I read a lot. I love to consume information, and I’m always reading 10 things about this or 15 ways to do this. Well I read somewhere about the habits of miserable people, and there was one thing on the list that really stood out for me. The list stated that miserable people glorify or vilify the past. They blame their past, and they glorify a missed chance for a better life. They obsess about the would haves or the should haves rather than being present. I have played this game endlessly since Allie died. It starts with the question, “What if Allie hadn’t died from cancer?” It ends with, “Was I not supposed to have had children?” It’s a game of pure torture, and it has made me miserable.
Near the end of 2014, I had breakfast with a friend that also lives with the terrible pain of having a child die. During our conversation, she mentioned that someone told her, “I am glad to see you are moving forward, not moving on.” I have given this a lot of thought over the past month, and that is what I am striving for in 2015. I am unable to move on, and no one should expect a grieving parent to move on. It’s not something you get over. Allie is my daughter, and I will always be her mom. I refuse to move on from that and the bond that Al and I share is forever. However, I do have to move forward. If I live in the past or think about the what ifs, I am torturing myself and doing a huge disservice to Evie and everyone else that I love. I cannot be stuck.
I know a lot of people choose one word to center their year around rather than making a resolution for the new year. I decided to do this for the first time in 2015, and the word I chose was forward. I wrote it on a post-it note and stuck it to my computer monitor at work. The word was chosen to help me in respect to my past, my grief, and my pain. Here I am, three weeks in, and I can’t say that has already been accomplished. But, I have found that my word has helped me in places where I didn’t think I needed help. Work has been my sanctuary since Allie died. It’s a place where I can focus on a task and not think about my pain. But now that I see that post-it daily on my monitor at work, it has helped me to embrace new ideas in the workplace. It has also stopped me from playing my what if game of mental torture, and I haven’t made anything worse in my life.
I was having trouble figuring out how to end this post when I saw this fitting quote by Martin Luther King, Jr., today, on MLK Day.
“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”
I am a long way from flying, running, or even walking. I am starting with a crawl, but at least it’s headed in the right direction. And, as I crawl forward from this dark place, I carry Allie in my heart.
You are always with me, Al, and there is nothing miserable about that.
For the second year in a row, we have taken a Caribbean cruise over Christmas. We have found it helpful to check out of our reality and escape to warm weather and sunshine. Christmas is one of the most difficult holidays to survive without Allie, and this has become our tradition for now. We took a cruise again this year because Evie enjoyed the first one so much. The cruise has a ton of organized children’s activities, and Evie loves to participate in all the games and contests they offer. This also allows Evie to meet other children and escape the boredom of hanging with her mom and dad all day. We try not to take it personally, but she chooses to leave us for most of the cruise. I get it. Evie is lonely at home, and she’s not going to be lonely on vacation.
Early on during our cruise, Evie started telling us about her new friend, Jack. She was so excited, and she told us that they have so much in common. They are both seven and their birthdays are only a day apart. Jack is from Arizona, and Evie thinks she is an expert on Arizona because we were just there last month. Evie said that she and Jack saw each other at the Scottsdale Target during our Arizona trip, but they thought they would never get to know each other. But their paths must have been meant to cross again. As amazing luck would have it (or perhaps due to the revisionist history of two seven-year-olds), they found each other on the same Christmas cruise! Kyle and I would see Jack at pick up and drop off at the kid’s club on board the ship. Like Evie, he was outgoing and very silly, and it was easy to see why they became fast friends during the week.
On the sixth day of the cruise, we were at the pool hanging out with Evie when she spotted Jack. There was a call for people to start line dancing (ugh) which I ignored, but Evie and Jack were the first two on the deck ready to go. Soon there was a full crowd ready to line dance, and they started with the Cupid Shuffle. Evie and Jack danced their hearts out in front of the packed pool deck. The cruise director even had Evie and Jack sing on the microphone as they led everyone to the left, to the left, to the right, to the right. It was the highlight of my trip to see Evie up there having fun and enjoying herself so fully. It’s hard for me to find joy most of the time, and I definitely didn’t think I would find it during a line dance. Yet, there it was.
It wasn’t until the last day of the cruise that I truly understood the connection that Evie and Jack shared. While eating breakfast that final day, Evie mentioned to us that Jack’s mom had died. My heart hurt to know that Jack, like Evie, had been dealt the most unfair card in life. I asked Evie if she told Jack about Allie, and she told me that she did. I asked her how she felt when Jack told her about his mom. Evie said, “It felt like we had something in common.” I didn’t get any other details from Evie beyond that. My mind of course was left to wonder many questions. How did Jack’s mom die? Did she have cancer like Allie? How old was she? Did she die recently? But, there was one question I didn’t need answered. I knew why Jack ended up on a Royal Caribbean cruise over Christmas. His dad had to figure out a way to function for Jack’s sake and survive Christmas.
