Easter Decorations

On Monday night I finally got out our Easter decorations. Pulling out the decorations has been one of the many difficult things about each holiday. It’s hard to know whether they will conjure memories that will be sweet or painful. Usually, they are a little of both.

For Easter, the signs of Emma are in two hand-decorated blown eggs that were stored amongst our decorations. One of the blown eggs was decorated for Emma by her Aunt Joycie. It was made for Easter 2000 when Emma was 7, going on 8. It captured her milestones from the last year: her appearance as Dorothy in her Music for Children class’s production of The Wizard of Oz; her love of bike riding, a skill she had learned relatively late because of her fear of falling, but now embraced enthusiastically; and her love of the children’s book series called The Boxcar Children. Joycie had decorated another blown egg for Emma marking an earlier year, but the year before last, that egg rolled off our dining room table and broke. We were all quite heartbroken, both because we knew how much work had gone into it, and because it was such a special reminder of the events of that year.

The second blown egg was decorated by Emma herself in the style of her Aunt Joycie, whose artistic talent she greatly admired. I don’t remember exactly when she made this egg, but it wasn’t that long ago. The egg has a line drawing of the Easter Bunny and a note addressed to him. The note goes like this:

Dear Rabbit of Easter,

Enjoy the crunchy orange sticks. We hope you enjoy them and that you have a safe and happy Easter. Your cousin in our basement says hi, and he advises you to stay clear of loud buses on wheels. Again, Happy Easter. Love, the von Eulers

I think that some of the things in that note require some context. The phrase “Rabbit of Easter” is borrowed from a David Sedaris short story called Jesus Shaves. It is a hilarious story and a family favorite. You must read it or, better yet, listen to David Sedaris read it. The "crunchy orange sticks" line is a reference to carrots, of course. Each year the girls would leave carrots out for the Easter Bunny with a note. One time the bunny wrote back and thanked the girls for the crunchy orange sticks which, he said, he found delicious. The line about “your cousin in our basement” is a reference to our bunny, Thumpernickel. I have no idea where the line about the bus came from. I’m guessing it was an inside joke that I got at the time, but not anymore.

Looking back at what I’ve written, I’m struck by how much those two little eggs tell about Emma and our family. I’m going to make sure I wrap them up and store them very, very carefully when Easter is over. When I first pulled them out, they were painful reminders of everything I've lost. But now, after writing this entry,  I have a smile on my face, because I realize that they are also joyful reminders of everything we shared. 

To listen to David Sedaris reading Jesus Shaves, click here

The Christmas Letter

I’m not sure exactly when the tradition started, but every year Peter would compose an annual Christmas letter to send out with our cards. Peter was keenly aware that Christmas letters could go horribly, horribly wrong. We’d gotten some doozies over the years, including one that devoted a whole paragraph to the new car a couple had added to their family. So Peter took a less standard approach to the Christmas letter. His letters were always self-deprecating and comic. He shared the comic gems that the girls had said throughout the year, as well as our grown-up foibles. He collected these stories and snapshots all year long. One of us would say something funny, and the next thing you knew, he’d be tapping away on his Palm, storing away this tidbit for when he began work on the annual letter in December.

When he first began writing these letters, the girls were not really conscious of them, or of the starring role they sometimes played. As they got older, though, they started tuning in, both to the collecting of stories that was going on during the year, and to the final product. One time, probably when Emma was finishing middle school, she said something funny or ironic that made us all laugh. I have absolutely no recollection of what she said that was so funny. What I do remember is her shooting a look at Peter the moment the words left her mouth and then saying, “Oh no! That’s going in the Christmas letter, isn’t it?!”

In truth, both Sarah and Emma liked the letters. Peter was a master and we couldn’t help but enjoy reading and laughing about our family’s funny life together. Somehow, by celebrating our quirks and foibles, the letters perfectly reflected our special bond and expressed our love of each other and our life together. In fact, Emma so admired Peter’s letters, she wrote one herself one year - an Emma’s-eye view of life with her funny family. I’ve got to track that down…

