Her Suitcase (written yesterday)

Me and my siblings sorting through Mom's things before the funeral

None of this makes sense...trying to rescue her from among the filth. Her helmet, her make up, her sobriety chip, her grocery list. None of the clothes smell like her. Everything worth saving fits in one carry-on suitcase. Is this all that's left of her life?

 - from my journal after collecting her belongings-

And so it happened that everything in that suitcase became a representation of her. A symbol of my loss. A reminder of her suicide. For the last year I let a simple piece of luggage become a tomb of sorts. Stuffed full of anything I had thought to grab from her hotel room that night, it was a chaotic jumble of painful memories that haunted my closet.

Like my thoughts and feelings, her suitcase is more organized than it was last year. I can go through it without falling into the darkest of pits - though many things do still bring me to tears.

Today, on the anniversary of her passing, I looked through those few belongings again and had a number of different reactions:

I felt grateful to her for writing my birth story.

I felt angry as I witnessed her last writings disentigrate into meaningless babble. So angry that mental illness took her from me.

I felt incredibly sad to read the list of things she wanted for her life - an ambitious list written just weeks before her death.

I felt loved and absolutely torn apart to read the wishes my 16 year old mother wrote for my own life. She wished for me a life of love and abundance. She said that she enjoyed carrying me for nine months and that she would enjoy loving me for the rest of my life.

Those words stuck in my gut today.

Today I decided to move my baby book from her suitcase into my own hope chest. Decided to work some of the clothing items she had purchased for the girls into their rotation. Decided to throw away some of her well meaning gifts that I knew we would never use. I snuggled her girlhood bunny and listened to her voice in a book she recorded for Eleanor.

Today I hugged a suitcase and wailed against the heavens that there wasn't more of her left for me.

Today I stood up to that shrine and began to take it apart.

Just like this grief, her life, and her death - I'm learning to unpack it a bit at a time. I'm learning how to work pieces of it into my life instead of keeping it sealed in the closet forever.

Today I am grateful that I don't hate that suitcase as fiercely as I did one year ago.
I'm grateful to feel my heart healing, in the tiniest and most significant ways.
And that's what I thought about today.

Thinking Back

Tonight I am remembering where I was a year ago.

(And the thoughts are not easily expressed, but here they are anyway)

Ft. Tryon was awakening to spring with cheerful daffodils and the tiniest buds on the trees. Ellie collected eggs in my purse and greeted the Easter Bunny with gusto. I held our new daughter on my chest while our slightly older one hid under the table and opened her eggs in secret, eager for the candy inside. We were on an outing as a family of four - celebrating with friends and neighbors the newness of spring and the upcoming Easter holiday. Feeling good just to be together.

I look at the girl in these photos - a mother of two, yes, but still just a girl of 25. I see her and think, "She was so happy. And tired. And blissfully unaware of what was about to happen."  

Is that why it happened? Because I let my guard down? Because I was enjoying my life? Should I have known that innocence like that can never last?

Of course not. But those are the questions I have when I see these photos.

Worn out from my newborn baby, I hadn't yet known the exhaustion of grief.

Still changing and adjusting to our new life, about to be knocked to the ground with the hardest news.

I've looked at these pictures a lot in the last year. There I was, the day before my world came crashing down.

 Those beautiful cheeks, that cheesy grin - the moment I took this photograph I thought of my mom, knew how much she would love it when I sent it to her.

My heart was so full on this day. And the next day it was broken. These photos still leave me with a strange mix of emotions: A longing for the days before pain was visible in my eyes, sadness for the girl who doesn't know what is to come, anger for the babes that would witness their mother's consuming grief. There is also a sense of wisdom and peace. A feeling that I am so far removed from the girl in these photos. So changed. And that isn't such a bad thing. Growth means change.

Tomorrow marks a year since Mom died.

I've had a year to live this new version of my life. I've had one year to think about the effects that her life and death have had on me. At this point in the journey I think I will pause and try to write a bit about what it all has meant to me thus far. Not to memorialize her, per se, but to check in with where I am. To write a bit about the things I've been avoiding writing about for the last months. To try to organize some of my thoughts - while understanding that none of them are finished. The emotions are still shifting and probably always will.

