New Year's Eve

I have never found New Year’s Eve to be a particularly memorable holiday, but there is one New Year’s Eve celebration with Emma that I remember vividly. If I were at home, I’d dig through our photos to find a picture of the celebration that I am thinking of. But I don’t really need it. The image that would be reflected in the photo is etched clearly in my mind.

Emma is 3. She is wearing her favorite hand-me-down flannel nightgown. It is white with light blue flowers sprinkled over it. It has three buttons at the neck and a ruffle across the chest and bottom. The elastic cuffs also end in a ruffle, accentuating those precious little cookie hands. Emma’s hair still has the fine, soft quality of baby hair. It is just about shoulder length and still has the baby curl that some told me would disappear the first time I cut it. She has bangs which draw your eyes to her pretty blue ones that match the flowers on her nightgown. The photo is taken minutes before we will celebrate the New Year and her face is full of anticipation and excitement. She looks wide awake, which is the first clue that this is not your standard midnight celebration of the New Year.

We were staying with Peter’s parents, as were Peter’s sister, her husband and their two kids. I believe it was my bright idea to stage a kids' celebration of the New Year at 8 pm. I thought that if we played it right they would feel satisfied that they had had the New Year’s Eve experience and would be content to go off to bed. We spent the day preparing for the celebration with Emma and her two cousins. We made a trip to the grocery store to buy sparkling cider for the New Year’s toast. We decorated paper plates and stapled two together, filling the center with dried beans to make noisemakers. We made hats out of construction paper that we had decorated generously. After dinner the kids got bathed and donned their pajamas and nightgowns.  As 8 pm approached, we popped open the cider and filled the glasses, donned our paper hats and grabbed our noisemakers. Then the countdown began. Ten, nine, eight – the feeling of excitement was palpable. Seven, six, five – the kids eyes were darting around the room, trying to capture every aspect of the excitement that would be unleashed in just a few more seconds. Four, three, two, one – Happy New Year!!!

We shook our noisemakers wildly, smooched our loved ones, and drank our cider. Then came the comment from my 7 year old niece which accurately describes the feeling I have had at exactly 12:05 am every New Year’s eve that I have bothered to stay up. “Was that it?” she said. "Somehow I thought it would be more exciting."

Danny Boy

Emma was a very active performer, so the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas was filled with concerts and/or performances from the time she joined the Fairfield County Children’s Choir in 5th grade.  Sarah is also a performer, so between the two girls, we would have a concert or performance every weekend and usually one weeknight, as well.  Part of surviving our first holiday season without Emma was enduring the painful reminders cast by the concerts we attended this year, as well as the pain of the concerts we no longer needed to attend.

Maybe it was this season of music that sparked this memory of Peter’s.

He was in the kitchen, correcting papers or doing some other schoolwork, when he was distracted by music coming from our living room. It was an a cappella version of Danny Boy. He immediately recognized the song, it was my father’s favorite, but he did not recognize the artist. Peter had always thought the song a little sappy and never quite understood what there was about it that could turn a gruff Irishman to mush.  But this rendition was striking a chord in him. The single voice was incredibly pure and plaintive. It was a voice he had not heard before and he needed to identify it. He called into the next room, “What’s that I’m hearing?" Emma appeared around the corner. “I’m sorry. Am I bothering you?” she said. “Emma, was that you?” “Yes, Daddy, but I can stop.” “Don’t stop!” Peter said. “Emma, I didn’t know you could sing like that! Definitely keep singing!”

I don’t know if you would call it irony or coincidence or cruelty, but Danny Boy was performed by two different ensembles at Sarah’s middle school winter concert this December. Others may play it or sing it, but for us it will forever be owned by two that we have lost: my dad, who eyes welled up whenever he heard it, and Emma, who made her dad understand that for the first time.

