We tell ourselves stories in order to live. – Joan Didion The night felt full and ripe with promise. I gazed around the nursery, softly illuminated by a conch shell lit from inside like the ocean home of some watery sprite. The crib loomed silently to my left, its Beatrix Potter linens tucked away in…
I have been a mother for four years, but I have never mothered a child past the age of two. I don’t know how a three-year-old thinks, looks, or acts. For eternity, Lizzy will be frozen at the age of two. For two years, I have been trying to just get back to the two-year…
Arch, twist, gasp, moan Pray, breathe, push, groan Swollen belly, pulsing night When first you breathed, I saw light. Tears, salt, gentle moon Blood, skin, quiet room Breathless touch, dripping milk When first you breathed, your mouth was silk. Raw heart and aching bone Trembling lips, grief like stone Your sister gone, my world so…
For the first time since Lizzy died, it feels like time is moving too fast. Once, I imagined that next two years would be an excruciating turtle-crawl towards the two-year-old finish line. Instead, I find myself so busy that the days are blurring together in an endless continuum of whatever I can get done and…
In April of 2018, I took Lizzy to visit my big sister and brother-in-law’s new home, never dreaming that it would become our home too in less than a year. What I remember most from that visit was the massive and majestic cherry tree in full bloom on the right side of the house. The…
. . . and behold! a third theme grew amid the confusion, and it was unlike the others. For it seemed at first soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds in delicate melodies; but it could not be quenched, and it took to itself power and profundity. And it seemed at last that…
Look at where you areLook at where you startedThe fact that you’re alive is a miracleJust stay alive, that would be enough – “That Would Be Enough”, Hamilton Scarcely a month after Cecilia was born, I texted my big sister that just because Cece isn’t Lizzy doesn’t mean that she’s any less worth dedicating my…
Lizzy was born one hour and fourteen minutes into the first day of spring: March 20, 2017. She was named Aviva, Hebrew for “spring.” She was baptized on April 22, 2017. She died on April 5, 2019, one week before Easter. Cecilia’s due date was April 22, 2019, but she wasn’t born until May 5,…
It is useless to say pain is like a shadow even though pain has become as constant and understated a presence as my shadow. It is pointless to utter that grief is like an amputation even though living without Lizzy is like living without an arm or leg; I have had to learn how to…
There is a term called “existential loneliness,” indicating that the very state of being human is to be alone, to suffer alone, to die alone. Some argue we are living in an epidemic of loneliness, even before this pandemic and social isolation. I have heard doctors refer to cancer cells as “acting out of a…