We’ve been dreading this day for such a long time, the day
when Magnolia has been dead for as long as she was alive. It’s such a devastating marker for us,
knowing that for the rest of our lives, she will have been dead for longer than
she lived.
On the day that Magnolia died we took a walk by the Bronx
River, sad and shocked and unsure of what to do with ourselves. In our disbelief, we kept talking about how
strange it was that we were going to have to live the rest of our lives without
Magnolia, that we would get farther and farther away from her life, that a day
would come when she had been dead for longer than she was alive. Since that time, we’ve been so aware of this
day. Along with the anniversary of her
death, the birthdays that she’s not here for, and the holiday celebrations we
limp through in our incompleteness, it is a key point on the map of our grief.
We know that Magnolia will always be with us in many ways,
and that we’re doing all we can to keep her memory alive, but none of that
helps right now. Because every day takes
us farther away from her being alive and with us, and today is a miserable
threshold to cross, another wrenching loss in an unending series of them.
There is so much we remember from the 22 months that she was
with us. Specific moments, such as when
she gleefully bounced around on a rubber horse at a birthday party for one of
Delphinium’s friends, or when she decided to run laps in our back room one
morning, saying “Go!” to herself as she began hurtling across the floor each
time. And then so many moments that
happened each day: Stopping on each step as she went upstairs to wave and shout,
“Hi!” Dragging a chair over to the
dining room light switch and turning it on, off, on, off. Climbing into her high chair athletically,
making it up to the seat and then managing to turn around, bracing herself with
her arms straight on the seat, and lowering her body down like a gymnast on a
pommel horse to get herself situated.
Cozying up in our lap at bedtime to hear a favorite book, then scurrying
back to the bookshelf to get another and another, the warm feeling of her as we
read together. Popping up in her crib
with a grin when we came to get her in the morning. Lighting up whenever Delphinium smiled at her
and led her in a game.
But as we get farther away from her life, our memories are
increasingly reduced to a collection of photos and videos that we’ve looked at
over and over. As Delphinium and Azalea
create new memories with us each day, Magnolia is frozen in time. Her peers have all had another 22 months of
life, and are now approaching their 4th birthdays. Remembering Delphinium at that age, she was
so mature and capable, so involved in her daily nursery school life, her
creative work and her friendships. It’s
hard for us to imagine Magnolia at this age, what she would be interested in,
what she would care about and how she would want to spend her time. We will never know.
It’s been wonderful to have Azalea for the past 7
months. She’s a joy, full of smiles and
curiosity, so engaged with us and the world around her. We’re so fortunate to have her, so lucky for
all three of our amazing daughters.
Azalea’s babyhood has also been a welcome opportunity to think about
Magnolia as a baby and all the delightful things about her infancy. In many ways, holding Azalea and playing with
her and singing her to sleep have brought up such tender memories of Magnolia
at these ages.
As grateful as we are for Azalea, it’s also so hard to have
her filling up our time and energy in the way that babies do. She is so absolutely present and dynamic, and
makes Magnolia feel even more absent. As
much as we will always preserve space for Magnolia in our family, the hard
truth is that Azalea is the younger daughter who is growing up in our family,
the second-second child who has needs that we have to respond to, who demands
our time and attention. And she will
keep doing that (or at least we desperately hope that she will, though nothing
feels certain anymore), while Magnolia remains frozen in time, needing nothing
from us. We parent Magnolia as best we
can, lighting her candle and sharing memories of her at the table each night
and blowing kisses to her when we see the moon.
Working to make her a part of our life, so Delphinium continues to
remember her and so that Azalea will begin to know the sister she can never
meet.
We don’t ever worry about forgetting Magnolia. But we feel so disheartened by the fact that
her warmth and vibrancy, her voice and the feel of her in our arms, grow
farther and farther from us each day.
And as we face this day and the rest of our lives without her, we feel
her lived life grow smaller as her time as a memory grows longer.