Riders in the Storm - Part Five

The moment we left the protection of the trees, I realized my mistake.  No protection. No shield. Nothing between us and the wind. We shifted to an easier gear and rounded another bend.  We were just about to the beach area, when the wind went turbo on us.  Ernesto had been waiting for us, just behind the jetty. He didn’t just push us or shove us, he rammed us.  He assaulted us. And he had a secret weapon. 
The road runs RIGHT next to the beach in Southport.  As we inched along at maybe a half a mile an hour, we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a sandstorm. The wind hurled huge handfuls of sand in our face.  It raked across my skin, flew into my eyes, my nose.  Like sandpaper it scraped across every exposed part of me.  Now, on top of wetness, fatigue, and chill, we added stinging pain to our list of troubles.  We turned our heads to the side, squinting, and breathing through our noses.  “This is crazy!” I screamed.
“I need a windshield wiper!” Emma yelled back, “or goggles!”
“Now I know what it feels like to be sandblasted,” I shouted back.
“What?”
“Never mind.”  Every time I opened my mouth to talk I got a mouthful of sand.
We pushed forward.  This was completely insane.  “We leave home in a drizzle, and an hour later we’re in a freakin’ hurricane!” I thought.  The sand tore at my legs.  I felt the grit in my gears. In my ears! “We are insane!” I said to myself.  The pedals ground with every pump of my legs. My legs burned.  I had sand in the back of my throat. I tried to breathe through my nose.  Still, we crept forward in slow motion.
But then the weirdest thing happened.  I saw a flash of myself, as though in a movie, a small heroic figure on a bicycle fighting his way along the shore into a storm. Then I saw the bicycling witch in the Wizard of Oz.  I stifled a laugh. I realized, that in all my misery,  I was actually… starting…to enjoy this.  I was tired.  I was in pain.  I felt like I was pedaling for my life, but it was exciting, and maybe a bit comical. I felt a giant yell swell inside me like a wave. 
At that same moment, we made it past the most open part of the beach.  Now a beach house blocked the sand.  Relief, at last.  In unison, Emma and I let out an enormous whoop of triumph.  We knew we had just made it through the worst that Ernesto could throw at us.  With less than a mile to go, we realized we were going to make it home.  We rolled down Pequot Avenue, crossed the Post Road, and dragged ourselves up Dave’s Lane.
I looked over at Emma as we rode side-by-side.  She was drenched.  Her sweatshirt looked like a soggy towel.  Her face, covered in sand, resembled a cinnamon sugar doughnut.  I knew I must look similarly whipped and tattered. I hoped I hadn’t ruined biking for Emma forever.  As we pulled up in front of the garage door, Emma turned to me.
“That…was…awesome!” she yelled.  I shouldn’t have worried so much.  Emma knew we had just done something amazing.  We just took everything Ernesto could throw at us.  And we made it.
Now all I had to do was survive the rage of the angry mother. Would Nancy ever forgive me for putting Emma in this kind of danger?
We hung up our bikes in the garage, shook off as much sand as we could, and tried to look as normal as possible as we entered the house.  Nancy was just coming up from the basement.  “We’re back.  Safe and sound,” I said.  “So, no need to worry,” I added quickly.
“Worry about what?” she asked. Then seeing our drenched clothes, she added, “Oh, did it start to rain already?”
“Uhh…you could say that,” Emma replied.  We looked at each other and winked.  Perhaps the story could wait.  In the meantime, we had sand to remove from our ears. 

Riders in the Storm - Part Four

We climbed the hill next to Green’s Farms Academy.  Usually I loved the top of that hill.  Two lone Adirondack chairs sit serenely atop the hill overlooking the beach and the sound.  The chairs call out to me, “Stop.  Sit down. Enjoy the view.”  Not today.  Today, you’d need a seatbelt to stay in one of those chairs.  The wind drove us into the center of the road, slamming us broadside again.  Spectacular waves bombarded the beach.  The wind and the surf roared in our ears.  “I just want to get past this spot,” I thought.  “It’s the most exposed spot on route.” 
Almost. Huge trees bent in the wind.  I was anxious about the next stretch, too.  We would ride in a more protected area, a tree-lined section of road, where a canopy actually makes the road feel like a tunnel.  As we entered, I was grateful for the relief from the wind, but the old trees worried me.  All around us leaves, twigs, and some pretty good-sized branches littered the road.  “Be careful up here.  Watch out for branches,” I shouted.
“What?”  It was too noisy for Emma to hear me. 
“I said watch out for branches falling.”
“Where?”
“Above you!”  Immediately I regretted saying that, as Emma looked up and nearly drove into a stone wall.  “Never mind.  Just be careful.” 
Around this time, the image of my wife suddenly leaped into my head. I saw her standing at the front doorway.  She glanced at her watch. She stared down the street.  She looked worried…or was she angry?  Of course she was angry.  If she had any idea what I’d gotten her daughter into, she was very angry.  I didn’t blame her. 
I pedaled harder.
Suddenly I heard a loud CRACK.  I flinched and looked up.  I didn’t see anything. Just then I heard a crash behind me.  I looked over my right shoulder.  A huge section of a stockade fence had collapsed and fallen into the road behind us.  If we had passed that spot two seconds later, we would have been under that fence.  “Did you see that?” I yelled to Emma.
“See what?” she shouted back.
“That fence.”
“I can’t hear you,” she shouted. 
“It’s probably just as well,” I thought.  “That would have freaked her out.”
Soon, we rounded the bend at the end of the tunnel of trees.  We were nearing Southport Beach, and I thought, “Great, we’re literally out of the woods.  The rest of the way is totally flat.  There’s no one on the road.” It turned out I was partly right. 

