Emma plays Telemann and Muczynski

We've just finished the concert season and Sarah had a schedule of performances that was reminiscent of Emma's - 4 concerts in 2 weeks. One of the concerts we went to was a Fairfield County Children's Choir performance with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. We were excited because it was the first time we were going to see Sarah perform with the choir's chamber singers. We were also excited to see and hear Emma's flute teacher, who is the principal flute in the orchestra. 

I wasn't sure how it was going to be to hear Adrianne play flute. I've avoided classical music altogether since Emma died and have also avoided any other music featuring flute. Actually, the truth is, I've really just avoided music. Emma embodied music for me and I guess it's been hard for me to accept that there can be music without Emma.
 
But listening to Adrianne play the flute and the choir sing was a transcendent experience. At least for a little while, it made me believe in the magic and power of music again; the ability music has to uplift, move, and connect us.  I don't think there could be a concert at which Emma's spirit would be more present: the beautiful voices of the choir that she sang with for so many years, complemented by the beautiful strains of the flute. I heard Emma in every note.


After the concert, Adrianne sent us an mp3 of the recording Emma made about 2 years ago for the Youth competition of the National Flute Association. What a gift it is to have this recording.


If you would like to listen for yourself,  click here.

Worcester Out of the Darkness Walk

I've already shared the remarks Peter made at the October 23rd Out of the Darkness Walk. Here's what I said at that event:

I want to tell you a story about something that happened to me just last week. I was attending my second meeting of a new American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP)-sponsored support group. I arrived very early for the meeting, so I decided to sit in my car and catch up on email until some others arrived. I could see a gentleman milling about near the house where the meeting was held – another early arrival, I presumed. After a couple of minutes, he headed down the hill towards the parking lot. As he approached my car I thought quickly about whether I should open my window and talk to this stranger. But since I felt certain that he was there for the support group, maybe for the first and most difficult time, I put my window down to speak to him.

“You here for the meeting, too?’ he asked. “Yes,” I replied. “Well all those houses up there are dark, so I couldn’t really tell where I should be going,” he said. “I think we’re still early, but I’ve been here before, so I can show you where to go,” I reassured him. I hopped out of my car and we walked up the hill towards the house together.

“So, are you on the board?” he asked. “The board?” Now I was the one who was confused. “Yeah, you’re here for the board meeting, right?”  “Oh, no,” I said. “I guess we’re here for different meetings after all.” 

I was hoping he’d let it go at that, but he didn’t.  “What meeting are you here for?” he asked. “I’m here for a support group,” I answered, once again hoping he’d drop the subject. “What kind of support group?” he persisted. “Oh..it’s a – a church-sponsored support group.” Not exactly an accurate response, but I hoped it would be enough information for us to leave this uncomfortable topic. “What’s it a support group for?” he pressed on.

Clearly, he wasn’t going to drop the subject, so I felt I had no choice – “It’s a survivors of suicide group.” I expected the usual stunned expression followed by the awkward silence. “Did you lose someone to suicide?” he asked without missing a beat. He went on to extract details about my loss: who it was, how old she was at the time, and how long ago it had happened.

When he was done quizzing me, he paused briefly and then said, “I lost my 20 year-old son to suicide. It’s been almost 20 years now. I can tell you the pain never goes away, but it does get better. You’ll find a way to be happy again.”

I don’t know about you, but I was amazed by this encounter – that a random stranger, approaching me in a parking lot, looking for a different meeting than I was attending, ended up having experienced the same horrific loss of a loved one to suicide.

But when you consider the statistics, I really shouldn’t have been so amazed. After all, suicide claims 33,000 lives each year in the US; that’s nearly as many lives as breast cancer and more than twice as many as HIV/AIDS. Suicide is the third leading cause of death for people ages 15-24, the second leading cause of death for college students, and claims the lives of high school students at an alarming rate of more than ten per day.

As powerful as those numbers are, however, losing someone you know to suicide makes you understand the devastation of suicide in a way that numbers just don’t. For us, that was amplified by the stream of people, some of whom we had known for many years, who came forward after Emma’s death to tell us that they, too, had lost a loved one this way. There were so many that I devoted a page in my journal to recording them, and the list grew quite long: 4 different neighbors who lost brothers to suicide; a friend of Emma’s who lost a sister to suicide and another who lost two aunts; a community member who lost his father to suicide, another who lost her mother, another who lost his daughter, two who lost brothers, and yet another whose sister attempted suicide, but survived; two work associates who lost their fathers, another who lost her nephew, another an aunt, and a another who lost her sister; and a family at our church that lost a husband and father just a year before Emma died. This was added to the list of people we had already lost to this scourge – for me, 2 friends from elementary school and a college classmate; and for Peter, an aunt he never got the chance to know.

I share this list and my opening story for two reasons: first, to let you know that you are not alone. As isolated as you may feel at times, there are people all around you who have shared this experience and know what you are going through. And if you have the courage to share your story, they will share theirs.

And second, to thank you and congratulate you for being here today to take suicide out of the darkness. I believe that it’s time to take a sledgehammer to the wall of silence that surrounds suicide and mental illness. Dialog will promote action, and action, in the form of education, awareness, treatment and research, will save lives. By being here today and raising vital funds to support AFSP you are doing just that.

I just want to end by thanking some incredible people. First, I want to thank the team of Clark University students who organized this first ever Out of the Darkness walk in Worcester: Maya Allen, Heather Choronzy, Tom Lynch, Chelsea Kryspin and Nick Flemister. You’ve done an amazing job and I know everyone here joins me in thanking you for your hard work and dedication. I want to especially thank Chelsea Kryspin, who is a very good friend of Emma’s. Since Emma’s death Chelsea has been tirelessly working to educate people, raise awareness, and raise funds for AFSP. Chelsea you have been an incredible source of inspiration and support and we love and admire you.

I also want to thank Lainie Oshlag, another very dear friend of Emma’s who organized a team for today’s walk and, just like Chelsea, has been the best friend anyone could hope for.   We’re so proud of you and so grateful for what you’ve done for Emma and for us.

For my Mom

This post is dedicated to my mom who passed away on November 17, 2010. She will be sorely missed by many, many people who loved and admired her. It's hard to imagine life without her, but I know my life is much, much better because of her. Here's what I said at her memorial service yesterday:

Anyone who spent anytime at all with my mom knows that she was an avid storyteller. She loved to tell stories about her childhood, about her children and about her grandchildren. And she loved to tell those stories over and over and over again. A classic Jane Mack story always began with a healthy dose of hyperbole and grew more and more fantastic with every telling. This was especially true when she told stories about her family. She found it impossible to harness the pride she felt in her seven children, 14 grandchildren and two great grandchildren, so if she exaggerated details of their accomplishments a tiny bit, that was just a reflection of her love – who could fault a loving mom and grandma. It could be a little embarrassing, though. I remember my sister-in-law congratulating me on being elected student body president of my high school. “Thanks,” I said, “only, I wasn’t elected student body president, I was elected drama club president.”  Mom was close, I guess. In drama club we liked to act like we were in charge of the school.

Anyway, the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree, and it seems that all of us have inherited our mom’s love of the tale. I’ll apologize now if you’ve had to politely listen as one of us told a favorite story for the hundredth time. We can’t help it. It’s genetic. This past week, especially, we have been mentally sorting through our stories, each of us searching for the one or two that might capture the amazing mother, grandmother, sister, friend, neighbor and doctor that we all knew and loved. But there are so many. How can you possibly choose?

