A Note About Presence

I have long held a theory that love is about presence–and not just any type of presence, specifically physical presence. We live in a society that allows us to substitute physical presence with many types of shortcuts, technological alternatives, or gimmicks, but the reality remains that nothing can substitute true, physical presence. Physical presence is a “being with” in the deepest sense. Now, of course it is possible to be physically present with someone and be mentally and emotionally disengaged from that person, as you see so often in broken relationships. However, when it comes down to it, when we give our bodily presence, combined with total mental and emotional engagement, we demonstrate both our commitment to and our desire for love.

I believe love requires presence, and this is dominantly why we have evolved to make sure we can be present in some manifestation if we cannot be present in person. We now have things like FaceTime, phone calls, text messages, email, internet chat, and cards or letters in snail mail. All of these serve to make us present to people or in groups that we would otherwise not be able to be present with. But it all comes down to the same thing–a being with. Being with is, at the core, what we are all trying to give one another when we engage in the activity of love and what we are all seeking when we seek to be loved ourselves.

There is no substitute for being with. The engaged, physical presence of a loved one is able to both fulfill and deepen the bond. It slakes the thirst and eases the yearning, although the yearning to be loved is always present and the thirst for love will return no matter how many times you drink your fill. Love and being with create an interdependent need within the individual that seems to stand in sharp contrast to our society’s emphasis on independence. But the fact remains: love and being with cannot be separated because they are one in the same.

In graduate school, we studied this concept of “being with” at great length, and I believe I applied its principles in my own marriage. But I also know that it was Lizzy herself who taught me about love and about being with in a deeper and more essential sense than I had ever encountered it before. I think this is perhaps why we are so fascinated by and enamored with children: because children are an essential “being with.” Children don’t have to think about it or intentionalize it; they are simply the fullness of “being with” in whatever they are doing, and this translates very simply to mean that children (especially very young children) are the fullness of love. It is, therefore, impossible not to love them.

(Rather, it should be. Incomprehensibly, things like physical and sexual abuse of infants and children occur, negligence abounds, and, most revealingly, solutions like abortion are becoming more and more common because it is, in fact, possible to not love children.)

When I loved Lizzy, it was a helpless urge that grew up from inside me. And Lizzy loved me with the utter fullness of everything that she was, at every moment, simply because she didn’t know how to be anything else. And it is this semi-perfection of being that is both such a mystery and such a source of eternal fascination for us as adults. (Of course, it may also be this perfection of being that causes such monstrous actions of abuse or destruction; the abuser may see that in an infant or a child which he either craves or wants to destroy because he, in his own childhood, may have had this same nature abused.)

Yes, I believe that Lizzy was the fullness of love, and I believe it partially because it was Lizzy who taught me so fundamentally what it means to love and to be loved. Lizzy and I loved each other in such a way that being with her very rarely seemed like a chore. To be honest, the only times that I was frustrated by the bond and the closeness that we had was when she was demonstrating a need for me that I was reluctant to fill because I was preoccupied with some adult activity (i.e. finishing cooking, paying bills, writing an email, reading an article). I think a big part of parenting is learning the art of being able to put things down at a moment’s notice and to have the discipline and time management skills to come back and finish them later. Lizzy taught me this as well, because, in the end, nothing was as important as spending time with her.

I am able to say that with complete confidence because yes, my two year old died. I now resent and regret every single moment that I spend doing an unnecessary adult activity when I should have spent the time with her. But even for those parents that never lose a child–I ask you to ask yourselves: is what you’re occupied with really more important than being with your child? Is there a way that you can include your child in the activity that you are trying to finish? If not, consider coming back to it later. You may think you have all the time in the world, and, like me, you may be wrong.

Missing Lizzy these days feels like a sort of numb despair or a dull agony that seizes me at unexpected moments. I still can’t understand why she’s not here. I still can’t fathom that I will never see her again. When she was alive, Lizzy and I were physically present to one another for nearly every moment of her life. After she reached 18 months, she started to be able to spend a few hours without me but with her father or her aunts and feel okay about it. But I missed her every second I was without her. And coming home to her was coming home very simply because she was my home.