Riders in the Storm - Part Three

We continued around the circular drive, first toward the shore, then alongside it, and then away, retracing our path.  In that brief moment, when we paralleled the shore, I felt like I had turned straight into a giant’s fan.  I pedaled, but barely moved.  Fortunately we only had a moment traveling in that direction before we rounded the curve and headed back toward the park’s entrance.  Now the blasts struck us from our right side, shoving us toward the center of the road.  “I’m glad there’s nobody else out here,” I thought to myself.  “Then again, what the heck are we doing out here?” 
Around that time, another thought struck me, perhaps a bit more gently or slowly than the gale winds.  It dawned on me that after we re-crossed the highway overpass, treacherous as that might be, our next stretch would be even more challenging.  We would have to turn right.  For the remainder of our trip, we would pedal straight into the wind, straight into the storm.
“Hold on tight!” I shouted to Emma as we approached the overpass.  To our right we looked out over the huge alley-like opening.  Over the guard rail, I could see the cars on I-95, whizzing past in both directions.  I struggled to keep my bike on a straight course.  With no trees to form a windbreak, we took a huge blast on our right sides.
  Finally over the top, we headed down the hill toward the farm where we’d turn off.  I didn’t want to alarm Emma, but I felt a growing nervousness about what lay ahead.  I felt like I should at least prepare her for the rougher ride we were about to face.  “Find an easy gear, Em, we may be heading right into the wind.”
“I was already thinking of that,” she said. We turned right, and sure enough, my bike nearly came to a dead stop.  I hunched down, my chin nearly on my handlebars, so I didn’t block too much wind.  I switched to an easier gear.  I could pedal, but it felt like I was going nowhere.
As we plodded up the hill alongside the farm, the wind seemed determined to throw us back.  The rain pelted us.  As I watched Emma struggling to keep her legs pumping, I felt guilt slapping my face, too.  What had I been thinking?  You don’t try to squeeze a bike ride in when a huge storm is bearing down on you.  What kind of a father takes his daughter out for a ride in a hurricane? 
I thought about going in front.  Maybe I could shield Emma from some of the wind.  But what if she fell behind?  What if I didn’t hear her? Imagine showing up at home without Emma. “Uhh, she was behind me a second ago…”  I decided to stay in back.
Still plodding into the wind, we crossed over the highway again.  As we rolled down the steep incline toward Burying Hill, I didn’t have to worry about picking up too much speed.  The wind was like an extra set of brakes.  Now I could see why we got so much speed when we were going in the other direction.  We didn’t realize we had a giant fan pushing us along.  It was on our team then.  Now, it had become the enemy. I didn’t realize yet that the enemy had one mighty ambush still waiting for us up the road.

Riders in the Storm - Part Two

The light turned green, and we hustled across the Post Road.  I worried that some Hummer demon in a big rush wouldn’t see us as we cut across the busy intersection, but today, for some reason, there weren’t too many cars on the road. We cruised through.
We passed the Wakeman Club and then the old Pequot Library, pedaling through the fanciest neighborhood in Southport.  Wheeling along Southport beach, I glanced out over Long Island Sound, expecting the usual calm body of water with gentle waves lapping at the sand.  Instead, I saw whitecaps slashing across the water and giant rolling swells rumbling onto the beach like thunder. “Whoa, that looks different,” I shouted toward Emma.
“Yeah, it’s cool.  I’ve never seen waves like this, here.”
“It’s not raining too hard,” I yelled up to her, “I say we keep moving.”  We rode on, without talking for a while, past the mansion with the giant eraser sculpture, past the overlook and Green’s Farms Academy.  Heading down that long hill, we picked up some serious speed.  Normally I like zooming down a hill, but this was unnervingly fast.  Later, I realized we were getting a little push from behind.  I felt nervous for myself and for Emma as we rounded the big turn at the bottom of the hill.  It didn’t help that the beach down there is named Burying Hill. 
Up and down we rolled, climbing over the interstate highway and then gliding past the huge hayfields of old Nyala Farm.  We hung a left there and then pulled up at a stoplight by the Sherwood Island connector.  That’s a fairly busy road, with lots of traffic coming off the highway or heading onto it.  We stood, straddling our bikes, and waited.  I noticed the stoplight swaying in the breeze.  Actually, that breeze was more like gusts or even real wind.  We waited.  Still, the light stayed red.
“Is it ever going to change?” Emma asked.
“It has to change.  What if a car pulled up behind us?  Just be patient.”  But no cars pulled up behind us.
“My sweatshirt is soaked.  I just wanna get going.” 
Still, the light stayed red.
I wondered if we should turn back.  We were almost to Sherwood Island anyway.  Instead, I said to Emma, “EJ, when we get to the part that goes over the highway, hold on tight.  It’s liable to be pretty windy there.”
“If we ever get there,” she grumbled. 
Finally, the light changed.  We turned left.  Immediately the rain intensified.  Through a steady, soaking rain, we rode on.  As we climbed toward the peak of the overpass, a blast of wind slammed me from my left.  I swerved and wobbled on my bike, trying to keep from crashing into the guard rail.  I stole a look ahead toward Emma, saw her pitch slightly, then steady herself.  This was one time when her heavy old bike may have helped her.  As we crested the hill and headed toward the entrance to the park, I pulled alongside Emma.  “That was intense, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, I’ll say.  I don’t think we’re gonna be hanging out long at the park,” Emma said, pointing her finger toward the beach.  I followed her finger and got my first good look at the shore.  The trees along the paths looked different.   All of them bent toward the right, shivering in the wind.  It reminded me of those video clips on the Weather Channel during hurricanes.  Wait, during hurricanes?  That was not a good connection.
I looked out further.  The water on the sound swelled and crashed onto the shore.  “Good for surfing,” I thought to myself, “…if you’re crazy enough to go out there.” 
Emma and I eased to a stop and took a drink under a big oak tree near the side of the entranceway.  “This is getting pretty wild.”  I had to shout to be heard over the whipping wind.  The tree provided little shelter, as the rain pelted us from the side.   “How are you doing?” I asked, actually wondering how I was doing.  Could we really ride home in this?  I had my cell phone.  Should I call for a ride?  I pointed back toward where we’d been.  “I think we should head back.  It doesn’t look as bad over there.”
“Okay,” Emma sighed.  “I can’t get any wetter.”

