Doughnut Sunday

Today we celebrated Doughnut Sunday. Now Doughnut Sunday is definitely Emma’s kind of holiday! What? You don’t celebrate Doughnut Sunday? Well then, I must teach you about this holiday which Emma loved so much.

Doughnut Sunday was originated by my mother when her children started leaving the nest. She found that she could always lure us back with the celebration of a holiday. But even after celebrating Christmas, New Year’s, Chinese New Year, Superbowl Sunday, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, etc., etc., she found herself wanting her family around more. So, she invented Doughnut Sunday.

Doughnut Sunday takes place on a Sunday in February. It has been known to be celebrated on a Sunday in January but, according to tradition, it must occur before March. The festival revolves around eating my mother’s old-fashioned homemade fried doughnuts. My mother was the chief doughnut chef until recently, when my brother assumed that role. The recipe they use has been passed down in our family for generations and it is like no other doughnut I’ve tasted. The doughnuts are deep-fried and then, when they are still warm, they are shaken in powdered or cinnamon sugar. I like mine in powdered sugar. Emma did, too. The real purists eat them plain, straight out of the grease. My favorites are the doughnut holes. My mother was serving these to us way before Dunkin Donuts started serving Dunkin Munchkins.

There are no real rules to Doughnut Sunday, except that you are not allowed to count how many doughnuts someone eats. That would be rude. We are a competitive family, however, so in the days before my generation all ended up on cholesterol medication, the more competitive of us would brag about how many we had been able to down. The winner paid a big price, though. The doughnuts are quite heavy and hard to digest, so if you don’t use discretion, Doughnut Sunday can be followed by Stomach Ache Monday.

One of the things Emma liked about this holiday was that it was all our own. She loved the reaction when she told someone she was unavailable because it was Doughnut Sunday. People were usually pretty jealous that she was heading off to a family gathering where the only expectation was that she would eat lots of doughnuts. What’s not too love?!

Sister Story 2

Another time during Sarah’s nursery school career at the JCC she came home wanting to teach us all what she had learned about Yom Kippur. As we sat at dinner, Sarah explained to us that Yom Kippur was a very solemn holiday when everyone was supposed to say something they had done that they were sorry for and ask God’s forgiveness. She insisted that we do that right then and asked Peter to start. Peter obliged her and we proceeded around the table. Sarah was next, then me and last, but not least, Emma.

When we got to Emma, she steadfastly refused to participate. She locked her lips, folded her arms across her chest and shook her head no. She didn’t explain why she didn’t want to do it but I have a couple of guesses. First and foremost, admitting wrongs was not high on Emma’s list of fun things to do. I think it would be fair to say that none of us like to admit to our shortcomings, but Emma avoided it more than most. And then there was the indisputable fact that we were not Jewish. I imagine she felt that because of this technicality, she was under no obligation to participate in this most uncomfortable tradition. Yom Kippur was definitely not Emma’s idea of a holiday!

Sarah was positively incensed by Emma’s refusal to participate. “Emma, you have to do it,” she demanded. But Emma was not persuaded. Sarah seemed about to blow her stack, so I intervened with a compromise that I thought might keep the peace. “How about if Emma says what she’s sorry for to herself?” I suggested. “It can be between her and God.” Sarah did not buy my compromise. “No, you have to say it out loud,” Sarah insisted. “ Emma, say it, don’t pray it!”

Sister Story

Sarah loved her time in nursery school at the JCC. Although her class was filled with children of all different faiths, the nursery school did teach the children about Jewish holidays and they would celebrate these holidays together. In addition, every Friday they would celebrate Shabbat together.

Sarah loved to come home and teach us about the holidays and traditions and insisted that we celebrate at home, as well. I think she enjoyed the rich history and tradition that these holidays and rituals reflected, but I also think she enjoyed being the resident expert. It wasn’t easy asserting yourself in a house with two adults and a very precocious older sister. On the subject of Jewish traditions, however, Sarah considered herself an authority; and she wasn’t going to let any of us forget it.

One fall evening at dinner, Emma was complaining about her ballet class. She said that it was impossible to understand her teacher’s instructions because she was Russian and had a thick accent. Sarah chimed in authoritatively. “No Emma,” she said. “It’s not Russian, it’s Rosh Hashanah.”