I never wanted a break from Lizzy. I’m not saying this to pretend I was the perfect mother, because I wasn’t. It’s just the way it was between us. We did everything together, and although I sometimes tried to do too much or get too much done in too short a space of time, more often than not, Lizzy would find a way to help me and participate in it rather than making me stop.

In her two years of life, Lizzy was such a constant physical presence that she was like a part of me. I didn’t want to be away from her, and she didn’t want to be away from me. She was beautifully independent when she wanted to be; she played and explored individually quite often, but she always knew where I was and we nearly always remained in walking distance of one another. It seems to me that when love is this constant and being with is this much a part of who you are with this one person, there is no real way to lose that person and still somehow be you.

And I’m coming to recognize now that who I was has been fundamentally lost and changed by Lizzy’s death. I don’t at present have the words or the understanding to explore who I am now, and most days, it seems more like I’m in a constant flux and things are just happening to me while I watch them pass by.

But what I really wanted to write about today is how Lizzy’s presence has changed for me. I don’t think I will ever actually recover from the loss of her constant physical presence, but I do think that she is still present, and I think the past weeks have been quiet enough that I’m able to learn about what that presence now looks like. I don’t think Lizzy is a ghost, but I think she is still with me. I think she is with Cecilia. I have written before about fetal microchimerism and how both Cecilia and me carry Lizzy’s living cells inside of our bodies in a true testament of how her physical presence has not been totally erased by her death. But I’m also finding that Lizzy is still present in more unexpected ways.

I feel Lizzy present in the breeze that carries off the water and lifts the edges of Cecilia’s blanket while she nurses. I feel Lizzy in the waves that swell around us as I hold Cecilia tight in the warm shallows of the bay. I feel Lizzy in the vastness of the sky and the screeching cries of the sea birds that soar above us. I feel Lizzy in the glinting radiance of the sun as it dances and sparkles across the surface of the water.

In his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul writes, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” I find that anytime I think about anything good or beautiful or feel anything that is full of light and life, I feel Lizzy present. I think of this as a sort of Platonic presence; because I see Lizzy as the fullness of good and of love, whenever I encounter something good or something loved, I feel Lizzy present within it. She was so very beautiful; so, now, whenever I encounter beauty, I think of Lizzy.

I admit I still do not know how to reconcile this new type of presence with the glaring and quaking reality of Lizzy’s bodily absence. But I also know that my little girl is with me. I think she is with me in the way that a saint or an angel might be. But I also think she’s with me in the way that God is with us: in the vibrant strings of everyday life weaving a pattern greater than anything we can comprehend. Lizzy is not here bodily, but she is everywhere to me and in everything around me. I know this because I can feel her.

And the only thing I can think is that my love for her has made her present in this world even after she left it. She is such a massive part of who I am and who I will become that she hasn’t fully died. She is in my cells, in my heart, and on my mind. She is the first word I think when I wake up and the last name I echo before I sleep. She is with me as I am loving her little sister. She is with me as I walk along the water. She is with me because of how deeply I loved her. Love her.

And maybe that’s the incredible thing about love and presence and being with. Presence is so powerful that being with can actually be creative–can actuate a presence that wasn’t there before. It’s hard sometimes to believe that there was a time when Lizzy and Cecilia didn’t exist, but it’s true. Their father and I willed them into existence by virtue of our being with one another–our loving each other. But it seems that presence is creative in intangible and invisible ways as well as the physical.

Lizzy and I loved one another so deeply that we have found a way to be together, even though death has separated us. And even though this separation was so devastating that I was sure it would kill me too, the reality is that there are some things that death cannot take away, and one of them is love. My love for Lizzy remains in every fiber of my being, and because of that, she is still present to me. We are still with each other, just in much quieter and unseen ways.

And though it may be unsettling to some people how often I talk to my deceased daughter, or how constantly I see her in the beauty surrounding me or feel her in the air I breathe, I can no more change this than I can change the fact that she’s physically gone. She’s still with me because I love her. She’s still present here because she was loved.

And if love is the only legacy that Lizzy lived long enough to leave behind, then I guess I’ve not entirely failed as a parent.