Life is a series of small tragedies, big tragedies, small joys, and big joys, interspersed by a lot of travel time, vacuuming, and potatoes. I'm sure I was made aware of this up in Heaven before I chose to come to Earth, but of course, there's no way to know what any of that actually means without coming here and being born with straight hair when you want curly hair while your curly-haired sister would love nothing more from life than straight hair. There's no way to know how excruciating even the small tragedies can be.
I sometimes feel gypped. As a friend once said in a comment on my blog, when I get back to the place I've come from, I'm going to punch pre-existent me. She was an idiot who didn't know what she was talking about.
One of the small tragedies that breaks my heart, or maybe it's a big tragedy, is the memories that slip away. I say, "is the memories", which sounds grammatically incorrect, because I'm lumping the slipperiness of memories into one big (or small) tragedy.
Specifically, the lost memory that will haunt me until that day in Heaven when I hope I can take my memories out of a picture frame and replay them before myself, is that of my 3-year-old right now.
Not even Lulu, actually. Any of my 3-year-olds will do. I'm quite confident that the love I feel for Lulu is the same love I felt for each of my children at this stage. Except... hmm. Maybe not. Because I was really depressed when Josie was three. And when Montana was three he was reading the Magic Treehouse series by himself and researching spina bifida on Google because he wanted to know what it was, so he just didn't have that same innocence. And Daisy? I hate to say this but I don't even remember. We were relocating our family when she was three.
Is it okay to say that at some point in each of their development, I felt the same fatty, sweet, salty, glistening love for them as I feel for Lulu right now? As long as I felt it at some point, that's all that matters, right?
I've always LOVED them, of course, even when I wanted to shake them like Etch-a-Sketches. But I'm not talking about affection or biological attachment.
I'm worried about missing her laugh as I tickle her neck. Crazy kid. Why does she like being tickled so much? My laughter when tickled is really tortured angst with a personality disorder. She asks for it again and again, so she must genuinely like it.
I'm worried that her hair won't be so fine and yellow when I twirl it around my finger. I'm worried that I'll forget what it felt like to cradle her in my arms. I'm afraid that I'll forget what her voice sounds like when she says, "Mommy, your breaf is gooood. I want it. I want to eat your breaf." ("Breaf"=breath, not breast. But she's still obsessed with those too, always asking to pat them when they're nude.)
I'll forget the creamy new-jar-of peanut-butter softness of her skin and the perfect curve of her cheek and the way her perfect movie star lips join up with her cheek as she's in nighttime repose, unaware that I'm there staring, trying to burn her picture into my brain.
And it's so funny how her full lips turn into this cute, thin smile and her big blue eyes become squinty friendliness. She gets that from her dad. The rest of the children have my eyes that stay big when we smile.
And the tiny dimple in her chin! Ahh! I always thought I didn't care for chin dimples, especially in girls, until LULU had one. And now it's the prettiest dimple Biology ever crafted.
I'm terrified.
What will happen when I can't remember anymore? When it seems like her nowness is all there ever was, will I lose this feeling? Of course I will. It's the loss of innocence. Kittens grow into cats, puppies grow into devils, and 3-year-olds grow into pimples with teenagers on them.
The kicking of our heads at night as we [try to] sleep, the fake-out pee breaks at the mall while we're trying to eat our poutine, the potted plants in the bathtub, the crayon all over the walls, the pink glitter glue stuck to my dining room table, the crying, the calling her sister "stupid" everyday because she heard me say that word once, the cutting of her curly blond hair... all a gift from a wise Father in Heaven to make it easier to cope with the devastating loss of innocence and baby breath and flawless creamy bodies and squeaky small voices.
I have a hope, that gets me through the sadness, that there will be a hallway in my heavenly mansion, the walls decorated with large, gaudy gold frames, and in the frames will be frozen babies and toddlers and 9-year-olds, pinned to the wall. I will be able to take them down, these memories so real and life-like that they can be framed, and play with them and hold them to my breast (the babies, not the 9-year-olds) and comfort their cries and tickle their necks.
I have to believe that some day, all that I've lost will be mine again. I'm a selfish, needy girl.
Daily Gratitudes
- I have so much of what cannot be purchased. So much of what friends and strangers would give their legs or arms for. I know it. I thank God everyday in prayer. I wouldn't trade any amount of worldliness for my children.
- I have clean, running water.
- I have the ability to fix almost any problem that really bothers me. At some point, after enough effort, most things can be fixed, if only by reframing my thinking.
- Even when my two laptops die, a regular occurrence, I have this old beast of a desktop downstairs that I can write on when I NEED to, HAVE to, lest I have to break out a pen and paper, something I hate to do because Perfectionist Me hates how messy her handwriting gets when writing quickly and she can't write quickly enough to keep up with the thoughts.
- I'm going to arrange a date with my husband tonight. I miss him.
- BONUS: I know basic html to fix formatting problems when Typepad goes screwy for no reason.
