I struggle to be a grateful person overall even though I have been the recipient of so much kindness over the past two years. There have been so many incredible ways that family and friends have given me strength and love during such a tragic time. I have also been the recipient of kindness from strangers too. Most notably was the gift of the beautifully crafted Little Owl door that was featured in the documentary, The Gnomist. Such a precious gift and one that I will never figure out how to repay. It continues to provide hope and healing, and I will always treasure it.
But this post is not about that incredible act of kindness either. It’s about the simple act that someone can either make or break your day with. I traveled to Scottsdale in April where I was meeting some girlfriends for the weekend. I was really looking forward to leaving my reality and enjoying some sunshine. I exited the plane and headed down the huge escalator to the ground level at the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport. I had my carry-on bag with me. As I descended on the escalator, my bag was not securely positioned on the step. My bag fell and went flying down the 90 foot escalator like a torpedo. I looked ahead and saw a couple in their sixties towards the bottom of the escalator. Images of injuries and lawsuits flashed in my head. I panicked. I emitted some type of sound that was like an “AghhhughhOhhhhnoooo.” I ran down the moving steps chasing my bag that was way out of reach. My outburst caused them to turn around, and they zeroed in on the bag that was headed their way.
That’s where the kindness came in. The man yelled up to me, “I’ll catch it!” and he stuck out his foot to prevent my bag from crashing into them. He caught it and held it for me. I was mortified as I ran down to meet my bag. Embarrassed, I apologized and then they actually thanked me for giving them a heads up. They made me feel like it was no big deal. They didn’t tell me to be more careful, and they didn’t make me feel worse by telling me that they could have been hurt. We said goodbye and went our separate ways. I was still embarrassed as I walked outside towards the taxi stand, but I wasn’t in tears. I surely would have been if I had been yelled at by strangers in the airport. I’m teetering on a cliff these days, and I only need a hint of anger to let out the emotional baggage that I’ve carried since Allie’s death. But instead of my eyes filling with tears, I had a good story to laugh at that night with my friends. A story about the kindness of strangers mixed with my usual antics of pretending (and failing) to be an adult.
Last week, I was at Evie’s school for a muffins with parents event in the morning before I headed to work. I don’t eat breakfast and Evie doesn’t drink coffee, so we parted ways upon entering the cafeteria to our respective lines. I was standing behind a dad in the coffee line that I didn’t know. He poured his coffee from one of those large cardboard boxes from Starbucks. As he went to set it down, he knocked over his coffee cup all over my jeans and onto the floor. Not an ideal way to start the morning. But as that coffee came pouring down my leg, all I could see was my bag shooting down that escalator. He apologized, and I tried to emulate the strangers at the airport. I told him it was no big deal, and I went to get paper towels from the bathroom to help him clean it up.
I went to work that day carrying the scent of coffee (which is a smell I love), and I felt truly grateful for remembering the lesson I learned from the baggage incident at PHX. Those kind strangers taught me a lot in that one moment, and that’s one piece of baggage that I hope I can always hold onto.
Oh, Valentine’s Day. It’s now one of those days that brings extra sadness to my heart. Six years ago, on 2/14/09, I was given the best gift ever. I found out I was pregnant with my second child. I remember being so excited, and I couldn’t wait for Evie to become a big sister. Allie would be born healthy later that year. Our family was complete, my heart was whole, and I had no idea that tragedy was waiting for us around the corner.
Last Valentine’s Day, I sat around crying looking at Allie’s Valentine’s Day video and pictures from her preschool class party. This year, I had planned to make it through this holiday by trying to focus on Evie and the love that remained in our house instead of the past. So, Kyle and I bought tickets online to take Evie to see Paddington at the movies that night. But that afternoon, Evie was invited to spend the night at a friend’s house. She wanted to go so badly, and I didn’t want my broken heart to keep her from seeing her friend. So we returned the Paddington tickets to the theater and dropped Evie off at her friend’s house.
That left two broken hearted people, Kyle and myself, to find something to do last minute on Valentine’s Day. Dinner reservations weren’t an option this late, but I knew we couldn’t stay home either. We found an alternative cover band playing at a bar close to home and decided it was our best option. I love a good cover band, and it was a bonus that they played music from the 90s. Kyle and I started dating in the late 90s, and the songs from then remind us of a much easier time. The band was called The Disappointments. What a fitting name for what our lives ended up becoming.
Kansas City is small, and it seems like I run into someone I know every time I leave the house. Valentine’s night at the bar was no different. I ran into a guy that works in the same building as me. This is not someone that I know well, but just someone that I say hello to passing in the hall. I introduced him to Kyle, and he started telling us about his recent vacation to Colorado with his daughter. His daughter named Allie. I resisted reminding him that I also had a daughter named Allie. I didn’t tell him that my Allie didn’t make it to Colorado because she was dying of brain cancer when we had planned to go. Valentine’s Day is depressing enough without the details of my story.
Besides my work neighbor, the bar was crowded with many other single people trying to survive Valentine’s Day. I’m sure they were looking at Kyle and I thinking we should be doing something better than hanging out at a bar on Valentine’s Day. I could feel them looking at us wondering why these married people crashed their party. They didn’t come to a bar to see couples together on Valentine’s Day. I wanted to shout and tell them not to judge. I wanted to challenge them to compare their scars with mine. I wanted to scream, “My heart is more broken than yours!”
After a bit, Kyle and I saw a spot open up at the bar and grabbed the open chairs. There, I sat next to a girl about my age, and she looked to be alone. Between the band’s sets, she started talking to me and told me that she had just got dumped a week ago. She was twice divorced, and she was regretting that she always chose the wrong guy. I told her that I married the right guy, but my life still sucked. She nodded, and luckily for both of our sad souls, the band started back up. My new friend said goodbye a little while later. She laughed and told me she was going to meet her married friends to be their fifth wheel on Valentine’s Day.
So that just left Kyle and I to sit there and listen to the band. There, we sat in a bar with our broken hearts listening to The Disappointments on Valentine’s Day. And, while it sounds like an extremely depressing scene from an indy film, it wasn’t. The band was really good. So good that we were both able to forget our shared pain for a little bit. And, for the first time since Allie died, there was a glimpse of the old Kyle and I together. For just a moment, we were not broken and shattered. We were just two kids back in the 90s with no broken hearts or disappointments in sight.
It’s hard to celebrate a day of love when you are miserable. It’s been difficult for me to accept that there’s no cure for the ache in my heart. I will always be missing Allie and wishing she was here. But, sometimes you have to be grateful that there is a moment when the anger and sadness ease. And, when it does, you just might see that you are lucky to have someone to share the disappointments with.
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.