Riders in the Storm - Part One

Since I've been writing about adventures in the rain and while our recent Nor' Easter is still fresh in your minds, I thought I would share a short story that Peter wrote about an adventure he had with Emma while the tropical storm, Ernesto, was kicking up. The story is quite a bit longer than my typical post, so I thought I'd break it up into bite size installments. I hope this builds suspense, rather than damage the flow of the story line. 


Here's installment 1:

“You’re going for a ride?  Right now?”
“Yeah, we’re going to Sherwood Island.  We’re hoping to get back before the rain starts.”
“Okaaaaay…”  Sally’s voice trailed off as she looked toward the sky.  Sally was a friend of our family who had just driven over to drop off a present.  As we stood in the driveway struggling to make conversation, I heard the doubt in her voice.  I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time.  She drove away, and I looked over at Emma, my 14-year-old daughter. .  “So, you all set?” I asked, trying to sound confident.
“IIIIII’m ready,” Emma responded, doing her best Spongebob impression.
It was a grey Saturday morning, and the weather forecast looked depressing.  I had gone to weather dot com and it said that the big rain would start around noon and might last the rest of the weekend. We were getting rain from the outer edge of a tropical storm, Ernesto. But it was only 10 a.m. right now. I figured we had some time.
“Let’s get going, then.   How ‘bout if you lead,” I suggested. We hopped on our bikes and coasted down Dave’s Lane.  From the dark sky, a light mist fell, as I wiggled my foot into the toe clips on my pedals.
We leaned left onto Mill Hill, and in a few moments, rolled up to a red light at the Post Road.  As we stopped to wait, Emma turned around and looked at me.  Her eyes seemed to say, “Well?”
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing…” she hesitated. “It’s just that, well, it’s starting to rain.”  It was true.  That light misting had become a drizzle.  We weren’t far from home.  We could easily turn back.
“It’s gonna rain all weekend,” I thought to myself.  “This is our one chance.”
“You can go back, if you want, Em, but I’m gonna go for it.  We’ll be sitting inside for the rest of the weekend.”
“I’m up for it,” Emma shot back.  She mumbled something else, but I didn’t hear her. I liked the new adventurous Emma.  A year ago, she probably would’ve turned back.  Emma and I had been on a biking kick since we’d gotten back from camp at the end of August.  At first we had ridden almost every day. Then the school year started.  Now it was tougher to find the time. 

Correction

Good thing I have Peter to keep me honest. When he saw yesterday's post, he pointed out that the picture (which i've posted again) was not from our "Singing in the Rain" adventure. When I looked at it again, I realized he was right. Emma is not nearly wet or dirty enough in the picture for it to be from that time. When we came in after stomping in the rain that day we were soaked right through. Even our underpants were soaked (too much information?).


This picture is from another time when Emma went to ride her bike on the street after a big rain storm. She had great fun riding through all the puddles and the picture shows the result: mud splashes all the way up her back and a great sense of fun and triumph.

Singing in the Rain

Maybe it was the rain today that made me think of a rainy day in elementary school when Emma had a friend over on a weekend day. It was a very rainy day outside so the two girls were playing inside. After a while, though, they felt like they had exhausted all our bags of tricks and wanted to go outside. To their surprise, I encouraged them to go. It was warm, no thunder or lightning, why not? I told them about a time in college when a friend and I had done the very same thing. It was a blast. “In fact,” I said “if you don’t mind, I’ll come with you.”

We gave Emma’s friend some clothes to change into so she wouldn’t ruin her own. We found our boots and an extra pair for Emma’s friend, grabbed some rain jackets and umbrellas and took off into the rain. We worked our way around the block, jumping in every puddle and seeing who could get the most mud on the other two. Now that I think of it, it was kind of funny that we were wearing rain jackets and carrying umbrellas, since the object quickly became getting as wet and muddy as possible. The umbrellas did add to the authenticity, though, when we sang the obligatory “Singing in the Rain”. “Singing in the Rain” was followed by a lot of other songs. It was an Emma adventure after all, and Emma adventures always involve singing.

When we got back to the house we were positively soaked and very muddy. The rain and mud had gotten up under our rain jackets and Emma had a huge splatter of mud that ran all the way up her back. She was quite pleased with herself and proudly showed off her muddy back for the camera, as shown in the photo above. We exchanged our wet clothes for nice, dry, clean clothes and had some hot chocolate while we told Peter and Sarah all about the trip around the block. It was every bit as fun as the time I did it with my friend in college and something I’ll never forget. I bet Emma remembers it fondly, too. I wonder if her friend still does.

From Aunt Joycie

I am sharing a reflection written by Emma's Aunt Joycie in anticipation of a small family gathering we had yesterday:


As we gather today at Gram's to welcome Emma’s cousin, Greg, back to civilian life, I am reminded of her joy in being part of this large, warm family.  As much as Emma was her own beautifully unique person, she loved belonging to this loving and fun-loving family.  A typical gathering would include very loud conversation at the dining room table, great food (usually traditional in some way), and the inevitable game of wiffle ball.  This game might include as many as 10 or as few as 2 people, but Emma was often one of them.  Another common factor for each of these gatherings was dishes of candy on the side board in the dining room.  Emma shared with her Aunt Joycie a love of the sweet stuff, so we would often meet at those candy dishes, both feeling slightly guilty for being there.  We both had ways to camouflage our candy obsession.  It was easy for me.  I could make a trip to the dining room to “check on the silverware” or to “get more napkins” and pop some candy in my mouth on the way.  Emma’s trips to the candy dish often turned into a stroll through the house, where she sometimes slipped a candy wrapper into some obscure corner.  It was not easy coming across some of those “pieces of Emma” while cleaning up last summer. 

