In our community, there is a girls’ school and a boys’ school under the same administration. We used to live close to the girls’ school, far from the boys’. When I would drive at some times of day, I would see the crossing guard standing on the curb of the corner a block downhill from the girls’ school. I would cry, and think, “We used to have a daughter.”
Life was so hard like that. Regular everyday things would evoke such powerful grief.
Our daughter was born in 2000 and passed away in 2004. In the meantime, we had three beautiful bouncing baby boys who brought endless joy and energy through the pain of her loss.
My grief went from enveloping me- I was inside of it, to eventually finding a place inside me for the grief- the grief is now in me. Missing her is a part of my heart. If I could draw a map of my emotional state of being, missing Mimi would be a vast ocean, that never gets any smaller.
Immediately after her death, my whole life was in pieces. She needed a lot of care: medical care and therapies. I had a wide social circle made up of doctors, nurses, therapists, social workers, receptionists and fellow parents of children with chronic illness and/or developmental delay.
All that disappeared in an instant. I had no more reason to go to these places or speak to these people. I said grateful goodbyes, but I had no place with them anymore, no connection to them. My previous social life was from when I was single, five years earlier. There was nothing to go back to.
As time passed, my identity went from “the mom” of the patient, the child getting therapy, the person the meeting was about; to a personification of death, a walking worst case scenario for any feeling mother. I felt that no one even wanted to see me, that my presence anywhere brought death with me.
Slowly, I rebuilt from the ashes. I got matching pajamas for me and my boys- now only a boy mom. I used to ask the little ones, “Why is Mommy so lucky?” “Because she has her beautiful boys.”
I got used to dressing boys, going to the boys’ school. I hail from a family of mostly girls so this was new to me.
I went to a painting class once a week after I had outgrown a weekly bereavement group. My loss was the most recent in the group and I felt the group wasn’t as focused on moving forward as I was. So I took a painting class once a week. It was healing.
I was/am so grateful for our wonderful big boys. But there was an independent grief where our daughter was missing.
So I used to pass the crossing guard and cry.
Fast forward to fall 2024. I still hold Mimi as my inspiration, my version of ‘god and country’ that I fight for when my strength is depleted. I fight in her memory; I fight to make her proud; I fight so that she has a memorial on this earth. When I feel I can’t anymore, I keep going, hoping she is watching from another place, and sees me making a difference on earth in her name. I know how much I lost when I lost her, so I know how precious life is. And when I forget, as I inevitably do, because of the annoyances of life, I think, “What would I do to hug her one more time?” And I work harder to bring more love, more support, more understanding, to our physical world where the spiritual is hidden and everything so stupid seems so important.
Back to the crossing guard. It is fall 2024. For a few years now, I love watching the crossing guard. The corner she stands at is not on the way to the house we moved to ten-plus years ago. So she does not cross our girls. But she does Zumba, or what I assume is Zumba, as she stands waiting for the girls, chatting and strolling down the hill, with their navy sweatshirts, shiny pink backpacks, and bobbing ponytails. I love the joie de vivre of her Zumba, the hyper vigilant productivity aspect, the aversion to standing around doing nothing. I love the color of her personality coming through her ostensibly bland job.
We have a family’s worth of girls in the girls’ school these days. I struggle to sort the laundry with so many identical uniform shirts in different sizes. Our house came with a whole wall covered in mirror, nowadays when the girls line up in the morning to do their hair in it, they fill it. It’s hard to wrap my mind around the extent of the blessings G-d has gifted us with.
Giggles, I always say, are unique to a girl family. Boys laugh, but they don’t giggle. I feel like it takes two girls to truly giggle-one to crack the other up with some indecipherable comment that launches both into gales of laughter.
We have that now- the laughing and joy of the girls, the pride in beautiful boys and still, a hole in my heart that for almost twenty years now, was and always will be named Mimi.
Notes:
-The subtitle is from Psalms 126:5.
-As a mother of a very sick child, I was often called “the mom.” I think it’s because they didn’t remember my first name. Sometimes they called me Mimi. I didn’t mind.
-Yes, it’s the same crossing guard. Amazing, right?
Rivka, I feel your pain. Losing a child is tough, but losing a little one is worse We lost a baby boy, Aaron, at 13 months (due to injuries from medical malpractice). He is now at the head of the grave, waiting for us to join him. It's hard to go from 24 hour care, conferences at the dining room table, deliveries of supplies, visits from nurses and therapists. All of a sudden life becomes very empty. We established an endowment fund in his name at the school that provided therapists which pays for incidentals (special chairs, adapted toys, etc.) not covered by insurances for the little ones. The school named a classroom after him. Many years later, we still miss Aaron very much, and the pain never goes away, just gets a little more dull. We never tried to "replace" him, couldn't. He was our gift from G-d. I mourn for the little innocent children who lost their lives on October 7 to subhuman haters. Life is overwhelmed by fear, grief and hate, leaving little room for joy.
Such is a deeply heartfelt story. Blessings to you.