My brother Peter’s favorite story illustrates that classic Jane MD energy, drive and determination, especially when it came to the holidays. No one got more wrapped up in holiday celebrations than my mom. She made Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny look like slackers. On this particular occasion, a big group of us, grown children, small grandchildren and my mom and dad, went to pick out the family Xmas tree at a cut-your-own farm. There was a man greeting guests, giving them instructions and a saw before they proceeded with their hunt for the perfect tree. When we arrived at the farm, my mom was the first out of the car. She made a beeline up the hill towards the trees and streaked past the poor greeter before he could even part his lips to say hello. When we got to him he was still stunned by the little tornado that had just blown past him.  He looked at us and said, “Now that lady is going to find herself a tree!”

I think my mom’s favorite story about herself was the time she went through a drive-thru car wash with her window open. By the time she realized that the window was open she had already been sprayed by the soap foam. She didn’t immediately share this story with anyone. The next day she was at the hairdresser, though, and the stylist washing her hair was having an unusually hard time washing the shampoo out of mom’s hair. “Wow, I just can’t seem to get these suds to rinse out.” She rinsed again, and again, still , “I just don’t get it, where are all these suds coming from?.” That’s when my mom broke down in laughter and told her the story. My favorite part of this story was the fact that my mom could not get through it without dissolving into laughter. Her eyes would water, her shoulders would shake, and everyone around her would be convulsed with laughter by the end.

I think every one of her children has a story about my mom helping with our newborn babies. One of our baby stories ends with a burned up pot of baby bottle nipples and a visit by the fire department. But while she didn’t always know how to handle our kitchen equipment, she did always know how to handle the babies. She had “the touch”. These days we’d refer to her as a baby whisperer. It was really something to see how quickly our babies would quiet and relax when she held them. She dropped everything else in her life to help us all with our babies when they were born. And her immediate devotion to them was returned in the devotion they have always felt for her, as you have just heard.

Woven into all of our stories are those indelible images that bring the stories to life for us: rolling out cookies at her kitchen table, wearing her favorite navy blue cardigan that was perpetually dusted in flour; or hanging out her curtains with a plastic bag on her head to protect her hair from the liquid starch; or dancing the jig in John and Joyce’s living room on St. Patrick’s Day; or drilling us for every detail about what we ate on a night out and then memorizing it so she could repeat it back to you later; or jumping up and down in front of the chimp cage imitating the chimps when she took her grandchildren to the zoo; or what she looked like from the back as she raced a cart through the grocery store while we struggled to keep up.

And then there are the stories being held by others, like the story one of my mom’s caretakers at Carolton recently told us. She said that she had first started going to my mom’s clinic when her family fell on hard times and she found herself alone trying to raise several small children and a new baby.  She said for the next 15 years, my mom made sure that nothing stood in the way of her being able to get the medicines and medical care that her children needed. She told us my mom didn’t just take care of the kids; she took care of the mothers, too. Another caretaker told a similar story of her daughter making an emergency visit to the clinic with her baby, a second-generation Dr. Mack patient. My mom knew she was really worried, so she took her into her examining room right away, despite glares from the others who were waiting. As she headed into the room, the young mother turned to everybody and said, “It’s okay. We’re family.”

I think that’s a big part of what made my mom so special. She had a way of connecting with people on a deeply personal level. She welcomed you into her life. To know her was to feel cared for and appreciated, like part of her family.

And I realize that one of the ways she did that was through her stories. The stories she shared about herself, about the people and places she loved, illuminated who she was. They helped you know the person and the spirit.

I think that’s our job now. We need to keep telling the stories, using those stories to connect with each other and to new people and to inspire us to live a life as full and as rich and as meaningful as Jane’s.  I would venture to guess that each of us here holds one or two, perhaps even a hundred, stories of Jane in our hearts. Each of those stories is a beautiful little strand of remembrance, but it’s not until we weave all those stories together that we begin to reflect the vibrant spirit that God created in Jane.

So that’s what we hope you will do: spin your tales, weave your stories with the stories of others, find comfort and give comfort with the rich fabric of memories that will never fade if we continue to care for it.

I do have one last story for you. My mother loved planning family gatherings, so it is not surprising that she would have wanted to have a hand in planning this gathering. She picked the venue, the celebrant, the music, and the people who would perform the music. She also specifically requested that someone who spoke say that whatever good she did while she was here was a divine gift. That is certainly true, because you, mom, were a divine gift – a gift for which we are eternally grateful.

 

Click here to read her obituary from the CT Post.

Halloween 1998

Last might, when our neighbors' daughters turned up at our door dressed as Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion, I was reminded of a Halloween long ago. In 1998, when Emma was six and Sarah was two, Emma dressed up as Dorothy and Sarah dressed up as the Cowardly Lion, or as she said at the time, the Curious Lion.


As we did every year when they were younger, we took the girls up to my parents to participate in the Halloween parade and costume contest that the my parents' neighborhood association held each year. My brothers and sister and I had participated in these parades back when we were kids and my mother and father got a huge kick out of watching their grandchildren participate. Emma liked the parade for lots of reasons; it was another excuse to dress up, for one thing, and they always had great treats on hand for another. But it didn't hurt that she almost always won a prize for her costumes. Most of the time she was dressed as a fairy, or a butterfly, or a princess. Her costumes were glitzy and the personality she showed when the judges spoke to her was equally sparkly, so it wasn't surprising that she frequently walked off with the prize for the prettiest costume.

Emma is pretty tickled to be standing next to Glinda the Good Witch!

I was a little worried that her winning streak was going to end with the Dorothy costume and that she would be very disappointed. She had kind of come to expect that she would win. I could imagine what she told her friends about the event, "We march in a parade behind a firetruck, we show off our costumes one by one, we get some treats, and then they give me my prize." After all, that's what seemed to happen every year. But this year she was dressed in a simple gingham pinafore with pigtails. Except for the shoes and her personality, there was no sparkle. And I don't know what Disney movie or book was the inspiration, but there was a bumper crop of princesses at the parade that year.

Emma was thrilled with herself as Dorothy, though. She was beaming and skipping along during the parade, swinging her basket carrying her stuffed Toto along beside her. She chatted up the judges and the princesses and steered clear of anyone wearing a scary or gory costume. Her faithful sidekick, the Curious Lion, was not so enthusiastic. She insisted on being carried for most of the parade and wore the biggest (and cutest) pout on her face the whole time. When the judges asked her what she was, she refused to speak to them. Peter, who was holding her,  answered for her. "She's the Grumpy Lion," he said. The judges should have been impressed by how well she was playing the part.

"On my way home. Now I'm happy!"

When the time came for the costume contest winners to be announced, Emma was excited and confident. I braced myself for the flood of disappointment I expected to face if she didn't win something. And then...they announced her number! Once again, she had taken the prettiest category. For my mother, this cemented her theory. "It's not the costume," she said' "It's the girl. She could wear a paper bag and she'd still be the prettiest."


That year turned out to be the year of Dorothy for Emma. By the end of the school year we owned three Dorothy dresses and three pairs of ruby slippers. In the spring, Emma played Dorothy in her Music for Children production of The Wizard of Oz. She had outgrown her Halloween pinafore and shoes and we had to buy her a new dress and shoes. Then her ballet class danced to Somewhere Over the Rainbow for the annual recital and they insisted that we purchase yet another Dorothy costume and spray paint a pair of  ballet slippers red.

