Nine Months and a Lifetime

It’s been nine months since I last heard Evelyn’s voice. Nine months ago today, I felt her tiny arms around my neck and her warm cheek upon my right shoulder for the very last time. Nine months ago today, I awoke to every parent’s worst nightmare. Nine months ago today, I prayed and pleaded harder than I ever have for anything in my entire life and was met with silence. There has been a lingering silence ever since that day. This house used to be filled with laughter and little squeals of delight. It has been replaced with stillness, tears, anger, misunderstanding, and grief. All of her belongings are here and every corner of this house is filled with a memory. The place where she took her first steps. The places where we spent hours snuggled up reading books, nursing, singing songs, or taking a nap together. The place on the kitchen counter where she sat each and every time I cooked and where she asked to stir ingredients or lick the spoon. The place where she insisted on peeling my garlic cloves. She loved to cook and I am so sad not to have a daughter to whom I can pass down cooking tips and family recipes. I feel robbed—in absolutely the worst way. Please, world… take all of my physical possessions, my house, my money but please give my little girl back. Her urn sits on a shelf in the living room and has gathered dust. A huge piece of my heart has been gone for nine months, which seems like such a long time, but given the perspective of the average human lifespan, it’s not very long at all when I consider just how many more days I’ll be missing her.

Nine months is the amount of time it takes to grow a full term baby. Evelyn’s ballet teacher discovered she was pregnant the week that Evelyn died. She and her husband had a baby girl last week and named her Evelyn in memory of my daughter. I was altogether shocked, honored, delighted, jealous, and humbled at the news. It means so much to me that they would choose to honor my sweet girl in this way and at the same time I’m so very sad that it had to happen like this. Why does she have to have a baby named after her because she died? Why couldn’t she just stay? I want to watch my own Evelyn grow up and it’s not fair that I can’t.

Thanksgiving is in two weeks. Christmas decorations have been up in stores for a while. I am actually really looking forward to spending time with family and friends at Thanksgiving because I love to cook and I love to eat. Like most people, the Christmas season begins immediately following Thanksgiving and I’m absolutely dreading that part. Evelyn was my shopping buddy. We loved spending our days together. I will still put up all 6 of our stockings, but dread leaving hers empty on Christmas Eve. I’m scared to put up a Christmas tree and see all of her special ornaments. Evelyn loved having a Christmas tree and seeing all of the lights. She sat in front of it mesmerized for long periods of time and was incredibly sad when we took it down and put it away last year. While she cried as we took it to the curb, I remember assuring her we would put one up each year.

It’s such a special time of year, heavy laden with traditions and it makes me sick just anticipating the greater evidence that she’s not here with us this year. She absolutely completed our family and nothing seems right without her. This will be the first year I won’t be sending out Christmas cards. I make no apologies. I just don’t want to. I have nothing to say. Evelyn used to say all the time, “I have a secret. I want you for Twissmas.” And then she would give butterfly kisses. Baby girl, all I want for Twissmas is you.

The bottom of our Christmas tree skirt has our 6 handprints on it and I’m afraid to take it out of the box and look at it. A coworker of mine here in Kentucky lost her husband suddenly in September of 2013, our first year here. I never told her this until after Evelyn died, but that year I was consumed with the idea that as her family put away holiday decorations the year before, they never imagined it would be their last Christmas together. Nobody ever knows for certain when their last time together will be. Life is so precious. I wanted to memorialize our family that year in particular, just in case something ever happened to us (of course never imagining that it actually would). And while I’m scared to look at those handprints, I’m so glad I made them.  While it hurts so much more than anyone can dare to dream not having my little girl here with me any longer, I’m overwhelmed with love and gratitude that she was here with us for a time. That she was really here and her life and death not only impacted, but changed me forever. I have both physical and heart evidence that she made an imprint on this world.

Because you never know when your last moment with someone you care about will be, make the moments count. Be intentional. Make memories together. Take lots of pictures. Make that phone call. Show up. Miles and money don’t matter. Hug them a little tighter, a little longer. Maybe even until it’s almost awkward. Forgive the ones you love. Tell them you love them and tell them why—while you’re both still alive and can appreciate each other. You never know when the moment will come that you’ll wake up and they’ll be gone. Nobody is too young or too healthy to be gone in an instant and for a lifetime. Pour out love. You’ll never regret it.

Written by Melissa