Emma, today at Gram’s house, I know you’ll be with us laughing at the dining room table and enjoying that Mack competitiveness in the games we’ll play.  And I know you’ll be with me every time I take a trip to the candy dish. 

A Voice in the Crowd

Last Tuesday, March 16th, was the Town-wide Choral Festival and we were in attendance because Sarah was singing with the middle school group. They do these choral festivals every three years and we’d been to two before when Emma had sung with the middle school and then high school groups.

The concert was held in the gym of Emma’s high school. We had not been back there since she died. It was the day before the 9-month anniversary of her death. We knew this would be a tough concert for us to get through.

The middle school choir sang Danny Boy (again!) and the high school group performed two movements of Mozart’s Requiem. Whoever put together the evening’s repertoire clearly does not read my blog. They clearly weren’t thinking about the two grieving parents in the audience or the grieving sister who needed to perform. But I guess it would be unreasonable to expect that of them. So there we were sitting in a gym, surrounded by 1,500 people, with the gym lights blaring, and the tears streaming down my face. How Sarah found the strength and composure to sing, I’ll never know. She’s amazing.

The concert did bring back some fond memories of Emma singing in her school concerts. Even in elementary school, Emma had a big booming voice and sang with gusto. When she sang with her grade in elementary school, we could always pick out her voice, even though she was singing in a group of 60 or more students. We thought it was just because we had a parent’s ear for her voice, but one time after a concert another parent walked up to me and said, “Emma sounded great!” Apparently everyone was able to pick out that strong voice in the crowd.

The choral festival reminded me of that. Despite the fact that they were more than 100 strong, the middle school chorus sang softly, wearing their adolescent inhibition on their sleeves. It’s kind of a funny phenomenon, actually. A couple of middle school choristers sing softly because they are intimidated by the audience, and the rest of the group follows suit. Each one wants to be sure that his or her voice can’t be heard above the others.

Emma never got that memo. When she sang with her middle school group 6 years ago, we could hear her loud and clear. And we could easily pick her out amongst the rows and rows of singers. She was the one who was moving to the music, clearly in a zone. Audiences, even audiences of 1,500 or more, didn’t intimidate Emma. I think that’s because Emma sang for herself. Singing brought her joy and she wanted everyone to know it.

Another St. Pat's Day Story

From my Mother’s Journal, March 17, 1995:


Emma, Eric and Katie did a St. Patrick’s Day show for us. Emma kept popping out and saying, “Presenting Emma!” She was doing re-enactments of her Winnie-the-Pooh videos. She also sang the “Hey Emma – someone’s calling my name” call and response song. The grown-ups had a hard time figuring out their part, but Emma did it perfectly.

My St. Paddy's Girls

St. Paddy's Day

Right about now, Emma would be reminding me that tomorrow was St. Patrick’s Day and wondering out loud whether the leprechaun would visit us again year. You see every year a leprechaun visits our house on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day while we are all sleeping and leaves candy and small gifts. Even when she was 16, Emma looked forward to his visit.  It would bring a smile to my face when each year, like clockwork, she would say the same thing on the day before St. Patrick’s Day. “Hey, Mom, you know tomorrow’s St. Patrick’s Day. Do you think the leprechaun will be back?” The leprechaun and I got the message loud and clear - one was never too old for a visit from a sprite bearing candy.

The leprechaun first visited our house the year Emma was in Kindergarten. In the couple of days leading up to St. Patrick’s Day that year, Emma’s Kindergarten teacher had told the class that a mischievous leprechaun often visited her classroom on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day. The leprechaun would over-turn desks, take books off the shelves, and scatter papers. It was harmless fun, the teacher told them, and she wondered out loud whether he would come again this year.

Emma wasn’t so sure what she thought about this naughty leprechaun visiting her classroom. The other kids seemed to think it was funny and exciting and couldn’t wait to find out if the leprechaun would be back this year. But Emma didn’t really see anything funny about it, and she began to worry that if a leprechaun could come make mischief in her classroom, maybe one would come make mischief in her house!

We tried to reassure her. We had a great St. Patrick’s Day book that we read every night that cast a different light on the holiday. And, we were looking forward to joining Gram, Gramps and her aunt and uncle and cousins for St. Patrick’s Day dinner. There was a lot to look forward to, we reasoned, and she should try not to worry about that pesky leprechaun. On the eve of St. Patrick’s Day that year, we managed to get her settled down for bed, but she was still worried about what she would find at school in the morning and wasn’t sure she even wanted to go.

When she woke up on St. Patrick’s Day morning she discovered a giant shamrock on the floor just outside her bedroom door. On top of it were scattered several gold foil covered chocolates. Sarah also had a shamrock outside of her bedroom door. From those two giant shamrocks, there seemed to be a trail of smaller shamrocks and a sprinkling of the gold-covered chocolates, like breadcrumbs, leading towards the kitchen. Emma squealed with joy and followed the trail, which ended at the kitchen table. On top of the table at Sarah and Emma’s places were two more large shamrocks covered with the gold chocolates and two shamrock pins, one for each of them.