Sarah also took a spin as Dorothy for at least one Halloween and was equally charming in her costume.  So, I suppose it's not surprising that I have a special fondness for little girls dressed as Dorothy and sneak a little extra candy into their bags when they come to my door.  

Guest Commentator

Peter gave me permission to share these remarks that he prepared for the Worcester, MA Out of the Darkness walk that will take place this Saturday:

Suicide’s been in the news a lot this fall, and that means it’s been part of a lot of conversations.  Teenagers, professional athletes, executives, parents.  Suicide enters all sectors of society.  Nowadays, whenever events become news, they also become hot topics on the Internet.  In some ways this is good.  Conversations on the Internet reach more people.  Suicide used to be hushed up.  Heightened awareness is good.  In conversations I’ve read and heard,  much of the thinking goes this way:  “Bullying is bad.  It needs to stop.” Or, “Being bullied is bad, but it’s not a reason to kill yourself.”  Or, “I guess these people can’t take all the pressure.”  Another one says, “Suicide is such an implusive act,”  Or, “Suicide is such a selfish act,” or this one that I overheard in a restaurant last week, “Suicide is just the easy way out.”  Then there’s always this truism:  “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”

The consensus seems to be that with a little more thought, with a little stronger will or character, “these people” could find a better solution.  If only they were better problem solvers.  If only they could reflect and find the proper perspective.

I certainly walked along that line of thinking – a million times in the 15 months since my daughter, Emma took her life.

But what if we’re wrong?  What if it’s not so simple?  What if we’re  the ones who need to be more reflective?  What if we, the survivors and the Internet commenters are the ones who oversimplify this problem?  What if it’s not a character flaw?  What if it’s more than just a poor,  impulsive choice?  What if it’s not dysfunctional families?  What if it’s not drugs?  What if it’s not bullying?  What if it’s much more complicated.

I’m trying to reflect, now.  After all, that’s what we expected of those people who ended their lives.  But reflection means looking beyond the superficial response.

How is our will?  After all, that’s what we wished for those people who ended their own lives?  Are we willing to face a complicated problem instead of looking for an easy explanation?

How about our character?  Do we have the strength of character to look beneath a shallow truism, and say, “I want to find a real solution to this “temporary problem”?

What if it’s not just an individual’s problem, or a family’s problem, or a school’s or community’s problem?  What if it’s more deeply rooted, more systemic?  What if it connects to our national attitude toward mental illness, a view that uses words like crazy, freak, or head case, a view that disparages “shrinks.”   What if it involves our national tolerance for intolerance?   What if it connects to brain chemistry, the way certain brains are wired?

The more I’ve read and  the more I’ve reflected this past year, the more I realize that we don’t know very much, the more I believe that there isn’t a quick and ready explanation for suicide, even in the cases where the cause seems clear.  It’s always more complex than it seems, and that’s a message we need to communicate.

My daughter, Emma, like many suicide victims, doesn’t fit neatly into categories.  She was complex.  She felt that she inhabited the margins at her school, but she was also involved in lots of school groups and organizations;  she may have felt bullied at times, but she also had close friends who she could count on;  in her daily life she had many adults to whom she could turn, but she didn’t seek their help in her crisis.  Emma was confident to the point of cocky, but she was also insecure.  She loved being on stage, but she was afraid to reveal her true self.  She had her own sense of style, but she wanted to fit in.  She loved life, but she ended her own.  She wouldn’t hurt a flea, but she ended up hurting so many people.

Here’s what I think I know now:  suicide is not just a tragedy for an individual or a family or a community.  It’s a national tragedy, and it’s one we don’t understand…yet.  Suicide is not a simple problem of character, courage, or problem solving skills.  No, it’s a social crisis and a health crisis, and it needs the kind of attention that those kinds of crises receive.  It needs the kind of attention that we’ve devoted to other health crises like cancer and HIV/AIDS.  It will take funds, and it will take resolve.  We will have to convince the public, which likes a quick explanation, that this is complicated. 

Everyone here has been touched by suicide.  We’ve had to fight through pain and shame and perhaps despair to be here and to talk about this issue, but we’re here.  Now we need to do whatever we can to help our neighbors and the world at large see both the complexity of the problem and the determination that it will take to tackle it.

AFSP does a lot of good for the survivors, for the strugglers, for those who provide support, and for the people doing the badly needed research.  I believe they can do much more, but it will take resources, will, and national reflection.

Out of the Darkness

Tomorrow is the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's annual Out of the Darkness walk. Our family will be participating for the second year on Team Emma, a team formed by one of Emma's friends last year soon after her death. It was one of those remarkable acts of strength, resilience and purpose that has moved and inspired us. Many of Emma's friends are returning from college to participate in the walk again this year, and the team has been bolstered by family, friends, neighbors and colleagues. We are so grateful to all those people who are taking this walk beside us, either by coming to the walk or by contributing to a cause that means so much to us. So far, we have more than 35 registered team members and have raised over $5,900. 


There are a lot of touching stories related to the walk this year. Actually I have a story in my heart about each person on the team, each person who gave a gift, and each person who couldn't be with us in Westport, but has joined a team in their town or on their campus. But, for now,  I'd like to share just 3. 


The first started with a call to my cell phone about 5 weeks ago. It was Emma's friend Chelsea calling from college. She talked a bit about how school was going, her classes, roommate, etc. Then she told me that she had been assigned a group project for her management class and that she and her group had decided to organize an Out of the Darkness walk in her college's town, Worcester, MA. I have to admit, I was a little concerned by her ambition at first. "Wow, Chelsea, that seems like a lot of work, are you sure you can handle that with everything else you have on your plate?" "Well," she said, "I haven't completely researched what it would entail, but I think we'll be able to pull it off. We want to do it on October 23rd, the week after the Westport walk. Can you come?" I told her if she was able to make it happen, we would be there, and sure enough, the first Out of the Darkness walk ever to be held in the Worcester area will be held on October 23rd. She did it. Chelsea will be at the walk on October 16th in Westport to honor Emma and support us, but I think the walk on the 23rd is bigger than that. That walk is about the Emma's she doesn't know, but knows are out there. The people for whom she can still make a difference. Her courage and determination are inspiring.


The second story started with an email to Peter from the wife of a colleague of Peter's. She wanted Peter to know that she and her husband would be at the walk. She also wanted him to know that he might be getting some walk donations from some people whose names he wouldn't recognize. She said they were having a celebration for their baby's first birthday and had asked their guests to make a contribution to AFSP in lieu of gifts. When Peter told me this story I was literally moved to tears. For one thing, this family doesn't know us well and had never met Emma. And I don't think you could send a stronger message that we need to break down the stigma and fear surrounding suicide than to ask for donations for suicide prevention in connection with your child's first birthday. These folks are not just walking the walk, they're talking the talk, and by doing so they are taking suicide out of the darkness.


And the last story happened last weekend. I guess it had been about two weeks since my last post when I wrote, in part, about how it had been clear that a few people were choosing to keep their distance. I was in the grocery store, the place that has seemed to inspire the greatest number of awkward encounters since Emma's death. A couple of weeks ago I was there and a person I know more than casually tried to out-run me through the store so that she wouldn't have to talk to me. It actually got a little comical to see her start down an aisle and then quickly turn back when she saw my cart turn the corner. I think it probably took her twice as long to complete her shopping mission and we still ended up in the last aisle, face to face, much to her discomfort and chagrin.