A Tale of Two Girls

Emma went to the nursery school at the church that we attend. It was perfect for her. There were very small classes and it only involved a short morning of activity three days a week. That’s all Emma needed at that time. After a morning of enrichment and socializing at school, she was ready for some alone time or one-on-one time with me or a friend.

Sarah went to nursery school at the Jewish Community Center. It had larger classes and offered afternoon activities like gymnastics or swimming. This worked for Sarah. After a full morning of activity and socializing, Sarah was ready for some more activity and socializing.

As I write this, I realize that this would strike some adults that know the two girls as backwards. To the adult world, Emma appeared to be the outgoing and gregarious child. Sarah always appeared shy and reserved. But in the world of their peers, especially when they were younger, the roles were reversed. Emma felt much less at ease in that arena and Sarah would really let go and be herself.

I guess that’s just more evidence of how complex we all are. We are tempted to sum each other with concise labels: nice, mean, generous, stingy, outgoing, shy. But it’s not that easy, is it?

Sushi Girl

One of Emma’s favorite foods was sushi. We discovered a favorite sushi restaurant in town about three years ago and it had become a habit to go there once a week, usually on Fridays, for dinner. We liked to try new things, but we definitely had our favorites. Emma would always start with an appetizer called Sunomono – raw octopus and assorted fish made to look like a beautiful floral arrangement.  Sarah and I would usually share a crab ceviche and Peter liked the tuna dumpling. Then we would share an assortment of rolls. Our favorites were the Amazing roll, the Spider roll, the Jaguar roll, the Tiger roll and the Dragonfly roll.

Emma would eat sushi as often as she could. Whenever she and Sarah had one of their children’s choir concerts and had to bring dinner, I would get them sushi to bring. And on the rare occasion that Peter and I went out without them, we would get them sushi to share at home. What pizza is to some families, sushi was to us. When we hired a caterer for Emma’s sweet sixteen party, one of the requirements was that they be able to prepare sushi. It had to be on the menu.

For Christmas in 2008, Emma got a sushi making kit and cookbook from her aunt and uncle. She absolutely loved it and on two occasions last winter she spent most of a weekend day crafting a selection of sushi for us to have for dinner. Sushi was the perfect combination of two things she loved to do: cook delicious foods and create beautiful things. That’s why I had arranged for Emma and her friends to have a sushi making workshop for her 17th birthday. The party was less than a week away when she died.

We have not been back to our favorite sushi restaurant since Emma died. It’s one of those places that I just can’t bring myself to go to without her. We did go to a Japanese restaurant in another town several months ago. We ordered some of our old favorites: a Tiger roll, a Spider roll, a Dragonfly roll; but none of them tasted the way I remembered. I didn’t enjoy it. This is the strange and winding path of grief, I guess. Some things bring happy memories and a feeling of connection; other things we shared seem spoiled or out of reach. There’s nothing rational about it, no explaining it. It just is.

Breakfast of Champions

I was making breakfast for Sarah this morning and it reminded me of the breakfast Peter or I would make for Emma for years and years - a smiley face pancake. We started with a microwaved pancake. We topped it with whipped cream hair. It got two eyes made with whipped cream and raisin centers and a jam smile. Whenever possible, it was served on her favorite Sesame Street plate. The perfect start to the day!

Back from Outer Space

Well, we're back. The reason I haven't posted in the last week is that we took a vacation. I brought the computer and could have posted, but decided it was better to focus on the present and try to enjoy our family vacation.


Normally, we would have headed to the ranch in Arizona, but we would not have been able to enjoy that. So, instead, we took a trip to a place we never visited as a family - Disney World. Emma went to Disney two years ago with her high school band for a music festival. Sarah and Peter and I went down, too, so that we could see her concert. But Emma traveled through the various parks with her school mates and Peter, Sarah and I were on our own. It meant that this trip to Disney seemed almost normal.


I thought about Emma constantly, of course. Mostly, I was thinking about how glad I was that we had spent our vacation times together going to the ranch, where each of us seemed to find our own niche and could relax and enjoy ourselves. There was so much about Disney that was not to Emma's liking: the high noise and stimulation experiences and scary rides, for example. I think Emma managed to enjoy herself when she went two years ago, but I also know that she didn't feel like she ever needed to go back.