Emma immediately guessed that this must be the work of a leprechaun. Now she couldn’t wait to go to school. She was going to tell Mrs. M. that she had a leprechaun, too, but that her leprechaun brought shamrocks and candy and even a pin to wear. It was really very lucky to have a leprechaun she decided.

I really didn’t know whether the leprechaun would come back year after year, but he did. I guess since Emma took the time each year to stop and think about him, he felt the least he could do was stop by, leave some shamrocks and chocolates, and let her know he was thinking of her. I suspect he’ll be back this year for that very same reason.

ZOOM!

I think Emma was in 4th grade when she auditioned for ZOOM! She had been an avid ZOOM! viewer for several years when they broadcast an announcement of an open casting call in Boston. Emma immediately wanted to try for spot in the cast. We researched the obligation and thought about it carefully before agreeing to let her audition. Emma seemed a natural for the show – down-to-earth, a little quirky, and she already spoke the ZOOM! secret language, Ubbi Dubbi, fluently. We thought we’d better know what we were getting into because she just might get chosen.

It turns out that the full year of episodes would be taped in Boston over the summer. Since Peter would be off from school, it was actually possible to let Emma do it. We talked to her about it a lot to see if she really wanted to spend her summer taping in a studio all day and she was very enthusiastic. She insisted she wanted to go for it. We scheduled an audition time and planned a weekend trip to Boston. If nothing else, it would be an adventure. 

In preparation for her audition, Emma practiced reciting the poem Bubblegum, by Douglas Florian, in Ubbi Dubbi. If you haven't heard someone speak this secret language, it's hard to appreciate how difficult this feat was. Actually, Emma did it very easily, something the rest of us both admired and envied. We loved her little act and we were pretty sure the ZOOM audition team would, too.




There were a TON of kids at the ZOOM! audition and Emma was uncharacteristically intimidated and subdued. The audition panel wisely interviewed kids without their parents present. When Emma came out she was smiley and happy. “They were really nice,” she reported.

We were very curious to know what had gone on in her very brief interview. "Did you do your poem in Ubbi Dubbi?" we asked. "Nope," she responded. "They just asked me some questions and I answered them." “What did they ask you?” we inquired. “Oh, I don’t know, just stuff.” “Like what?” we asked. “Well, they asked me how I liked to spend a summer day, for one thing.” “What did you say?” We knew that this was an important and, I might add, responsible question. They were trying to gauge whether these kids were really going to enjoy spending a whole summer inside a studio. “Well,” she said,  “I told them I liked to just float around all day in my Grandma’s pool and play with my cousins.” Peter and I gave each other knowing looks. We both knew that answer ended the ZOOM! dream for her. But we also thought, based on her honest, guileless, answer, that it had turned out for the best.

“Good answer, Emma,” Peter said.

To get a taste of ZOOM! click here

For a taste of the Ubbi Dubbi secret language featuring Emma's favorite ZOOM cast member, Jared, click here

Doing Nothing

Here’s an excerpt from House at Pooh Corner that was featured in the 1994 Winnie-the-Pooh calendar:

Doing Nothing

    “What do you like doing best in the world, Pooh?” asked Christopher Robin.
    “Well,” said Pooh, “what I like best…” and then he had to stop and think. “What I like best in the whole world is Me and Piglet going to see You, and You saying ‘What about a little something?’ and Me saying, ‘Well, I shouldn’t mind a little something, should you, Piglet,’ and it being a hummy sort of day outside and the birds singing.”
    “I like that too,” said Christopher Robin, “but what I like doing best is Nothing.”

That excerpt reminds me of little Emma, who always appreciated “a little something,” especially when she was feeling “a little eleven o’clockish,” as her friend Pooh often did. She was also one who regularly experienced “hummy” sorts of days. She was a fan of the skippy sort of day, too, and later became a fan of the dancing and belting out show tunes sorts of days.
But the excerpt also reminds me of the time we took Emma to audition for the PBS children’s show ZOOM!. But perhaps that’s a post all by itself.

Marking Time with Rhymes

For about ten years, our family had a Winnie-the-Pooh calendar every year – not a Disney Winnie-the-Pooh calendar, mind you, but a Winnie-the-Pooh calendar featuring Pooh and friends the way Shepard drew them for the original Milne volumes. We are traditionalists when it comes to Pooh Bear. When Disney started producing the Winnie-the-Pooh calendar with the new, more cartoon-like representations of the Pooh cast, we stopped buying the calendars. It just wasn’t the same.

The calendar was a family favorite. Each month featured an excerpt from The House at Pooh Corner or a poem from one of A.A. Milne’s children’s poetry collections and we would read them over and over, trying to commit them to memory before the month ended. Even at an early age Emma proved herself a master at memorizing these verses and they became one of her collections – a collection of Winnie-the-Pooh poems and stories that she could recite by heart. The Pooh characters became like treasured friends and she talked about them constantly.