One year is not the end of my journey, but it does seem a good time to look back and reflect. 

We are Family (the song that is stuck in my head)

Historically, February is my least favorite month. This year, though, February was brightened considerably by visits from two of my siblings. It was awesome! I can't believe how grown up my baby sister is. Ellie and Wren just love Aunt Samantha and we all had a great time. One of our stops, of course had to be the Science Center here in town.

Seriously, this place has saved my sanity. We love having it so close! The girls enjoy it so much that it can be hard to get them to pose for photos - as evidenced below.

We also took Aunt Sam to Purity Ice Cream. 

Let it be known, if you make a silly face at my camera, I will post it on the internet to embarrass you.

Other highlights of her trip included:

campus tour of Cornell (freezing)

Chili-fest on the commons (double freezing)

sister's night and dessert at Madeline's

Cooking Indian food together

Watching Pride and Prejudice with our good friends, Ben & Jerry

Lots of dress ups and ticking with Ellie and Wren

 

Since it had been so many years since Sam and I have spent much time together, I thought we should have some photos taken. My friend Sheena happily obliged and I just love the pictures she took of all of us girls! Yes, that is a frozen waterfall behind us, and yes, we are working it like professional models.

Wren and Sheena's little girl hung out in the frozen wasteland while we took some sister shots.

And then someone had had enough of this nonsense, so we headed home to thaw out.

But first Sheena snapped this rare shot of Wren and I together.

 I had such a great time being with my little sister again and we decided that this needs to become a yearly tradition. Sister's Visits rock!

Uncle Sean came to visit as well, but this is the only photo I have of him.

His was a much shorter visit,

and it involved 7 hours of driving,

and we mostly slept in and watched YouTube videos.

But at least we took him to the Science Center!

As cute as Wren is in her little winter hat, I'm dying for the days

when we can leave it at home.

That's the end of this long, long, photo-dumping post.

Winter is upon us...still

The Internet is abuzz with the impending arrival of Spring. Pinterest is full of summer dresses and Easter crafts and gardens in full bloom. To all this I say, "Pish Posh." Yes, Ithaca is still in the firm grasp of Winter. I can see now how the Internet is full of lies and deception. Nothing you see online is real. Well, except for this. Let it be known that I was keeping it honest here - it's cold people!

I snapped these images on our way home from the Dicken's Festival in December.

It still looks a lot like this now.

But grayer.

Minus the cheerful wreathes.

Minus the cozy candles in the window.

To get these wintery images all I had to do was roll down the window and completely freeze out my family as Joe drove through the countryside.

There were some complaints (kids crying, husband fake sniffling) but sometimes the world is just too beautiful to let it pass by your window.

When Spring finally does arrive, I will celebrate with the best of them.

Until then we'll just continue to hunker down, reading books, making crafts,

and drinking buckets of hot chocolate.

Fashion Friday - 2012 retrospective

Ellie says, in 2012, matching outfits were in.

According to Wren, bows were out.

For Christmas, I wanted to get a couple nice portraits of the girls. You know, something they could look back on in 30 years and cherish. I was really aiming for a classic one of the sisters together. And since I'm a photographer I thought, "No problem. I'll shoot these myself and it will be great. Who needs JC Penny or other lame photo services? Not me. I'll get loads of pictures like these":

But when it came to the photo of the two of them together, they were...less than cooperative. 10 minutes into it and I would have paid big bucks for a cheesy background and a stuffed animal above the tripod to get those girls to look in the same direction. Joe was the stylist/wrangler for this shoot and he gave the girls a good talking to about our expectations for their modeling.

I don't think they took him very seriously.

So instead of a single photo of the two of them looking at the camera and smiling,

what I got was a whole lot of outtakes.

Those girls. They have more spunk than they know what to do with.

And we love them for it.

OK, sometimes in spite of it.