Ghosts in the Hall

Missing my daughter and her happy spirit

I wish I could say that every day, it becomes easier to live; that the grief lessens and joy becomes prevalent.

What I've actually found, is all the million different little ways my heart can break, over and over, that I never expected.

Sometimes, it's when I find something that belonged to her. An errant toy, keeping company with dust bunnies beneath the couch that somehow escaped the purges over the last year.

Or like every now and again when I really pay attention to the cups and plates in the cabinets as I put dishes away and realize that I never took her baby plates out. They are still in there- magenta, lavender, baby blue, just waiting to be used- but never again by her. I guess it's good I have so many nieces and nephews, since now it isn't "mama"....just "auntie" that I hear. I try to embrace that, but it doesn't hit quite the same.

The grief comes out in the way I couldn't let her bed go to just anyone- it had to be a friend, because the thought of where she'd once laid her head....where we laid together and read with her....where she napped and played when she was supposed to be sleeping....it was too much to watch it leave and not know where her sleepy spirit ended up.

Sometimes it's even when something has nothing directly to do with her- like watching the dog play with the kids that frequent the home we used to share, and knowing how much he'd adore her, and how she is missing out on having him too, because everyone knows that German Shepherds and kids are the perfect match. That was partly why I brought him home....when I still had hope I could have both.

The grief resides in the way that I made her room my office, just to be close to her, and how I've refused to cover the forest of trees you painted on the wall, on a whim, because of the joyous response she had upon seeing them. Most of her things are gone now, to various homes on Marketplace. But her spirit is still so strong in there that sometimes entering the room takes my breath from my body.

This residual grief appears in the way I've kept little parts of her around on purpose- the ribbon from gymnastics that was left under the mat in your car, displayed proudly on the refrigerator. The little backpack we bought her in Honduras, that one singular magical day of vacation on a hellish trip that was truly the beginning of the end, where I really saw you clearly for the first since you'd come back. When you open it, all of her little toys are still packed in it as she left them, and it still holds her scent. I spent 10 minutes today, in the laundry room (Tahiti, as we used to call it, when we needed alone time from the kids) inhaling her with my eyes closed, tears making frantic bids down my cheeks in a race to escape the pain within. I bet she still smells like that. I wish I knew for sure.

I kept all of her shoes I've found- always only the left shoe, because of how her foot turns in slightly. I have SEVEN left shoes. She always managed to lose them, to which I'd respond "Cinderelly Cinderelly, where's your shoe at Cinderelly?" She'd giggle and say "mamaaaaaaaaaa" with that big smile on her face, the gap between her teeth flashing like a wink and eyes sparkling.

I remember what the heft of her weight feels like in my arms, with her lanky ones clasped around my neck, the clammy feeling of her little hand in mine, the feel of her lips on my cheek, and the smell of her sweat while she sleeps. I remember her sweet, sleepy voice singing with me as she drifted off to dreamland, and the way she'd beg me to read Spinderella and NO MORE FROGS over and over, and how she'd ask me all the time "DO YOU LIKE MY HAT?!" and I'd respond with "NO, I DO NOT LIKE YOUR HAT" and she'd flounce with a big HARUMPH and say "GOOD BYE!"...because that was her favorite Dr. Seuss book. THe one about the dogs and the hats. I wonder if she still remembers it too.

The grief comes like a flood when her sisters say they had a dream about her. They barely mention her name anymore, because it hurts too much to say....like it hurts too much to hear. We tiptoe around her spirit like speaking her name out loud will disturb the dead and cause the ghosts to rise up and drag us down with them.

The first flower she learned about were touch-me-nots, and she'd tickle their leaves just to watch them close bashfully, looking up at me with a mischievous smile, like we shared a secret no one else knew. FLowers had feelings, just like people, and that was proof.

Sometimes, I feel like that part of my life was a dream. Was I her mom? Was she my baby? Were we ever a real family? Was she ever actually mine? Or did you have this plan from the beginning? I see now, the ways that you tried to alienate me from her, when I was busy excusing your behavior, and hoping one day you'd see me as her parent too. But you never really did, did you?

I remind myself to forgive you every single day, multiple times a day. I don't know how long that will take, but I know my soul is weary of the reminders.

I wish so many things. But most of all, I wish you'd been a better mother than what you were modeled. We all have choices....and you chose wrong, when what you should have done was break that curse.

She deserved better. And so did we.

I don't