Little lights
Today, Isla’s 11th birthday, was an especially tough one. Each year, it gets a little tougher to get what I think I need out of her special day, because I’ve not got three robust boys vying for my attention.
Our birthday custom is to put out her pictures and clothes and momentos, eat a cheesecake breakfast together, and spend time watching videos and taking some family photos.
This year, everything went wrong. We went to the store to pick out a balloon boquet, but the boys were arguing and whining the entire time. It was a busy Sunday morning, and after impatiently waiting for five minutes (OK it might have been more like two minutes) for someone to help me at the balloon counter while the boys ran around like banshees, I grabbed one off the stand by the self check out and declared it done. It was an expensive 3’ tall Elmo balloon that was more for Marco than it was for Isla (or really, for me) - and it lasted all of ninety seconds until we got into the car and Marco promptly ripped it into shreds in a fit of glee. I felt just like that damn Elmo balloon, deflated and fill of holes, and sorry for myself besides.
So I didn’t do the normal stuff. I pulled out her box but couldn’t bring myself to go through it. I didn’t hang up her giant photo in the kitchen or light her a birthday candle or sing. I kept getting bounced out of the website when I tried to watch her videos. Every missed instance felt like a shut door, another little defeat, and even a suggestion that the little party I was trying to throw was becoming a pity party for myself instead of a celebration of her.
But so many good things happened today, if I only knew to look for them. Long-lost friends reached out to commemorate her. My parents lit a candle in Isla’s memory. Friends and family called and wrote. I ran into a friend in the grocery store, just at the moment when I felt I was about to explode into a constellation of nerves. I finally got into my video cache and was able to watch movies of her with the boys in my lap, which they told me at bedtime was their favorite part of the day. A dear friend showed up at my house with a butterfly balloon to replace the stupid Elmo one I had cried about to her on the phone.
And just like that first terrible night, when Isla was born and taken across the city to another hospital for treatment and I told Dan to stay with her and found myself all alone in a hospital bed with a freaky staple C-section smile across my abdomen, little lights came on around me as people shared their love and kindness. It’s always such a good reminder that it’s not about me - it’s about her. It’s letting the light from her life continue to shine by making the space for however it shows up, however imperfectly. It’s letting people say and do kind things and sharing my grief with them, even after all these years.
It doesn’t matter if it’s her birthday, or just another day. I want my boys to remember Isla as something that brings mama love and compassion, not a nervous breakdown in the balloon aisle. I want to see and remember each little light that her life continues to give around me through other people. And there’s still more cake to eat and her things to go through tomorrow.
