Calendars

I wrote 2014 lots of times today.  Good practice, I think.  Usually it takes me a good month before I write the new year naturally.  I like a simple ringing in of the new year ...no fanfare.  Turning the calendar is enough for me; turning towards another new year without Phoebe leaves me empty and sad.  Its not that my whole focus is on her and the absence of her.  For sure, my whole life is about my family,  my kids ...their nuances and growth ...the simple act of them being.  I guess it might be like living with an amputation.  Your whole life is so much more than the loss of the limb, and yet it permeates all of your life ...forever.  But losing a child is far more than losing a limb; its more like losing part of your heart.
A new year finds us bombarded with new year's resolutions, determined hopes, plans, dreams.  I join in the banter, but more for fun and lighthearted conversation than any real conviction.  Several years ago I wrote a colorful note for my husband and each of my kids ...wishes and dreams for them in the new year.  I'd made a nice dinner, set a festive table, each plate adorned with their personal note.  Recently, those notes spilled from a box while digging through Christmas decorations.  Somehow they were saved and stored away.  Their discovery gave me pause, a treasured moment of remembering and rest. For that coming year, I'd dreamed Phoebe would ride some really big waves, that she would be the first one in the ocean that year, a title she proudly held for entering the Atlantic on some uncommonly warm day in March most years.  There were other things too, but my wishes really spoke to who she was and the adventure she loved living ...the thrill of pushing limits that I both encouraged, cautioned and sometimes dreaded.
Now too, when I imagine that great reunion with her I see a board under her arm, her hair piled atop her head, t-shirt she's customized, shorts and her forever bare feet.  Her head bends to the side and she swings the board ever so slightly in the direction she wants me to follow. Without words, I fall in step behind her, as I'd done so many times.  And sure enough, she brings me to the ocean.  We stand at the water's edge ...her eyes twinkle, she giggles ...'go on,' I say, 'show me what you know!'  A few steps in, up to her knees she pushes the board ahead and glides her body onto the length of it.  Her arms cut through the water, pulling out beyond the break.  She sits on top of our board, the Harlequin, waiting for the swell.  And because I can stand there and watch ...I know that I'm home.
A long, long time ago, she'd watch me surf from the shallow break with her dad and brother.  She'd insist she could handle the deeper water.  I knew her drive, her intensity and desire, and so I never lasted long out there alone. She'd look for an opportunity to break free from dad's watchful gaze just to get out there with me.   My worry was a distraction.  I'd rather push her in the shallow waves on my board than actually surf myself.  And she preferred that too.  I never became much of a surfer ...but she did.  She outpaced her older brother on the waves, never afraid to give her all for those few moments to fly on water.  Like me, he was more cautious.
I read all of those wishes and dreams I wrote for each child.  Most of them speak to who they are ...still, all these years later.  As a mom, it encouraged me, that I do, in fact, pay attention to each of them, their own specialness. 
Often, I struggle with having missed something very great and pressing with Phoebe.  It's a walk most bereaved parents carry, no matter how a child dies.  Most especially though, when a child dies by suicide, parents are saddled with so many questions and possibilities for preventing the nightmare from happening. Over and over, I examine every detail and aspect to find the one thing I should have said or done that most certainly would have averted Phoebe's death. Guilt plagues us ...me.  But when I stumble across something that proves I'd paid attention and noticed, I am rescued for a little while.
That's not a bad way to start the new year, to see and know I'd paid attention. 
It's the fourth calendar we've changed with her gone.  Neatly tucked away are the ones that capture her last weeks of dentist appointments, soccer games, practices, exam dates.  On those pages she is meshed in with all the others, a choreography of details that make up the tapestry of our family life.  Written so casually and without second thoughts are the details of her last moments ...before she took flight from me.
I guess that's my new year's resolution ...to recognize and witness Phoebe's taking flight.  Those final moments for her could only have held a poignant, excruciating pain so intense she saw nothing but pitch black ...no light streamed in.  But all of our lives are so much more than one moment ...and hers was so much more than most.  Her whole life was about taking flight, soaring beyond the norm.  Whatever chains bound her here, burst her free ...and she took flight home.  Away from me, from us ...toward God.
For a long time, the blow of her death had me fixed on one final, impulsive, outrageous act.  And that all remains true. I will never, ever glorify, or make suicide heroic.  But her life, my life with her, our life as a family, is not defined by how she died ...and how each of us died a little bit too.  Her life is defined in a far greater, robust way.  My life, our lives were both thrilled and challenged by her ...and we still are. 
For 2014 I'll embrace, even more, the way she lived ...not the way she died.  And when I do that, my heart skips a beat.  Phoebe could drain every ounce of energy out of me, and then in moments she could have me doubled in laughter, awed by how alive she was ...and still is. 
So while I keep my front row seats with all my cherubs here, and marvel at all they are, I'll keep a watchful gaze on the waters edge, checking out the waves Phoebe might ride in on.  And one day ...I might just catch a glimpse.
Happy New Year!