I never met or even saw Jack’s dad while on the ship. Evie and Jack did not exchange contact information with each other, and their friendship ended when we walked off the ship. But, for one week, two grieving children found each other amongst the hundreds of other children on board. In the middle of the ocean, they laughed, they played, they danced, they sang, and they understood each other.
I keep thinking about that line dance, and how only the two of them knew the sadness that they shared. To the crowd, it looked like two kids loving the limelight and having the time of their lives. What no one else could see was the emotional scars and grief that they will always carry. These two little kids have been forced to grow up early. They know that there are things beyond our control, and they know the pain of a broken heart. The early and traumatic deaths of their family members will shape the rest of their lives. They will never know a normal childhood. It will always be off.
But, the one thing that wasn’t off, was their Cupid Shuffle. Even with heavy hearts, those two grieving children remained light on their feet and relished their moment together in the sunshine. And, even though I hate line dancing, part of me knows that I should be following their lead.
I don’t save many things. I have a fear of hoarding and a good purge has always done wonders for my mood. And, yes, I threw away many things Allie made or colored long ago when I thought she was healthy. I wasn’t going to be that mom that held on to everything and lived in the past. I do have a purple bin with a few of Allie’s projects in the basement that I will always keep. But even after Allie’s death, I don’t sit in the basement looking at her artwork. Even the thought of it makes my anxiety rise. I have to be able to breathe.
I’ve changed a lot over the past year and a half, but I still don’t save everything that Evie creates. Evie loves to write and draw, and she brings home ten things a day. I filter most of it, and it’s almost comical now when Evie sees her latest masterpiece in the recycle bin. She’s not the least bit surprised. It’s almost expected at this point.
But I did save a turkey feather that we created as a family when Evie was in kindergarten. I came across it last month as I was pulling things out of our storage room to prepare for Allie’s Sale. I wasn’t just looking at something that we made two years ago. I was looking at a life that belonged to someone else. A life that I am so jealous of and would give anything to have again.
The assignment was to put things on the turkey feather that we were thankful for as a family. I remember Evie choosing most of the items that went on there…the Nintendo DS, the Elf on the Shelf, and the art supplies. We put pictures of Evie with her friends and family and one of Evie and Allie hugging at the top of the feather.
We put other things that we were thankful for too such as trips, home, food, the earth, school, USA, KU, and science (Kyle’s contribution). Oh, and there’s a picture of our dog, Meeko. Evie’s feather was finished and ready to be turned in when we remembered that we still had a dog. We felt bad that we forgot poor Meeko and stuck him in the middle of the feather as our apology.
There is one word that surprised me when I saw it on the turkey feather. Health. Over the past year and a half, I have kicked myself a million times for taking my healthy girls for granted. But somewhere before being shoved into a world of childhood cancer, we had appreciated our health and stuck it on the feather. It brings me a little relief to see that word on there, but I still know deep down that I was never thankful enough for this gift.
Allie’s contribution is on the feather as well. There is one single owl sticker near the top of that photo of the girls hugging. That is the closest Allie got to having a kindergarten turkey feather. Next year, Allie’s friends will decorate kindergarten turkey feathers with things that they and their families hold dear. But this was it for our family. We didn’t know it at the time, but we would only get to do this once.
Evie’s feather had to be turned in during the early part of November so that it could be displayed on the wall near the kindergarten classroom. Two weeks later, Allie would be asked what she was thankful for in her preschool classroom. She didn’t mention the things that I thought she would. There was no mention of owls. She didn’t mention Ducky, her blankie, or any of her toys either. And sadly, Meeko was forgotten yet again. Allie said she was thankful for three things: “the leaves on trees, my sister, and my family.”
Sorry Meeko, but I can’t imagine a more perfect feather than that.
When talking about what happened to Allie, I choose to say, “I have a daughter that died.” I don’t say, “I lost a daughter.” There is a reason for this. I lost Allie once, but it wasn’t to brain cancer. I lost her at Chuck E. Cheese.
I often wonder how I got to this place. This was not supposed to be my life. September is upon us, and I should be getting Allie ready for her last year of preschool. I should be buying her a backpack and meeting her new teacher. I should be making plans for her 5th birthday party. Or at least that’s what I thought I would be doing. So how in the world did I get here?