There was something about the life and times of the Winnie-the-Pooh characters that just seemed to fit Emma’s temperament and personality. Emma always had a way of talking that was not only mature for her age, but also seemed to be of another era and place. Even as a toddler, she took in and commented on the world around her in a rhythmic, poetic way that would have fit right in if she were spending her days in the Hundred Acre Woods. I can easily imagine A.A. Milne writing little Emma into his stories and poems, a precocious and articulate new sidekick for Christopher Robin and his silly old bear.

I was flipping through our old calendars (I had saved them all) and saw some verses that remind me of Emma and some Emma stories. For my next post, that’s where I’m headed.

March 5th, 1995

Here's another entry from my Mother's Journal dated March 5th, 1995:


Emma got up (out her new "big girl" bed) to show me some sign language she had learned from Sesame Street. I didn't really want her to be getting out of her bed, but the sign language was irresistible. Oh well!

From a Friend

A friend shared this story of Emma with me and gave me permission to share it with you:


Tonight was Open House at the high school. Last year with a new freshman I was petrified! I didn't know where anything was, it was so hot in there and I had worn the wrong shoes. Then this happy voice greeted me, "Hi!!" I turned and saw this great warm smile in a blue Ludlowe Leaders t-shirt and I got a big hug. I exclaimed "Emma!" I was so happy to see her welcoming face. "Em, I am so lost. I have no idea where I am and this map makes crazy." "Oh no worries," she assured me. "How about I be your guide for the night and take you everywhere you need to go?" All the other parents were so jealous that we devised this brilliant strategy! We struck a deal that I would buy her a coffee at Starbucks in return for her tour services and true to her word, she waited for me outside the classrooms to guide me through those jammed hallways. We happily chatted between classes, she greeted so many kids. Once when I said I was so thirsty, she appeared at the next class with a glass of cider and a cookie! "What else do you need ?" " Well,"  I said,  "I would love one of those Ludlowe decals but I don't know where to get one." " Give me $2 and I will find you one." Voila! After that class, she appeared with the decal for my car. We parted. I thanked her and talked about our coffee date. We would do it soon. Emma made what could have been a very stressful night so delightful for me.

I was there tonight without Emma. I was lost, hot, but did wear better shoes. The Ludlowe Leaders were there in their blue t-shirts, but none with that smile and spark. No one offered to be my guide.
I just missed her extra tonight. We never had our coffee. What I wouldn't give to buy her the most delicious largest coffee the world has ever seen. One day I will.
 

Dance, Love, Sing, Live

This weekend Peter and I went to see a performance by the Ailey II Company. It was absolutely amazing and, especially when they performed their last piece, entitled Revelations, all I could think about was how much Emma would have loved it.

Revelations was performed to spirituals that were very familiar to us. Emma and Sarah had sung many of them with the children’s choir. A couple were songs they had been introduced to as toddlers in their Music for Children classes. And one of the spirituals was a song they sang every summer at camp. The last movement of Revelations is danced to Rock-a My Soul. It was a stunning combination of masterful technical dancing and joyful abandon. Had Emma been there, she would not have been able to contain herself. She would have been dancing in the aisles. And chances are, people would have joined her. Her enthusiasm was magnetic.

It reminded me of a concert we took her to in December 2008, just a few days before the last Christmas we would spend together. The Tom Tom Club was playing at a small venue nearby. Peter and I were big fans from our college days and we thought the girls might like them, too. The opening act was a local band called Caravan of Thieves. Their music was fun and interesting: rock with a sort of ethnic, gypsy flair. The lead guitarist was a really talented guy who went by the name of The Buzz or The Fuzz or Cuz, or some other made-up moniker his mother didn’t give him. There was an intermission after Caravan played and he came out to the lobby. Emma didn’t miss the opportunity to introduce herself and talk to him about her musical interests and goals.

The real fun began when the Tom Tom Club played. The Buzz/Fuzz/Cuz was sitting in with them as their lead guitarist and really got to show off his stuff. Halfway into the first song, a group of friends were already up out of their seats and were starting to dance in the aisles. Emma knew no one else there, but she popped out of her seat and joined right in the dancing. When the song ended she was smiling and chatting with the other dancers and when the next song began she was dancing along with that crowd of friends like she had known them her whole life. The concert ended and we had a hard time pulling her away from her new found friends. And, of course, before we left she had to track down the guitarist so she could tell him how much she had enjoyed the concert. I’m pretty sure she didn’t need to tell him. Even in the group of enthusiastic dancers, she was a standout. I don’t think he could have missed the fact that she was really enjoying herself. That guitarist and those friends are people with whom Emma had just a fleeting connection, but on whom, I have no doubt, she left a lasting impression. 

Since Emma died I've come to understand that this is what is meant by the expression "larger than life." People who are larger than life are transcendent. The impressions and memories they leave last long beyond their physical presence. Emma is definitely larger than life.

There’s a greeting card poem attributed to someone named Souza. It goes, “Dance as though no one is watching you, love as though you have never been hurt before, sing as though no one can hear you, live as though heaven is on earth.”

That’s my Emma Jane.

Hurt and Angry

Reader beware. This is going to be a different kind of post.


The problem with the internet is that it can put you face to face with the worst kind of ignorance. And the scary part is that it is being blasted all over cyberspace, reproducing ignorance everywhere it goes.


This morning I was assaulted by a rant on FaceBook (posted anonymously) encouraging Emma's friends to "just get over her" and objecting to any effort to memorialize her at her high school. The writer's logic was that Emma had made a choice, a bad choice, and she didn't deserve to be honored.