Snowflakes

Last night I dreamed of snowflakes, but not the white, frozen, crystalline kind. I was dreaming of handcrafted snowflakes, the kind made by folding a piece of paper over, and over and over again; and then strategically cutting shapes out of it by snipping, and snipping and snipping again.

Emma went through a long snowflake phase. For many years she would spend the winter months, when we were holed up inside more than we would like to be, creating these paper gems. The more she made them, the more intricate they became. She learned that if she trimmed around the outside of her folded paper she could alter the shape of the flake. She experimented with different sizes and shapes of snips and marveled at her creation when she unfolded the paper.

Soon the plain paper flakes did not hold her attention. She took to adorning them with glitter glue pens so that they would sparkle in the light just like a real snowflake. When we were lucky enough to get real snow, she would do field research, freezing a piece of black construction paper and then going outside to try to capture individual flakes on the frozen, black surface so that she could examine them more closely. We got one snowstorm when this technique worked particularly well, and the specimens we captured inspired a whole new flurry of snowflake generation.

During Emma’s snowflake phase we would find snowflakes scattered purposefully about the house, taking the place of the little love notes she customarily left. We would find them on our pillows, our bedside tables, and at our places at the table. She would post a particularly beautiful one on the refrigerator or bulletin board. And the teachers she had during this phase got an occasional dusting of snow, as well.

When I was dreaming of these snowflakes I understood anew the fascination that they had held. Each one was, it occurred to me, a little like seeing real snow for the very first time. You never knew quite what to expect when you unfolded that paper. The artistry and individuality of the creation was a surprise even to the creator. And I suppose the dream was also a reminder of an important lesson that Emma taught me: to look at all of creation with the wonder and awe it deserves.

A Rose by Any Other Name, continued

I thought of two more nicknames that should have been on my list:
Eve
and
Evie
And thank you for the two sent in by readers:
E.J., Jr
and
VonBon

Car Ride Conversations

We had a long drive to visit Emma’s grandparents today and it reminded me of the car rides we used to take to the camp in the Adirondacks that Emma and Sarah attended and where Peter and I worked for 5 years. About halfway through our trip to camp we would pass by the town of Half Moon, New York. I just love the name of that town and I could never resist commenting on how I thought Half Moon would be the perfect place to own a horse farm. For one thing, it inspired great horse farm names. I leaned towards the name Galaxy Farms. Galaxy Farms in Half Moon, New York – it has a ring to it, right?


The conversation would inevitably wind around to me conceding that I knew that at this stage in my life, I was unlikely to establish a horse farm in Half Moon, New York or any other town for that matter. It was at this point that Emma would say, “I’ll have a farm for you, Mom. I’d love to have a farm.”


The farm of Emma’s dreams, however, was not a horse farm. Emma wanted a more well-rounded farm, a sort of Little House on the Prairie-type farm. She’d have small numbers of lots of different kinds of animals. She planned on growing a wide variety of crops, but on a scale that would probably be considered a large garden in any place more rural than the suburbs where we live.  She would have a small orchard with lots of different kinds of fruit trees and would have blueberry and raspberry plants, too.  Of course, she would make good use of everything she raised or grew. She would make homemade jams, pickle vegetables, spin yarn and weave cloth. And she promised us incredible homemade farmhouse meals when we visited.


In part to lure me into her embracing her vision of the dream farm, she also planned to have three horses on her farm. She said that one of the horses would be all mine, and even allowed me to pick out the name. I said I would name it Sylvester McMonkey McBean and call it Sly, for short. She said Peter could have his own horse, too. He specifically requested a nag, something whose highest gear would be walk. He planned on naming his Buck-buck McPhee. Emma was going to have a horse of her own that she was going to name Honey. Sarah didn’t want a horse, but Emma said she could ride Honey whenever she visited.


That farm in Half Moon will always live on in my imagination. And when I visit that farm, Emma will be always be right there, waiting for me at the farmhouse door and beckoning me inside to sample her fresh baked biscuits and homemade raspberry jam.