The Mixing

Grief is like mixing ingredients for baking cookies for me. There’s the intent to bake something for an occasion that’s festive or a celebration like a birthday or holiday party. My focus is on the end result of seeing the cookies at the event and thinking of other details of the party or the people who will be there to enjoy being together-all while going through the process of mixing ingredients and baking. Yet, I’ll be caught off guard unexpectedly by an object used to mix or an ingredient or package that sparks a memory of doing that activity with my Erin.

Tonight that activity is taking down the Christmas tree at the start of a new year. The Christmas season is over, and so many ornaments have significance for Erin as well as the other children in our family-new children- including a picture of scared Lucy with Santa and the boys’ favorite Marvel characters, as well as a wren bird for our free-spirited blonde, Wren. They mark new memories of the children in the present while also savoring memories of our Erin, who was always a child throughout her 18 years with us. Packing away symbols of her favorite things in life that brought her joy jolt my heart as an unexpected ingredient in the moment-her Disney princesses, Curious George, Alvin and the Chipmunks, the bird with feathers that would remind her not to be afraid of feathers because it was her name.

These tasks of packing away the season mix into important preparations of what’s next in a new year and drive me to look ahead. Yet, each year takes me further away from the last time I looked into Erin’s eyes and wondered what she was thinking about..or the last time I heard her laugh or heard her voice. And, I never want to forget what that sounded like or how I felt looking into her face while trying to read where she was inside of herself in the moment.

So, I welcome the moments that unexpectedly jolt my memory and bring her close to me in the mixing of the new life with the old where I remember her joy in the anticipation of the holidays as if it was always her very first Christmas. May I always find her and that joy in this holiday, see her sense of excited anticipation in my mind, and take something I have learned from her and that I need in the present into my new year-whether it is her determination or stubbornness or her ability to find joy within herself and in being at home and with those she has loved in life.