But last weekend was different. Last weekend I was buzzing through the grocery store at a break neck speed when I heard someone call my name from the opposite end of the store aisle. It was someone I hadn't seen in several years. I knew her casually because our kids had attended the same elementary school. She and her family had moved away and had just returned in the last year. Since her kids were younger and in different schools, I had not seen her since she returned to town. She jogged up to me and gave me a hug. "I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about your daughter," she said. "I heard about the walk." she went on, "and I want you to know that I'll be there with my daughter. I think it so important to talk about this."


Alleluia!


I've often heard it said that the journey of loss is about learning to accept death. But sometimes I think we are called upon to challenge death. All of our great advances in medicine have come because we challenged ourselves, as a society, to find causes and develop cures for the illnesses and conditions that robbed us of our loved ones prematurely. Scientists and doctors did the work, but the public demanded it and backed it up with the financial support to make it happen. But for some reason, it seems that we have not had the public will to challenge suicide. We've accepted the monumental loss of life and the devastating toll on the families left behind. We've shaken our heads, shrugged our shoulders, waved a white flag in defeat.  That's got to change.


Tomorrow's walk is about raising awareness and supporting survivors, but it is also about looking a formidable foe squarely in the eyes and issuing a challenge. To all of you who have joined us in issuing this challenge by walking, raising funds, or contributing funds, we are so grateful to have you on our side. If you haven't participated, but would like to, click here. You can register online to walk through midnight tonight and at the walk tomorrow. Team and walker donations will be accepted through December 31st.


Suicide, you're going down!

Crossing the Threshold

If you've followed this blog regularly, you've undoubtedly noticed that I'm not writing much. I can't. It's not that I'm too busy. I wouldn't describe it as writer's block. I guess I'd call it griever's block.


A year ago, when we met and talked with some fellow survivors, they warned us that the second year was worse than the first. I didn't accept that at the time. I couldn't accept it. It was unimaginable that anything could be worse than what I was experiencing right then. That the hole could get even deeper and even darker was incomprehensible.


But now, a year after the warning was issued, I understand what they meant. I don't know if I'd call it worse, but it's every bit as bad. It's just a different bad.


For one thing, you don't feel better, but you feel a sense of obligation to be better - to be less needy, less fragile, less isolated. You're not where you'd like to be emotionally. You're reluctant to continue to lean on friends and family who have supported you. And you can't help but feel that they must be  tiring of the lopsided friend/family equation.


Even if you are lucky, as we have been, to have many wonderful people step in to support you, in the second year you come to terms with the fact that there are people who have permanently left your life because of what has happened. In the beginning you think maybe they just don't know what to say and it will get easier. But as time goes on you realize it's something else. They are afraid to be near you. It's as if you are surrounded by a puddle of grief and if they get too close, they risk being soaked with your hurt, sorrow and anger. It's safer for them just to avoid you.  In the second year, it becomes painfully clear that some people are choosing to keep their distance.


All through the first year you feel exhausted; like you've been running a marathon, but the finish line remains elusive. And then sometime at the start of the second year there is the horrible realization - there is no finish line. You'll be running for your life for the rest of your life. If the first year was marked by the shock and pain of sudden loss, it seems the second year will be marked by an acceptance of the unrelenting nature of grief.


I think I crossed the threshold into this new grief at the beginning of the school year without even realizing it.  The beginning of the school year was always an uplifting time in our family. It was exciting,  if a little a bittersweet,  to watch the girls start off  another year of growth and possibility. I was active at their schools, so the pace of my life would pick up in a way I found fun and rewarding. And Peter would meet a new class that he would bond with and mold. I viewed it as our unofficial new year and would look forward to everything the year would bring.


After Emma died the start of the school year lost that sense of renewal and possibility for me. 

I guess it was a desire to recover that old feeling of a fresh start that made Peter and I want to attend church for the service that celebrated the start of the church school year. We've not made it to church much in the last year. It has been too full of painful reminders. Emma was active in the church, singing with the Junior Choir, performing in the church musicals and pageants, serving as a Junior Deacon, and accompanying the choir on flute. I am so keenly aware of her absence when I am there. And the things I always liked best about our church are now what make it most difficult to be there. The sermons and celebrations we used to love now inevitably strike a painful chord.


Nonetheless, we ventured back to church on the second Sunday in September hoping for a fresh start and a renewed sense of peace and comfort from a place that had always provided that to us. As we left the house, I thought about grabbing some tissues. I had not made it through a church service without tears since Emma died, and since the start of September I hadn't even made it through a day without tears. But I stubbornly chose not to grab the tissues. I wanted this day to be different, new, and somehow I thought having tissues was setting myself up for failure.


The service started with two baptisms (POW!). The sermon was incredibly relevant, talking about crossing life's thresholds and finding possibility in life. It was what we wanted. It was what had brought us there that Sunday. But that message couldn't compete with the realization that becomes clearer to me every day - that I was pushed over a threshold a year ago into a life that I didn't choose, that I would never choose, and that there's no going back (SLAM!).


By the time the adorable church school kids paraded into the church at the end of the service, I was pretty much sobbing. Tears were streaming down my face and my nose was running like a faucet.  I couldn't imagine why I thought it was a good idea to deliberately not bring tissues. I was trapped in the middle of a pew, so there was no getting out to go to the bathroom. I picked up my purse and rifled through it, hoping for the miracle of tissues. We were in church, after all. Alas, there was no miracle and all I could find was a pair of socks that Sarah had thrown in my purse after trying on shoes the day before. By this time I was desperate, and much to Peter's horror and puzzlement, I took out a sock, wiped my tears, and blew my nose in it.


And just to prove that hope does spring eternal, I am recording this story with the hope that sometime in the future the veil of darkness will have lifted enough that the part of this story I most remember is blowing my nose in that stinky old sock.

Rocky Horror Connection - Finale

I realized after I published my last post that I didn't tell the ending to the story. After the show, my friend was backstage talking with some of the performers and she related the encounter she had had with Emma's friends, and they all remembered Emma, too. They remembered that she had come to their show the year before; that she had dressed up as Frankenfurter and posed for photos with them after the show; and they knew that she had died. When they saw her obituary in the newspaper, they knew that she was that girl that from the audience who, for some reason, they always remembered.

Rocky Horror Connection

A friend and former colleague told me this story and I thought I would share it. I worked with this friend about 20 years ago. She had met Emma when we first brought her home, but we had been out of touch for the last 15 years, so she had not seen Emma since she was a baby. About two months before Emma died we met for lunch in the town where we both now worked. It had been a very long time since we had seen each other and we did a lot of catching up. Emma was a junior in high school and we had just gotten back from college visiting, so we talked a lot about who Emma was, her love of music and what she was looking for in a school. Still, my friend would never had said she knew Emma.

After Emma died, my friend found the FaceBook tribute page that was made by some of Emma's friends. She read through the comments and scrolled through the pictures and she said that she felt that she came to know Emma just a little more through the memories people shared. But still, she would never have said that she knew Emma.


That's why what happened to her last fall was so amazing. She was helping out at a production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show at a local theater.  The theater was short-staffed and she had volunteered to help at the last minute. As she greeted patrons, a group of teenagers arrived in full Rocky Horror regalia. For some reason, they made her think of a picture she had seen of Emma on FaceBook several months before. In fact, the feeling was so strong she felt compelled to ask them if they knew Emma, even though she knew the question might seem very strange. "Do you guys happen to know Emma von Euler?" she asked. Big smiles broke across their faces. "Yes! That's why we're here! We're here for Emma. How did you know?" "I don't know," she said. "I just had a feeling."