There were three times when we experienced or saw something at Disney that I thought was right up Emma's alley. The first was when I saw a little girl who was fresh from a makeover at the Bippity, Boppity, Boo-tique. For the uninitiated, this is a place where little girls can pick out a Disney princess gown and then get hair and makeup done for a complete transformation. When Emma was a little girl, she would have been all over this. In fact, even as a big girl she enjoyed these type of princess makeovers. She got to to have hair and makeup done as part of her cousin Liz's bridal party and ate it up. And last spring, she loved getting her curled and styled in preparation for her Juior Prom.  Yes, Emma would have definitely visited the Bippity, Boppity Boo-tique.


The second experience was watching the Disney Celebration parade. As the parade came down Main Street USA, despite the fact that I was embarrassing Sarah, I couldn't help but wave back to the Dinsey characters when they waved to the crowd. Emma shared this trait. Whenever we went to parades, or Sesame Street Live, or the circus, the two of us would be madly waving to the characters and clowns as if we were sure they were waving only to us. In fact, I remember one time at a Sesame Street Live show when Emma turned to me after exchanging waves with Ernie and said, "I think Ernie was really happy to see me here!"


The last experience was on our last night at Disney when we went to the Spirit of Aloha show. The show is full of traditional music and dance, but also has a healthy dose of cheesiness. Emma would have loved it all. I know that she wouldn't have been able to resist moving to the beat and imitating the hula dance movements. And I also know that she would have enjoyed retreating into the  Disney-esque portrait of the world - where everyone is nice and smiling and all conflicts can be solved in a half hour, usually with an irresistibly corny song and dance routine.

The Narrator

Beginning when Emma was a tiny newborn baby, I acted as the narrator of the story of her life. As we went through our days together, I would talk us through our every action and decision. “Now what shall I make my Emma for breakfast? How about some delicious rice cereal and your favorite peaches?” I was oblivious to the puzzled looks I would get as I consulted baby Emma about my product choices at the grocery store. “Hmm, what do you think, Emma – Cheerios or Rice Krispies?” No moment was too small to be articulated.

Emma seemed to like my running narration. It was like I was reading a story to her, a story in which she played the starring role. As soon as she started talking herself, she began to take over the role of narrator. Just like I had, she would narrate the tiniest moments of our day, “Emmie eat her toas (toast). Yum!” When she would try something new at her playgroup, she would narrate, “Emmie do it. Yeah, Emmie!” Sometimes her narration was reflective. We went for pizza one afternoon and watched the man make our pizza. The whole ride home from the restaurant she described, step by step, how the man had made her pizza. And she discovered that narration could have persuasive powers, as in the time she said, “Mommy should get Emmie a cookie. That’s a good idea!”

But I came across one piece of narration that I was particularly glad I had recorded. In it, Emma captured the otherwise too easily overlooked emotion of a tender moment.  In the scene, I am carrying a very tired Emma in from the car and the narrator says simply, “Mommy carry precious Emma.”

Muse

As Emma got older, finding time to steal away and do projects with Pat became less practical. Emma was fortunate, though, to add a new creative muse to her life – her flute teacher, Adrianne.

Emma started taking lessons with Adrianne about half way through sixth grade. Many of Emma’s middle school band peers were taking private lessons on their instruments and Emma wanted that opportunity, too. It was really just luck that she ended up studying with Adrianne. Adrianne was the first of the recommended teachers I connected with. We had a pleasant conversation and we agreed to give it a try. I remember Adrianne asking me if Emma was shy or quiet. I assured her that she was anything but shy and quiet and, in fact, Adrianne’s biggest challenge might be keeping Emma from gabbing through the whole lesson.

That turned out to be a valid concern. Emma and Adrianne had lots in common besides their love of the flute and music. They both had their own unique flair for fashion. They both liked jewelry that made a statement. They loved hats. They both liked vintage looks, and preppy was not in either of their fashion vocabularies.

Adrianne challenged and inspired Emma as a musician, but she was also a great friend.  Often I would pick up Emma from a lesson and ask her how it went and she would respond, “Oh, it was great. Adrianne wants the recipe for the stew I made for French class,” or “ Great. Adrianne really liked my hat and she wanted to know where I got my jacket.”

I know for a fact that there was a lot of flute playing in between these conversations because I would often sneak in at the end just to listen. But I also know that if Adrianne didn’t keep her on task, Emma would have happily gabbed away with her for the whole hour. She clearly felt like a kindred spirit to Emma. And that’s why I was and still am grateful for the gift of Adrianne in Emma’s life.

