Signs

I meant to write this post on New Year’s Day. Two weeks late isn’t too bad. Most days I am lucky if I can get up, shower and accomplish one or two other tasks. Grief is a monster and the grief that accompanies losing a child is a particular kind of psychic torture that I would not wish on anyone. But this is a topic for another post. Probably many other posts.

For the past two years we’ve had a jar in our dining room where we add memories throughout the year. This was started in the post-COVID era in an attempt to highlight all of the things we have to be thankful for. On New Year’s Eve we sit down and pull them out one by one remembering all of the great times we enjoyed together throughout the year. Since Maisa died, it has pained me to see this jar, knowing that there would be no more family memories added in Maisa’s handwriting, no more memories that include Maisa here in her physical body. On New Year’s Eve I walked by it many times wondering when we should open it. I would glance at it with anticipation of seeing the memories inside, especially the ones that Maisa had written, but I was hesitant to open the floodgates of emotion that surely would accompany reading each note. 

Finally, around 9 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, James, the boys, and I sat down on the couch and opened our 2023 family memory jar. We took turns pulling each note out, one by one, and reading the memories, recalling the good times we had throughout the year: hunting for star garnets, lacrosse games and tournaments, skiing, family poker nights, national parks, camping trips, concerts, a trip to San Francisco, and many more fun times together. It’s hard to believe that so much joy can co-exist with so much suffering. But that is the nature of life isn’t it? And in the midst of our immense suffering now, we desperately search for the moments of joy each day. The times that we can laugh, even for a moment, while holding the pieces of our broken hearts. Maisa would want that. 

After the last memory was pulled from the jar, Sawyer stood up from the couch revealing one last piece of paper which looked like a fortune from a fortune cookie that said, “Angels are among us; when you find them, cherish their presence everyday.” When we went to San Francisco this summer we stayed in a hotel near Chinatown. The hotel had fortune cookies in the lobby and the kids often grabbed one on the way back up to the room. I asked the boys if they remembered putting this one in the jar. Neither of them could recall putting it in there. I think Maisa left it there for us and it is a sign that she is still here with us.

Sawyer and I spent the last hour of 2023 sharing memories of Maisa in her room and watching the fireworks above downtown Boise from her bedroom window. In his last post James described how when we change time zones or states in the car we would all hold hands so the kids in the back seat would not get left behind, even for a moment. Ringing in 2024 in Maisa’s room was our way of not leaving her behind, a twist on the time zone or state line version of the car game. But she could never be left behind, because she is always in our hearts. Maisa is part of us, she is an angel among us, and she is always with us. She is not with us in the way we want her to be, but she is still here, watching over us and sending us signs.