I don't know about you, but I'm just amazed by that story. How did she know? Could it be that Emma left a mark so strong it is palpable? And how is it that Emma continues to connect people even after she's gone? These are the good questions, the comforting questions, I ask myself each day.

The Flowers of Jamaica

So where did I leave off? We were sitting in the dining room of our inn in the Adirondacks when I began to zone in on the conversation going on between a mother and her young son at the next table. I gather that they were taking a different approach to vacationing in the Adirondacks; one that was focused on sight-seeing and taking in the history of the area, rather than outdoor adventures.


The mother was reading to her son from a guide book about the history of the Champlain area. He was all of 5 years old, so she would read a couple of sentences and then stop to interpret what she had just read.  As I listened in, I couldn't help but wonder what the little guy was getting out of this exchange. At one point she was reading about the first settlers to the area, and she punctuated the discussion by exclaiming, "They came here in 1612! 1612! Can you imagine that?" I had to restrain myself from chipping in, "No, he can't imagine that. 1612, 1812, 1970 - they're all pretty much the same to him. For all he knows, 1612 was the year you were born!"


You'll be glad to know that I restrained myself from commenting for three very good reasons: first, my comment was judgmental and rude; second, my comment would give away that I was eavesdropping; and last but certainly not least, I was in no position to criticize because many years ago another vacationer was probably telling a very similar story about Emma and me.

We were on vacation in Jamaica. Emma was 3 1/2 at the time. We had a wonderful time, and I give Emma much of the credit.  The trip was somewhat ill-fated right from the beginning, but Emma remained an enthusiastic and flexible traveler through travel trials that would have broken down much older and more seasoned travelers - her parents, for example.

The first "surprise" came when we arrived in Jamaica and hailed a cab to go to our hotel. Somehow I hadn't picked up on the fact that the resort I had booked was almost two hours away from the airport. Our cab ride was hair-raising. We had no car seat for Emma and no seat belts for ourselves as we traveled at a wildly uneven pace over unpaved, windy roads that did not appear to be governed by any laws, rules, or even common courtesies. Fortunately, we arrived safely at our resort and it met all of our expectations.

Things were going swimmingly until about half way through the trip when I got a terrible virus, or food poisoning, or something really awful, that meant that all I saw of Jamaica for the next 2 days were the bed and the toilet in our room. The illness was additionally stressful because I was pregnant with Sarah. 

I got better in time to enjoy one final day at the resort with Emma and Peter before we had to head home. We thought the  ride back to the airport would be much better than our arrival ride because the resort provided a coach bus to the airport each morning. We made sure we were on that morning bus, even though it meant we would arrive at the airport much earlier than we needed to. There was no way we were getting in a cab again.  It was not long after the bus departed from the resort that we learned that the only thing scarier than riding in a taxi on those windy mountain roads was riding in a coach bus. Add to that a handful of bus-sick fellow travelers, and you have a bus ride you will never forget - unfortunately!


It doesn't end there, though. We got to the airport only to learn that our flight had been delayed because of snowfall in NYC. Mind you, we were already very early for our flight, so the delay meant we had several hours to kill. We immediately assessed the situation and made a plan. There was no way we were getting back in a taxi or on a bus, so we were going to have to stick it out at the airport. The first priority was finding something decent (and safe) to eat after our long bus ride. I was just barely back on solid food, and reasonably (I thought) cautious about what I put both in my stomach and in Emma's stomach. But,  we were also starving, so I had to be more flexible than I would have liked to have been. We found things we thought would be okay to eat and settled down for a snack. Emma had been completely unfazed by the harrowing bus ride and now seemed to find the airport picnic a fun distraction. 

When we finished eating, we needed to find a way to entertain Emma both in the airport and for the plane ride home. In the couple of hours we had already spent in the airport, we had completely exhausted all the books and games we had brought, so I told Emma I would buy her a book at the gift shop. I'm not sure why I thought there would be a child-appropriate book in a Jamaican airport gift shop, but, of course, there wasn't. Emma happily picked up prospective books and magazines and flipped through pictures. I vigilantly watched her, quickly teasing away the books and magazines with pictures I didn't want her to see. This seemed to be good entertainment even if we didn't find a book to buy. 


At some point during this exploration, Emma came across a book of Jamaican flowers. It was a horticulture book, with beautiful glossy color pictures and detailed descriptions of the plants, including their scientific names, their origins, the conditions they needed to grow, etc. She was immediately taken with the beautiful pictures and wanted the book. It was expensive and not the least bit age appropriate, but after everything she had put up with, I thought the least I could do was buy her the book, even if she only looked at the pictures.


Emma loved that book. She sat quietly flipping through the pages while we waited for our plane to board, and as soon as we got settled into our seats she asked me to pull it out and read it to her. And that is what I was reminded of when I overheard the conversation between the mother and son at our Adirondack inn. As I read that horticulture book to Emma on the plane, reciting page after page of scientific names and preferred climates, I admit that I was a bit self-conscious about who might be over-hearing and what they must think. It must have sounded utterly preposterous. What 3 year old wants to know the scientific name for a lily and whether it prefers a tropical or temperate climate?

But, hopefully, they also over-heard us when, time and time again, Emma would flip the page to a picture of a flower she really loved and say, "Now read to me about this one, mommy." 


I wonder where that book is. I'll have to find it.

Surrounded by Memories

The weekend before last, Peter and I headed up to the Adirondacks to do some hiking before picking Sarah up from camp. The places we hiked, ate and slept were not places we had been with Emma, yet she seemed to be everywhere. We sat down at a restaurant one evening and a song came over the PA system that I hadn't heard since Emma and Sarah were toddlers. 

It was a song from the 40's that we sang in the Music for Children class I did with each of the girls when they were toddlers. The instructors had re-worked the lyrics of the original song so that the words now took you through all different ways of exploring the song's rhythm as you sang it. It would start out, "Well, it's a good day for clapping a song, well it's a good day for clapping along." Then you would stomp along, march along, run along, hop along, dance along, until it would end with, "Well, it's a good day, what could go wrong? Well,  it's a good day from morning 'til night, rock the moon, rock the moon in your sweet little room." 

I loved doing that class with Emma and she loved it, too. We sang that song time and time again, both in class and at home. But I must admit, I thought it was a Music for Children original. I didn't know it was based on another song until I was sitting in that restaurant in the Adirondacks last weekend and the familiar tune spilled out from the restaurant's speakers.

Hearing that rather obscure song from our past was already kind of a strange coincidence, but it got stranger. The next song that came on was Jean Pierre Rampal playing a movement of the Bolling jazz suite. Emma had learned to play all the movements from this piece on her flute in her freshman year of high school when she got interested in jazz music. Emma and my nephew even performed one of the movements for my mom's 90th birthday - Stephen on piano and Emma on flute. So when that song followed the first we heard, I immediately looked at Peter and said, "Do you hear what they're playing now?!"


But it didn't end there. The next song that came on was a jazz anthem that Emma had performed with her school's jazz band at a dinner dance held just  a little more than a month before she died. For the typical restaurant goer I would expect that the song seemed to have nothing in common with the songs that came before it, but for us there was one unifying theme for the music we were hearing - Emma. 


