing the experience into the “only-happens-once” category, so that it
was free from the anxieties of precedent setting. She picked out some plain
colored glass balls and suggested we could write notes to Magnolia on the
ornaments. In my own mind a tiny idea was growing—that this would just be the
year of the tacky Christmas tree with ornaments for Magnolia. That it shouldn’t feel normal and this was a
way to set this year apart from others.
We showed our shopping to Sasha, who was less than thrilled,
but the small idea in my head was still small and I said we would take them
back if we found our box of ornaments. We proceeded to drive around with the tree attached to the roof of our car for the rest of the week. Every evening we would talk about taking the tree off the car, but we just couldn't seem to get it done. It became a fitting metaphor for our experience of the holidays in general. We finally got the tree off the car and leaned it against the back of our house on Friday, just before everyone arrived.
That Saturday, Sarah and Jim set up the tree and Sasha went to the
basement with Sarah for one last look and actually found the boxes. I didn’t realize until I saw them, how much I
had really wanted a crappy tree filled with ornaments we could give away
afterwards. Part of my wish, at times,
for everything to just disappear and for all of this awfulness to just fall into
a black hole.
So, while everyone played Christmas carols and decorated the tree, I sat in our bedroom crying and upset because I didn’t want a tree
that felt normal and looked like our usual Christmas trees. But the reality is also that what I want isn't the only thing that matters, and for Sasha using our ornaments was what he wanted and needed.
D and Sasha told stories about different ornaments and asked my mom to share stories about the ornaments from my childhood. For Sasha it was important to experience the familiar comfort of our ornaments and their place in our family and for me it was just another reminder of how things change but stay the same. So, the
world moved on again in a painfully ordinary and predictable way and I felt sad and wanting so badly to make it all stop.
But the reality is there will be years and decades of
Halloweens, Hanukkahs and Cristmases without Magnolia and the fact that I
don’t want that to be true, doesn’t change what has happened in our life or in
our family. It will always be
different—not because we work to make it feel different, but because she should
be there too. And she never will
be.
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