Holidays

 It's 13 days till Christmas.

I have been pretty numb these last few days. My son fell apart in the car on Wednesday, sharing that he felt that he was responsible for Hannah's death. He felt like he was mean to her while she was growing up. It was true. He was not nice to her. 

I see her face twisted and tortured in that video, over and over in my head, something inside her punishing and painful on hearing her brother yell half a house away.

I did the right thing. I told him that he was not responsible, that I love him.

Sitting on the couch, I prepare my grocery pickup list for tomorrow on the computer. There is a holiday section, and I absently scroll and click around, looking at the lights and the wreaths. And then I realize that she is dead, there is nothing to celebrate this year. Still calm, tears coming down my face, slowly at first. I close the tab.

Before thanksgiving, we decided, mindfully, what we wanted to do with that day. 

I am scheduled for surgery in 5 days. Covid is surging, with over 3000 deaths in the US yesterday. 8 days later is Christmas. We are approaching Hannah's favorite holiday, with no desire to decorate or bake cookies. Hannah was a creative and prolific baker, and her "hot tits" snickerdoodles were divine.

For many years, we made gingerbread houses, and I saw in my old photos on facebook a picture of her, huge smile on her face, sweet little gingerbread house next to her.

Photographs are beautiful, painful remembrances of this child that I adored. My gift child, I called her. She was not an accident, I would say, she was a gift.  What happens when I pass and the photos do not go to her or to the children that she might have had?  I continue to hold physical space for her belongings, at the same time knowing that there are others who might benefit from them-clothing, cookware, food. I am not ready to give them up: a beloved tie-dye onesie handed from one child to the next that I held onto for when one of my own had a child of their own; art that she created, boxes of tea that she was given for her birthday; a tin can that says "Black Lives Matter" in her scrawling handwriting.  Books and books and books, some of which are old and musty and the only significance to them is that she found them in an old, abandoned house. I could create a small museum to her with these things that have stories and meaning. 

I allow the days to pull me along. For the most part, I don't think that I am making choices so much as allowing the choices of others to make my path. I am having surgery because no one has told me not to. I go to work, I call my parents, I cook and eat, I pay my bills. These are the things that we all do on a daily basis.  This writing I choose.  It is painful sometimes, but it is for me.

My younger son was asking yesterday about where Hannah was now - her spirit. He wants to believe that she is not entirely gone, yet since he does not "believe" in God, he is struggling.

I thought this morning on awakening that if I died in surgery that maybe I would be with her....