The next morning at breakfast it continued. First, another Emma song played. Next, a teenager strolled into the inn's restaurant wearing Emma's signature fedora. And after that, I overheard a parent-child conversation at the next table that brought back a vivid memory of traveling home from Jamaica with Emma when she was 3 1/2 years old. But maybe that's another story...

In the meantime, I was inspired to find out a little more about the song that inspired so many happy times in our Music for Children classes. It was called "It's a Good Day" and it was written by Dave Barbour and Peggy Lee and recorded by Peggy Lee in July, 1946. Click here to see a clip of Peggy singing her hit tune. See Emma? You're still teaching me new things about music.

And here's a link of Rampal playing Bolling's Baroque and Blue Suite for Piano and Flute. Emma played this very difficult piece beautifully. Her music was one of the very tangible ways she enriched our lives.


 

Scaling Mountains

Last week Sarah became an official 46’er. That means she has hiked up all 46 high peaks (4,000+ feet) in New York’s Adirondack Park. It’s a big accomplishment for anyone, but I think it’s an especially big accomplishment for Sarah, who has been determined that Emma’s death would not derail her. She had an almost instant resolve about that. It seems like it was less than a week after Emma’s death that Sarah was telling us, “We can’t let this destroy us.”  And, of course, she is right. That wouldn’t be right for us, and it would not be the way to honor Emma’s memory. One thing Peter, Sarah and I have all felt certain of was that Emma did not want to hurt us. The only thing more tragic than losing Emma, would be losing ourselves, too.

But there’s a difference between thinking, even knowing, that something is the right thing to do and doing it.  And that’s why I am particularly proud of what Sarah has accomplished. I’m not sure anyone who hasn’t traveled this trail can completely appreciate the emotional energy it takes to negotiate just an ordinary day after a profound loss. And what’s particularly ironic is that people are most likely not to appreciate how hard you’re working when you are working the absolute hardest. When you’re putting on a brave face, so as not spoil a party; when you’re screwing up all the concentration you can muster so that you honor your responsibilities at work or at school; those are the times when friends and family are most likely to observe, “See, they’re doing better.” But the truth is it’s not a straight path to better. It’s a long, rocky trail with lots of ups and downs and more than its fair share of switchbacks. Looking back at this time many years from now, I suspect Sarah will feel that climbing the grief mountain was more difficult and exhausting than all 46 Adirondack high peaks put together.

And Sarah’s 46’er is a bit of an accomplishment for me, too. Letting Sarah head off to camp last July, just 2 weeks after Emma died, might be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, next to speaking at Emma’s memorial service. The five weeks that she was gone last summer were excruciating, but we knew it was where she should be. She climbed 20 mountains last summer – many that were not high peaks, and several repeats, but that summer put her at a total of 37 high peaks – just 9 left to scale this summer. And  when she got home from camp she had traveled over some important healing territory, too – territory she needed to travel on her own. Unfortunately, grief is a solitary journey.  Each person has to find his or her own trail and the ascents and descents are different for every person.

And frankly, letting Sarah go back to camp this year wasn’t easy either – because letting go and trusting that everything will be all right just aren’t in my repertoire anymore. Now, letting go and trusting are acts of will - invisible to the casual observer, I’m sure, but acts of will nonetheless. But that’s what I did. I let go, and I tried really hard to trust.

So Sarah’s 46’er is an acknowledgment that life does go on – not without struggle, not without heartache, but on. And every now and again, we get to look out at a really spectacular view and appreciate the journey. 

Notes Home

This past Sunday, Peter and I decided to take a hike up Rooster Comb Mountain before heading home from the Adirondacks after visiting Sarah at camp. Hiking in the Adirondacks is an experience our family has shared, although many of our hikes were done with other companions through our years at camp, and not with each other.


Emma would choose a canoe paddle over hiking boots, any time. Her favorite places in the Adirondacks were its rivers and lakes, not the mountains. She was a strong paddler and even stronger at shouldering a canoe over a portage. Nonetheless, she did her fair share of hiking and we took some hikes together that I will never forget.

The one that particularly comes to mind is a hike we took in the fall of 2006. Peter and the girls had a long weekend off from school because of a Jewish holiday, so we decided to head to Lake Placid for a couple of days. We left home after school on a Friday afternoon and arrived at our hotel well after night fall. When we awoke in the morning and pulled back the drapes of our hotel  window, we were stunned by the picture before us. We had left a Connecticut that was barely touched by fall, but had arrived in an area of northern New York where the trees were already fully bathed in the beautiful oranges, reds and yellow of fall.


Our friends, Sarah K. and Marian, were also in Lake Placid and we had made a plan to meet them and hike Whiteface and Esther, two of the 46 high peaks(4,000+ feet) in the Adirondack Park. We got an early, but still civilized 9 am start from our hotel and were starting our ascent up the mountain by 9:30 am. It was a beautiful, sunny fall day. The sky was the blue that everyone there describes as Adirondack blue and the air was cool and crisp, but not yet cold.  I couldn't imagine a better day for a hike.


Emma loved being in nature, so in some ways, hiking was a natural activity for her, but she hated the feeling of getting out of breath. She could easily psych herself out when she started getting that feeling. She would focus on her breathing, working harder at it in an effort to make herself breathe more easily. Of course, just the opposite would happen.  As she focused on her breathing it would become even more labored and uncomfortable and she would become very unhappy.


At some point in her camp career, a wise trip leader had proposed a solution to her breathing problems that Emma had found effective. The counselor had suggested that if she gripped a stick between her teeth it would keep her mind off her breathing and keep her mouth open in a way that would help regulate her breathing. I was skeptical at first, but I had to admit, it seemed to work for her.


As a result,  as we started up the mountain Emma immediately began scouring the trail for the stick that would get her through the steep parts of the hike. Once she found it, she tucked it away until she needed it, chatting happily as we made our way up the beginning part of the trail that was not terribly steep or challenging.

At some point we picked up our pace a bit and parted from Sarah K. and Marian who wanted to take a more leisurely pace and climb just one of the two mountains. By the time our hike was getting more challenging it was, fortunately, also becoming quite rewarding. As the grade increased there were multiple time when you came out to clearings that featured incredible views. At one point we left behind the zone of deciduous trees and entered a zone of mostly evergreens. It was not long after that that we began to feel the temperature drop, and a short time later we emerged on a ridge where we were surrounded by sparkling snowcapped shrubs and trees and were treated to a perfect view of the beautiful paint splattered valley below us. It was truly breathtaking. At that point, I needed a stick in my mouth, not to mention gloves on my hands and a hat on my head.


We arrived at the peak of Whiteface in time to celebrate with lunch. We had packed some sandwiches and fruit in our backpacks that we pulled out and began eating. Whiteface is an unusual peak to climb because it is accessible by car. As we ate our lunch, we noted fellow hikers who had been met with grand spreads by friends who had traveled by car. That was for wimps, we decided. We all liked our way better, even if the sandwiches were a little bit smushed and the fruit a bit bruised from tumbling around in our backpacks.


We only spent about a half hour at the top because we still wanted to make it up Esther before the end of the day. As we descended to the junction of the trail to Esther, we came to a hill of large rocks that we had encountered on the way up. Peter carefully picked his way down the rocks first, showing the rest of us a reliable path. Sarah went next and had not gone far when she tripped and started to roll, head first, down the hill of rocks. There was not much I could do but catch my breath and head towards her. Peter and I got to her at about the same time. She was shaken, but otherwise fine. In fact, I think she composed herself and was ready to keep going before either Peter or I was. In a few minutes, we were back on our way and, despite the scare we had all just had,  Sarah and Emma were still fully committed to making it up Esther before the end of the day.