Music Memories

Some of the hardest memories for me to access have been my memories of Emma as a musician and of the music she created and shared. Perhaps this is because these are some of my most recent memories. Maybe it’s because she had a future planned in music and it’s been lost. Or, maybe it’s because it’s those sensory reminders; the feel of her hug, the brightness of her eyes, the smell of her perfume, the sound of her music, that makes her loss most concrete and harsh.

When Emma was alive our house was filled with music. She had become an accomplished flautist and afternoons or evenings usually included practice time. Our house would be filled with the beautiful strains of the pieces she was working on. I often didn’t even know the names of the pieces, but I would carry them with me like old friends. I’d hum them in the shower and they’d run through my brain in quiet times at my desk or when I was having trouble sleeping. I told Emma that I had learned to appreciate classical music from the music she exposed me to and brought to life for me. I was changed by her gift for music.

Maybe that’s why I have avoided music since Emma died. We don’t listen to it in the house anymore. We always had show tunes or some other favorite CD playing in the car, but no more. I haven’t been able or brave enough to recall a single one of the pieces Emma played in the last year, even though I had probably heard them 100 or more times.

Last night I had a hard time sleeping. I was anxious and troubled and sleep just didn’t seem to be in the cards. I can’t pinpoint when it happened, but at some point when I was wrestling with whether I should just get up, one of Emma’s flute pieces started playing in my head. It was a beautifully mesmerizing piece that she had practiced for several months last year, but which I had not been able to recall. As it ran through my brain, it slowed my heartbeat and breathing and relaxed me. It was like a warm embrace from an old friend. I drifted off to sleep with the song in my head and woke up in the morning with the song still strongly secured in my memory. A piece of her was back.

Planting the Alphabet

Another of Emma's favorite Lois Ehlert books is called Planting a Rainbow. In fact this book inspired a project that Emma and I undertook for two consecutive springs and summers.

The first spring/summer of our project was in 1994, the year that Emma turned two. Instead of planting a rainbow, we decided to plant the alphabet. By that I mean that we chose a plant for every letter of the alphabet. The good thing about planting the alphabet, we reasoned, was that we could include some vegetables that we would enjoy eating. We didn't have room in our yard for this project, but my mother secured us a plot in the community garden right near her house. She wanted to help out and she also knew that the garden would inspire more visits from her precious granddaughter.

We decided that, given the size of our plot, we would only be able to plant half the alphabet in our first year. We had a great time going to the garden center and picking out our seeds and seedlings. I found the list of  what we planted the first year: artichokes, beans, broccoli, cucumbers, dahlias, eggplant, four-o-clocks, garlic, horseradish, Italian parsley, jack-o-lantern (okay, we used a little creative license), kale, lettuce and marigolds.

Emma had a blast digging holes for the plants and seeds and covering them up with dirt. She got soaked helping to water the garden and when we all done she said, "Good job, Mommy." All through the rest of spring and the summer, Emma would frequently tell people about her garden and ask to visit it. Our harvest was modest, some might even say pathetic, but we were still very proud of that plot.

The next year we planted the other half of the alphabet. I couldn't find the list from that year, but I remember some of them. I know we had nasturtium for N, pumpkins for P, radishes for R and Zinnias for Z. I cannot, for the lfe of me remember how we dealt with X or Q. Our harvest was even more disappointing that year because we went away for a week in the summer and the garden suffered from the neglect. But it really wasn't the harvest that brought us the joy and satisfaction anyway. What we loved so much was the planning and the preparing and the pruning and the picking. And getting all dirty and wet was pretty fun, too!

Superbowl

Emma's favorite menu for Superbowl Sunday:
Buffalo chicken wings
potato chips and dip
a very gooey, chocolatey dessert


Football? If I have to.

The Bird Lady

Lois Ehlert was one of Emma’s early favorite authors and illustrators. She does beautifully simple and colorful drawings of nature and has an engaging way of weaving stories about nature. Emma loved these books for their pictures and stories, but also for the opportunity they gave her to study and memorize something from nature.

