Grieve unabashedly

Grief comes in waves.

I feel fine. I’m feeling productive, getting things accomplished, and then I stumble upon photos from 10 years ago. In one cherished photo, Sophie is two, maybe nearly three. She is sitting on my lap along with the baby of a friend. Her blonde hair is thin and wispy, and her face is stained with what looks like pop tart frosting smeared over a jovial, innocent smile. Or maybe that’s a kool-aid stain. Whatever it is, it is the unmistakable evidence of childhood. 

We are sitting on the sofa in my tiny apartment I rented when I was a single mom making twelve bucks an hour. We struggled. My days started early and ended late. Sometimes I bounced checks to buy groceries or pay for child care.

As now, Sophie fought sleep, even then. I found the best and sometimes only way to get her to reliably succumb to sleep was to follow a strict bedtime routine. It involved a warm bath followed by lounging together on the sofa watching an HBO production of Goodnight Moon on VHS. I didn’t have cable, the T.V. I had was tiny, and the VCR old. We sometimes had to bang on the side of the T.V. to prevent lines from rolling up from the bottom of the screen.

We’d lie there together on the sofa in the dark quiet of my tiny apartment, Sophie in her fleece nightgown and Elmo slippers cradled in the cuff of my arm. In that tender nook, she would drift off to sleep finally, sippy cup still in hand.

We had very little by way of material possessions then, but in so many ways, my life seemed more fulfilling – richer in all the ways that matter the most.

Last March, just before her thirteenth birthday, Sophie moved out of my home and in with her father in Cleveland.What followed, for me, was a string of grief-filled days, unrelenting and tenacious.

Tonight, when those pictures surfaced, I found myself bursting with tears and grief, wandering my dark empty halls howling from heartache for my firstborn.

 

Maybe I howl for a simpler time. I wish I could take back those happy days, preserve them. Maybe that’s what I love about photography: moments sealed on film, preserved smiles of innocence.

I wonder how long it will take before my kids know how much I love them. I love them even when they scream at me, red-faced and brazen with raging hormones of a 12 year old. I love them, even when they pick all of the berries out of the “Special K Red Berries” cereal and keep them for themselves. I loved them even while breastfeeding them through teething. I love them for all of their splendor and their not-so-graceful moments, through all of the hurt and joy, pain and triumph.

I love my girls so, so much. 

For today, #1 on my bucket list, I allow myself to grieve unabashedly. Instead of ruminating about a past I cannot change, however, I vow to take steps toward making tomorrow a day I won't have to look back on with regret.