Shortly after we reached the junction of the trail to Esther, we decided to take a small break to re-fuel. Peter whipped out some power bars he had packed for us, which led to one of the day's most memorable pictures: Emma sitting eating her bar with a big smile and a thumbs up, Sarah making the goofiest face she could muster, and me with a complete look of disgust on my face after just biting into a power bar for the first time. I think its safe to say that I will never be hungry enough to eat one of those again.

By the time we made it back down to the parking lot, we were tired, hungry, and at least one of us (me) was already sore. But we were also very satisfied. It had been a memorable day: a great accomplishment - 2 high peaks, great company, and great views.


Emma had also amassed her own little collection of souvenirs from the trip, which I was reminded of as we hiked up Rooster Comb this past Sunday. There was the mouth stick, of course, which helped her through the hike, but she also had a couple of beautiful leaf specimens, and several samples of birch bark that she had found along the way. Emma could not resist those pieces of birch bark that litter the trails on Adirondack hikes. Even though she knew it was best to leave these natural remnants where they were, she always had to steal away with one or two of the best pieces she could find. She would take these home and then, weeks or months later, one of us would get a sweet card or note written on birch bark stationery. She seemed to know that the words and the extraordinary medium on which they were written made these notes not just special, but eternal.


Emma liked to communicate through notes. As articulate as she was, it was through notes that she was often able to express her deepest emotions. I suppose many of us are that way. When Sarah was at camp in the weeks following Emma's death, she would often write notes to Emma, and each Sunday at the weekly Council Fire gathering, she would toss her notes into the fire, letting the smoke carry her messages to Emma, wherever she was. She found this act of communion and communication healing and wrote us during that summer to tell us that we should give it a try. We did, sharing our tear-stained letters with each other before tossing them in the fire for Emma, and watching them go up in smoke - all our questions, all the things we wish we had had a chance to say, all the convictions about who we knew her to be, and who we knew ourselves to be - up in smoke. And, amazingly, with that came a tiny glimmer of acceptance and healing, the kind that comes from being heard and understood.


So maybe that's why on Sunday when I climbed Rooster Comb, I felt compelled to look for the most perfect specimen of birch bark I could find.  I will write a note to Emma on it and then I will toss it in the fire, letting the smoke carry my eternal message of love to her. And I know that she will hear me and understand.

4th of July

I've talked a lot about how much Emma liked holidays - any holiday. But if there was one holiday that Emma had mixed feelings about, it would have been the 4th of July. And there is one word that sums up the reason for Emma's ambivalence - fireworks.


From the time Emma was a baby until she was 11, 4th of July was spent at Gram & Gramps' house - so far, so good. There were always lots of cousins around. Gram and Gramps had a great big pool and even when Emma was tiny, she loved being in that water. She could outlast just about any cousin. Fortunately, there were enough cousins, aunts and uncles, that she could always persuade someone to go swimming with her.

When the water got boring, there were lots of games to fill the day. We had family softball games and wiffle ball games. We had badminton and volleyball and croquet matches from time to time, and at some point bocce and washers got thrown into the mix. Still all good with the Emster.

You couldn't argue with the food. Sometimes we had the standard hot dogs and hamburgers, but those were usually supplemented with brats, or grilled chicken or some other great picnic food. Those would be supplemented by potato salad, coleslaw, banana salad, corn - ofetn more food than the table could hold. Dessert was no different. There would be ice cream and cake and pie and, of course, Emma's favorite, s'mores. Up through the picnic dinner, Emma was still a-okay with the 4th of July.

But sometime after dinner was cleaned up, dusk would begin to fall and it would be time to start thinking about the dreaded fireworks.


For the first few years of Emma's life, the family fireworks display required a venue shift. Sometime after dinner we would all head down to my brother Bob's house which was just a short distance down the road from my parents. Bob and one or two assistants would usually get a head start and would get the fireworks set up by the time we arrived.  The family-made would show as soon as everyone had arrived and it was fully dark. 


The first year we went, when Emma was just 1, we quickly learned that fireworks weren't for her.  Emma and I spent most of our time in my brother's family room looking at books and doing whatever we could to drown out the sound of the fireworks. I think we tried again the next year, thinking maybe she would have outgrown her fear, but no dice. After that, for several years we would just head home in the early evening and avoid the fireworks altogether.


Knowing what we came to know about our Emma, it wasn't all that surprising that she hated fireworks. She wasn't a fan of any loud noises.  In fact, she spent her kindergarten year putting her fingers in her ears when the school bus rounded the corner toward the bus stop because she thought it was so loud. She also didn't like things that were unpredictable. So how could she possibly have liked our home-grown fireworks displays? They were the embodiment of the words loud and unpredictable.My brothers specialized in the squealers and the boomers and every firework that made an obnoxious noise. And while, there was always a game plan for how the fireworks went off, the show rarely went off according to plan. There was always one firework that shot off in the wrong direction, sometimes toward the spectators, or one that only exploded as someone walked toward it to re-light it. Thinking back on these shows, Emma had quite good sense. They really were kind of scary.


At some point when Emma was early elementary age, the family fireworks displays were shifted to Gram and Gramps' house and Emma found a tolerable way to participate. She and I would discreetly find our way into the family room of the house just as the show was about to begin. From the family room, you could look out the window, over the heads of the spectators gathered on the patio, and see the show from a safe and relatively quiet distance. This was fireworks Emma-style.

When Emma was 11 our family started spending our summers at camp and our 4th of July was spent there. There were pioneer meets, and the Paul Revere riders would charge through camp in the early morning hours to warn that the British were coming. There was good food, good company, friendly competition and - no fireworks!


Emma's last 4th of July was spent in Mann, West Virginia. Peter, Emma and I had traveled down there with a large group of adults and teens from our community with Appalachian Service Project. On the 4th of July we took a brief break from the week of hard work on local houses and trailers to celebrate a national holiday.  And I believe Emma 2.0, now a mature 16, fully enjoyed sitting on the street with her friends watching the town fireworks display. I was a comfortable distance away, but as far as I know, she didn't even have her fingers in ears.

Sarah's Birthday Present

Yesterday was Sarah's birthday and it made me think about a present that Emma made for Sarah for her third birthday. Emma had just turned seven. She cooked the birthday present plan up with Pat, our neighbor, expert craftswoman, and honorary grandmother. 


I'm guessing that it was Emma who thought of the idea of making a quilt for Sarah's baby dolls. She would have known that Sarah would love that. When Emma played, she liked to be the chef, waitress, actress or dancer. Her make-believe games always involved exotic costumes and/or realistic props. We had a well-equipped play kitchen and that was supplemented with a dining table, cash register, and even order pad so that Emma could transform her home kitchen to a restaurant kitchen. A shopping cart and scanning register transformed the basement into a supermarket in no time. And Emma never had a problem pushing that stuff to the side and transforming the basement again, this time into a dance studio or stage. That was how Emma liked to play pretend.


But Sarah, as Emma knew well, liked to be the mommy or the teacher. Her games involved baby dolls, diapers, baby bottles, strollers, and cribs. Sometimes the scene would be school and there would be multiple baby dolls and a book or felt board. Sarah even had a little wicker cradle in her bedroom so that her baby doll could sleep right near her mommy. That was why Emma would have known that Sarah would love to have a special quilt for her baby.