Her first favorite by Lois Ehlert was Feathers for Lunch. The book tells the story of a cat who stalks all the various kinds of birds that inhabit his family’s backyard. There are pictures of robins, chickadees, blue jays, cardinals, wrens, goldfinches and more. When she was not much more than a year old, Emma committed all these birds to memory and could identify them not just in the book, but also in our yard. The one little quirk was that, for a time, she would refer to a robin as Christopher Robin. As I’ve noted before, Emma was also a fan of A.A. Milne.

Emma’s Auntie Meg recently told me that she was thrilled when she discovered that Emma could identify species of birds. Meg was a little bit of an Audubon nerd, I mean buff, an Audubon buff, and she said was dismayed that people in my family would refer to birds as “the little gray one”, or “the pretty blue one”. Emma gave her hope that the next generation of my family had a brighter ornithological future.

I’m not sure when it happened, but I would like to point out that many people in my family are now quite adept at identifying different species of birds. My mom has a bird feeder outside her window in the nursing home and as we sit and watch the birds together, I have not once heard someone refer to a cardinal as “the pretty red bird”. I guess Meg and Emma inspired us.

In the Heights

The latest musical that Emma was working on memorizing was In the Heights. We went to see it just a year ago and Emma wanted the CD of that soundtrack all for herself. She played it constantly in her room and could flawlessly perform the opening song/rap. Now if you haven't heard the opening song, you might wonder why it is so memorable that Emma could perform this piece, but this isn't just any opening song. First of all, it's a long piece. Second, it shifts back and forth between rap and song and the pace and the rhythm shift constantly, too. Third, the piece introduces the musical's 10 or so main characters and, just like with Rock Island from The Music Man, Emma had memorized all the parts and would switch back and forth between characters when she would perform it for us. 


So click here and imagine Emma's one woman show. Just a warning: there's some bad language.

Music Man

I just learned that the high school where Emma would be a senior this year is doing The Music Man for its spring musical. Emma would definitely approve. The Music Man was one of Emma’s early favorites. We went to see it on Broadway and saw Emma’s cousin perform as Marian the Librarian in her high school’s production. We bought the soundtrack for The Music Man when we saw it on Broadway and for the next year or more it was steady fare in the car as we drove to and from school and to various activities. At some point, Emma hijacked the CD for closer study. She learned every word to every song, including the parts of all three salesmen in Rock Island. We got such a kick out of hearing her perform that song (chant?) for us. She never missed a beat.

Emma would not have been up on stage for the high school’s production of this favorite, however. She would have been back in the pit, where she had performed for the last two years. She played four instruments in the high school’s pit: flute, piccolo, clarinet and sax. I liked to get a seat right up front and close to the pit so I could watch her switch back and forth between instruments during a song. It amazed me that she could do that. It amazed me that she wanted to do that! But she truly loved it.

Last year when we went to watch Emma perform in the Western Regional Musical Festival, I bought Emma a t-shirt from a vendor at the festival. It said, “The Pit is It!" Emma loved that shirt and wore it all the time. She had really come to identify herself as a musician and her dream job would have been playing in a Broadway pit. She definitely had the talent to do it.

At times like this it’s hard not to dwell on the lost dreams and gifts. She should be there in that high school pit, playing those songs she loved. But I said when I started this blog that I would focus on what she did, not on what she could no longer do. What she did was bring music to life for me and many, many others. In fact, I know that Emma will be there in spirit when her high school performs The Music Man, because she was an inspiration to so many of her schoolmates and they will carry her in their hearts as they bring it to life.

Click here to see a video performance of Rock Island from The Music Man and then try to picture Emma doing all three parts. 

Never Mind

Here's my February 9, 1994 journal entry:


Emma wanted to go outside and play in the snow this morning. When I told her she'd need to get her snowsuit and boots on she said, "skip it!."

Pinky Cookies

My mother's journal entry for February 3rd, 1994 needs a little introduction.

My mother is cookie baker extraordinnaire. One of Emma's early favorites was a cookie we refer to in our family as an Italian cookie. I think that this cookie would traditionally be flavored with anise, but my mom's is not. It's a very plain flavored dough and after it's baked it's topped with a thin coating of colored and flavored icing. My mother made orange and yellow icings flavored with orange and lemon respectively, and she made pink and blue icings that were vanilla flavored. Emma favored the pink iced cookies and so she began referring to these cookies as pinky cookies. Here's the entry:

Emma is very into Gram's pinky cookies and asks for them all day. Today, when I told her she could not have another pinky she replied, "How about a blue?" Very clever!