I've chosen not to write about Emma's death for two reasons. First, and most importantly, I believe that the way that Emma lived is what is important, not the way that she died. The memories of the times we shared together is what anchors Emma in our hearts. I think the FaceBook ranter missed the point. Emma isn't being remembered and honored because of how she died; she's being remembered and honored for how she lived.


The second reason I've chosen not to write about her death is that I don't understand it. I can't shed any real light on it. I'm not sure there is anyone who can - no scientists, no theologians. We have puzzle pieces here and there, but the picture is far from complete.


But I will make this one assertion; Emma's death was not a choice, at least not a rational choice. This was a child who would lose sleep for an entire week because she was worried about getting a shot at an upcoming doctor visit. Even when she was 16, I held her hands when she had to get a shot. Knowing how hard it was for her to endure even that minor physical pain, I cannot even imagine the intensity of emotional pain she must have experienced to have been driven to end her physical life. In her right mind that idea would have terrified her. She was not in her right mind.


I don't know what it is about suicide that makes people need to condemn, blame and stigmatize those affected. It's discouraging. I'll admit that one of my motivations for sharing my memories of Emma in this blog was that I wanted to humanize suicide. It was my hope, and still is, that people would read about the beautiful spirit we lost to this scourge and would want to do something about it.  That we wouldn't get over it, we would get on with it - on with the difficult, but very important task of building awareness, researching the causes, and developing new treatments for mental illness and effective interventions for suicide.


And there's one last thought I'd like to share. In a paradoxical way, I think Emma's premature death has taught all of us who are moved by her about the sanctity of life. We realize, in our moments of clarity, that we can't take life for granted, not our own, not others; and we appreciate our lives and the lives of those we love as gifts to be treasured and shared.


And that, my anonymous FaceBook friend, is why Emma's memory should be honored - because every life: yours, mine, Emma's, is precious and should be celebrated.

March 2nd, 1994

Here’s an entry from my Mother’s Journal dated March 2nd, 1994. Emma was 1 ½ yrs old:

Emma was a riot at Playtime Pals today. She was gabbing away and literally running from one activity to the next. She wanted me to participate in everything with her. “Mommy have sticks, too,” she would say. At one point she wanted to walk in between two mothers to get a ball that had caught her eye. To their great surprise she said “excuse me,” before squeezing by. No wonder all the moms at Playtime Pals refer to her as “Miss Emma.”

Later in the evening she proved herself a master manipulator. It was getting close to bedtime and she wanted to go use the computer. Mommy flatly said no, but daddy was waffling. “Love you, Dad,” she said. It worked!

Coming Home

After Emma died, Sarah got a lovely note from her science teacher, a teacher who had also had Emma. In it she enclosed a gold and silver butterfly brooch. She explained that Emma had bought that pin for her as a gift during a seventh grade trip to Boston. Emma had presented her with the pin at the end of the trip and thanked her for being such a great chaperone and teacher. She said that she had been so touched by this gesture. In all her years of teaching, she never had a student do that before. She said that as much as she treasured that butterfly, she thought it was time for the butterfly to fly home to us.

Several weeks later, one of Emma’s high school French teachers asked if he could stop by the house because he had something he wanted to give us. When he arrived he seemed to be empty-handed, but then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a smooth, black polished stone with the word pouvoir, French for power, on it. He explained that Emma had bought it for him as a gift during their tenth grade trip to Quebec. Emma had presented the stone to him at the end of the trip and thanked him for being such a great chaperone and teacher. He said that he had been so touched by this gesture. In all his years of teaching, he had never had a student do that before. He said that as much as he treasured that stone, he felt that it should come home to us. He hoped it would give us the power, the strength, to face our loss.

There is something spiritual about this story that I can’t completely put my finger on. Maybe it’s the parallel experiences these teachers had with Emma and the fact that they made the exact same choice in the wake of her loss. Maybe it is the sense of connection these tokens had offered to their recipients, a sense of connection and appreciation so memorable, they would never forget it. Or, maybe it’s the sense we got when those gifts came back to us that Emma’s generous spirit was still at work.

Underneath the Fedora

I read an NPR editorial recently that made me think of Emma during her teen years. It was about Johnny Weir’s desire to have people talk about more than his flamboyant costumes. It was about his struggle to be respected as an artist, a skater, but most of all as a man, a human being. I think any person in our society who colors outside the lines can relate to that struggle. I know Emma could. So today I’m sharing an excerpt from that editorial.

From: Behind The Spangles, Weir Is A Man In Full
by Trey Graham
NPR Editorial 2/26/10

“There's a reason this guy idolizes Lady Gaga, and it's to do, I think, with the transgressive ambition of his aesthetic impulse. Weir wants to express himself, sure, but he also wants to be noticed — to be singular, to thrill, to provoke. He talks about just wanting to be himself, but I wonder if he really understands that what makes him so special is how very startling that self is.

There may never be a time when people whose aesthetics are so far outside the mainstream — whose notions of beauty are so idiosyncratic, whose expressive instincts are so innately challenging to those content to go through life in jeans and a fleece — won't be the target of cheap jokes.

But as Sting put it, writing about Quentin Crisp in the song "Englishman in New York,"

    ‘It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile,
    Be yourself no matter what they say.’”