I imagine she had to sell Pat on the doll quilt. Pat was a good sport, but she was also practical. She must have wondered whether it was really possible for a seven year old to participate in crafting a quilt, especially a seven year old with notably pudgy little fingers. But Emma would have been confident and Pat would not have wanted to dissuade her.


The front of the quilt that they made together is a classic patchwork. Pat let Emma pick out the fabric from which they carefully measured and cut squares. Then Pat sewed the squares together on her sewing machine, sometimes letting Emma guide the fabric or press on the foot pedal. "Gently, Emma. Gently," Pat would have to remind her, when she would press the pedal too enthusiastically. 

The back of the quilt is a solid fabric and is stitched to the patchwork front with many, many imperfect stitches that are all Emma's. She stopped by Pat's house daily in the 2 weeks leading up to Sarah's birthday to work on all those stitches that lovingly hold the two sides of the quilt together. It is really amazing to think of Emma's puffy little seven year old hands, patiently stitching all around the outside of that quilt; or of Pat, patiently watching, encouraging her, and keeping her on task when she got absorbed in telling a great story. I'm sure there were many great stories that went into the making of that quilt; stories that Pat told Emma, and stories that Emma told Pat. They are an important part of the patchwork product. You can almost trace the stories in the stitches as they make their way around the quilt. "Ah, see here they were sitting quietly, the stitches are small and precise. But here is where they were enjoying a tall tale that was much more interesting and important than the stitches they were adding to the quilt."

But the most precious part of the quilt is a square found on the back, carefully hand-stitched onto the quilt by Emma and bearing a birthday inscription in her very own seven year old handwriting.  It reads, "To My Sweet Sister. May she always be kind and generous. Made by Emma von Euler. July 10, 1999."


Those words are completely Emma's. I can practically hear her speak them. Even then, Pat would have realized how important it was to the finished product to include that one special square. But she could never have known what a treasure that quilt would become, capturing and preserving two of our great loves.

The Divine Sense of Sameness

Emma's friend J lives a couple blocks up the road from us. I'm not sure when they became friends, but we first became aware of J.'s presence in Emma's life when Peter was driving Emma to high school in the morning during her freshman year. J. would be standing on the corner of his street as Emma and Peter drove by and he would raise his hand to his hat and salute them as they drove by. "Who's that?" Peter asked the first time they received the salute. "Oh, that's my friend J," Emma answered. "He's in band with me." One time Peter pulled over to offer him a ride, but he politely declined, choosing to continue to salute people he knew while waiting for the school bus to arrive. 

Later, Emma also began to ride the bus in the morning and we gather that they became frequent seatmates. J was a year older than Emma and when he got his license, he would drive Emma to school whenever he could snag the family car for the day and regularly drove her to their evening jazz band rehearsals. Every so often, however, Emma would head off to the bus in the morning and 20 minutes later the doorbell would ring. J would be standing at our door, often loaded down with a large quantity of bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches he'd picked up to sell at school and a sob story about how the deli didn't have his order ready on time. The punchline was always the same, "You think you could give me a ride?" he'd say. "Sure," I'd answer. "I'll grab my keys. Meet me at the car." During the short ride to school he would thoroughly entertain me with tales of his exploits and interests. I usually missed about half of his references, but his gusto kept me interested and amused. I was almost sorry when we arrived at the door of the school and he had to hop out.


The thing about losing a child is that it changes every aspect of your life. So much of your time is devoted to doing things with that child and for that child. When they disappear from your life, they leave not just a big hole in your heart, but a hole in your day. Your daily routines and rhythms change: the way you set the table; how much dinner you cook; what you cook; what you do in the morning, the evening and all the hours in between. Everything changes. And at some point you realize it's never going back to normal. Grief counselors urge you to embrace the "new normal."  It's sound, but frankly, unwelcome advice because I liked the old normal. I wasn't in the market for a new normal. 


That's why when something happens that makes me feel like I've retained some small piece of that old normal, I genuinely feel like celebrating. 


A couple of weeks ago, I was hanging around the house in the afternoon with Sarah when the phone rang. It was J who had recently returned home from college. "Hey," he said. "Could you do me a small favor?" "Sure," I said. "What do you need?" "Could you give me a ride home?" I picked him up about a block from our house. He was loaded down with some groceries he had purchased at a nearby store without thinking about how heavy they would get during the walk home. On the short ride to his house he regaled me with stories about the WWF and the WWE. I'm woefully uninformed on these matters, but that didn't discourage him. He was happy to carry the conversation and I was happy to listen. More than happy, actually, because it was a little piece of that old normal and I had captured it.  Ahhh, the divine sense of sameness. 

What a week, what a year

We survived. That's the phrase that best sums up the last week, and frankly sums up the last year. 

I know it's a trite and over-used expression, but the last couple of weeks have been a roller coaster ride. In the last week alone we have survived the anniversary of Emma's death, her birthday, and her would-be graduation date. In between those dates, we watched proudly as Sarah received several awards at her middle school award ceremony and watched her "graduate" from 8th grade, capping off a year of remarkable accomplishments under the worst possible circumstances. Peter put together the "Celebrating Sarah Lil" video that's posted on the blog. Watching it, I was struck by Sarah's ability to continue to find joy and laughter in each day and how, because she was able to do that, she illuminated the darkness for all of us.


There are a lot of trite phrases that are not so trite for me anymore. Over the last year, I've learned what they really mean. The night that Emma died, I remember saying to one of our pastors, "Now I really know what it means to be heartbroken," and in this past week  I experienced the truest meaning of the word bittersweet. The anniversary of Emma's death was bittersweet, bitter for the obvious reason, but sweet because our church hosted a lovely but simple ceremony in the Memorial Garden where Emma now rests. In the beautiful and serene setting of this garden, friends and family gathered and shared prayers and poems and very personal memories of Emma. It was comforting evidence that each of the people gathered continued to carry Emma in their hearts. It was sweet.


And on her birthday, a bitter occasion because she is not with us to blow out candles and make wishes, friends and families gathered to celebrate the birthday we didn't get the chance to celebrate last year. We feasted on her favorites: sushi and s'mores, and we tattooed ourselves with butterflies. We wrote notes to her that we burned in the firepit, letting the smoke carry our messages to her. And we lit sparklers, a tribute to the note sent to me by a friend after Emma's death that likened Emma to a sparkler: "She burned bright and fast, like a sparkler, and you could not help but stare right into it's fire. But before you knew it, the flame was gone...much too fast...much too fast." And though there was sadness in each of these gestures, there was sweetness and joy, too, as we remembered Emma together.


But perhaps the sweetest part of that evening was seeing and hearing Emma in her friends as they enjoyed each other's company. We saw her in her friend Chelsea who made sure she took in and enjoyed every part of the party that was planned. We heard her in her friend Chris, as he insisted that his mispronunciation was just his unique way of pronouncing that particular word. We saw her in her friend Allie as she held Andrew's hand when he got upset. We heard her voice among those belting "The Time Warp" in our living room. And we caught a glimpse of her as her friend Dan got magnetically pulled from a group mid-conversation when he heard the singing erupt in the other room. She was bitterly absent and sweetly present all at the same time.


And it strikes me that this word bittersweet, will forever characterize our life now that Emma is gone. We will never experience life with joyful abandon. The bitter taste will always be there.  But so will the sweetness: the sweetness of memories new and old, the sweetness of friends and family, and the sweet presence of Emma when we connect with the many people who carry her in their hearts.