It is Christmas

It is Christmas time. Children are everywhere. I look at couples with children. Families. It seems like a group or club, I no longer belong to. That I never belonged to. A lie I made up.

It is as though I invented a life full of detail, in which I gave birth to three beautiful children. A grand hallucination, and all a lie.

I grieve daily, over and over, many deaths. The death of my role as a mother. The deaths of my children from my life.

At Christmas time, I remember decorating the tree with ornaments they made at school. Usually the ornament had a photo of their little face at the center. We baked cookies and frosted them, wrapped gifts.

I remember snuggling them, my nose in their hair. Each of them smelled different. My oldest had a sweet, soft smell, my middle was pungent, my youngest a combination of the two. Their smells were the same from the time they were babies till I saw them last.

It would be easier, it seems, if it were a beautiful and sad lie. A life I concocted for myself that never truly existed. A story of a family with three very real-seeming children, dogs and cats, rabbits and lizards and birds, mismathced socks,video games blaring through the house, kids yelling, "Mom, mom, mom, mooooommmm!!" A story I read. That I imagined to be true. Christmases of Barbie, and Power Rangers, Star Wars and candy, baking cookies and going to grandma's, wrapping gifts and hiding them under the bed. Putting my kids in flannel pajamas for Christmas Eve that were much too warm for Southern California.

I cannot talk about my kids without feeling I am lying. When I tell stories of things that have happened, I feel I have no right to the stories. I feel the stories belong to my children now. That I am not suppossed to have even the memories.

So Christmas time is here. And I have plenty of memories that I feel are not mine to have. And plenty of stories that I feel are not mine to tell.

Halloween

Dear Children,
It is almost Halloween. At the holidays I become sadder than usual. I remember decorating with you at the holidays, and r of course, at Halloween. Tanith, you really liked to decorate with me, but you boys liked it too. Less as you got older. And Tanith, you were only just eleven when I last saw you.

We would hang plastic ghosts in the trees in our front yard, and wrap orange lights around the picket fence. We had skeletons to hang on the porch, and black cats. The last Halloween I had with you kids, you boys were thirteen and fifteen. Tanith, you went out trick or treating with your girlfriends and one or two of their mothers. I remember you wore pink and I helped you put on eyeliner and eye makeup. I think you were dressed as one of the Bratz dolls. I haven't heard of them lately. Bratz. But then, why would I? I work primarily with boys.

I think of you all the time. I wonder if I am feeling sorry for myself. I think that maybe working with kids is a bad thing, that it makes me think of you more. I go over and over in my head what happened and what I could have done to change it. I think of how little I valued the time I had with you, how I was always tired, how I wish I had played with you more, listened, paid attention. How true it is when they say to enjoy your children because they grow up so fast.

Now Levi, you are grown up. You are nineteen. A man. I worry about you. I worry because you have autism, and I worry about how, and if you are functioning in the world. And Keegan, you are a young man playing guitar in a rock band. I worry about you having girlfriends, how you are doing in school, if you're using drugs or alcohol, how you are coping emotionally. And Tanith, my baby girl. You are becoming a young woman now. I worry about you going through your young womanhood with no mother to guide you. I know you have a step-mother, but she is scarcely older than you.

Oh, my children. You are still my babies. How does one let go? What can I do? I think, well, what does one do in situations like these? Should I try to help others so I don't think of my own pain? But, what would I tell someone in a situation like mine? I have no help to give you?


It is almost Halloween. Every year during grade school you kids had Halloween parades at school. For many years Keegan and Levi, you dressed as Power Rangers. Tanith, the last year I saw you, for Halloween you did dress as a Bratz doll, I remember now. Pink velour and the shoes you had with heels. Every year I made chili on Halloween and we'd carve pumpkins that day.

I wish I had known how precious all those moments with you chilren were. Maybe I did know. I just didn't know I wouldn't have moments anymore.

Remembering

I don't want to feel sad anymore. Sad, sad. Everything still makes me think of my kids. Seeing a lizard. My car. Putting capers in a salad. Going to the beach. Doing laundry. Watching a movie. Sad, empty,lost.

I don't want to feel sad. I've been sad for three years.

In the beginning, I felt ripped apart, literally. A week away from my children was an eternity. Not hearing their voices, not touching their skin, not pressing my face in their hair.

Now, I tell stories of them. Over and over. It is as if they have died and I am keeping them alive with remembrances. I tell stories to new friends. They haven't met my children but they know them through stories.

How Keegan as a five year old called the Tahoe the Toe-ha. How Levi's pet rat Nicky, got pregnant by Keegan's rat named Jason, and then how Levi rushed into my bedroom waking me up at six in the morning calling out, "Mommy, mommy, Nicky's birthing her babies!"

How Keegan's pet rat Jason was named after Keegan's favorite Power Ranger. And then how Jason met an early demise when Tanith at two and a half years old was holding Jason and then suddenly threw him in the air to see if he could fly.

Tanith loved capers and ate them straight from the jar. Levi never had mathcing socks on school mornings so I'd tell him to go find some in the dirty clothes basket. Keegan named my favorite beach "Squirrel Beach" because of all the squirrels in the cliffs along it. Whenever we shopped for shoes Tanith insisted on trying on the high heels. Because of my children, I have seen every Disney movie made from 1993-2007.

In the beginning, I watched alot of movies (no Disney), to try to forget for just a moment. Often, then and now, I imagine I am in jail, or away at war, and that is why I can't see my kids. I remember, there are other people who haved loved ones they miss terribly, that they can't be with.

Sometimes, my memories make me happy. Other times, they are like a punch in the gut leaving me gasping for air.

The Last Time I Saw My Daughter

I work with kids now. I see kids everyday. I work as an Instructional Assistant in Special Education with fourth and fifth graders. I enjoy it. But some days it makes me really sad.

My daughter was in fifth grade--had just graduated actually, and turned eleven, the last time I saw her.

I see little girls every day at work that remind me of my daughter. Skinny, all legs, with thick chestnut hair. Every little girl of around eleven who was skinny and had that auburn chestnut hair used to remind me of my daughter.

I never thought it would be the last time I saw her. She was going for the weekend with her dad, and I had just taken her to LA to a Hillary Duff concert. I bought her all the stuff: Hillary Duff t-shirt, sweat shirt, purse, because I felt so bad for the pain her dad's and my separation was causing her.

She was upset with me when she left. I think I'd asked her to clean her room and she exploded at me and left in a huff when her dad drove up. She left all the Hillary Duff things behind.