A few weeks ago while my husband patiently carved pumpkins with my boys I was reminded of Halloween 2010. Anthony, my middle son, had just been born, exactly one week before Halloween. In an effort not to diminish the excitement of Halloween for Christian, my parents carved his first pumpkin with him.
It doesn’t take much for me to see them in the kitchen. The newspaper was spread across the table. Two large, bright orange pumpkins sat ready to be carved. Christian, full of energy, wore an old collared white shirt. This was to protect his timely Halloween pajamas. As the first child he always had pajamas for the holidays and only wore them at the appropriate time of year.
Christian’s excitement vibrated throughout the house. The brightness of his smile rivaled the bright orange hue of the pumpkins. My parents assigned him the appropriate jobs of picking which shapes he wanted the eyes, smile and nose to be. After cutting off the top they also gave him the job of scooping out the pumpkin gunk. For an almost three year old boy, this was a great task! He sat with his arms elbow deep in the pumpkin scooping out the flesh.
This is how life is now. I live half in the past and half in the present. Each time my boys experience an event, it is linked in my mind to when Christian experienced it. Sometimes I share my memories with my husband and my boys. Sometimes I keep them to myself. I clutch my memories just as tightly as an elderly woman holds her purse. Fear is the same driver for both of us. The fear for me is that somehow these memories will be taken from me by time.
Time is my enemy and also my friend. The cyclical nature of it helps to perpetuate memories. The repetitiveness of special days, holidays, places we went and things we did are burned into my memory. It is both overwhelmingly sad and beautiful at the same time. As much as the current daily events also spark my memories and sometimes intense sadness, it scares me when his life won’t be as relatable to my children anymore. My fear is as they move out of the easily comparable age range, memories will dissipate and become less relevant. In some ways that is unavoidable. There are numerous milestones and events that Christian never got to experience. Right there the relatability factor is affected.
As much as the above is true I am reminded, as I write this and reflect, of the many things I “thought” child loss would encompass. Some which came to fruition and some that didn’t. The thing is we never quite know what will happen. Immediately after losing Christian I feared my boys would never remember him. This is worlds away from the truth. I worried that my boys would carry on without carrying a piece of their brother with them. Again, quite the contrary. So as much as I project what might occur in the future, I am well aware that none of it may happen. One of my mentors often reminds me, “Don’t borrow trouble”. We have enough in our daily lives. Why become anxious and spend energy worrying about something that may never happen? Love to heaven…
Cara Martinisi 