My Deceased Daughter’s Birthday

Written in real-time on Laura’s Birthday, July 13, 2023

My Deceased Daughter’s Birthday

Written on Laura’s Birthday, in real-time on July 13, 2023

July 13, 2023:

I woke up at 7:30 today, went downstairs to see Paul off to work. We looked at each other and both said, Happy Birthday Laura! Paul had just taken a week off from work, so he could not take Laura’s Birthday off. Some years he can and some years I spend the days alone. I have a teacher's schedule and I am always off on Laura’s birthday. During the first years of Laura’s absence we would have met a friend or two at the cemetery and then for breakfast to talk about Laura. With the passing of more than two decades, I am alone more often, to fend for myself during the daylight hours of Laura’s birthdays, of which there have been many since she died, 22 years ago. 

Today is July 13, Laura’s birthday. Today I am here alone, with my memories, my thoughts, and feelings. I sit here with a kind of permeable surrealist awareness of the ongoing conflict of two realities weaving in and out of my mind; of birthdays spent with Laura and those spent without her. Granted, I do live every day with the eternal presence of Laura’s absence, but never is this void more real than when the ephemeral dagger visits my heart, on the day the child I had to bury was born.  

The uncharted territory of being in parental grief is closest to the heart every year on Laura’s birthday.  One could argue that this sword penetrates deeper on the anniversary date of when a loved one died. For a bereaved parent, there are no rules, no guidelines or generalized truths that can be predicted by others or even of oneself. I say that living with the loss of a child is always living in uncharted territory. Each day, each year, each death memorial, and each birthday can bring about the unthinkable and the unimaginable, as well as the predictable emotions and feelings. A multitude of competing thoughts and sensations can travel through our minds and bodies from minute to minute and hour to hour. In one moment a celebratory sense of joy can be felt on my deceased child’s birthday; as I reflect on her birth, who she was, and how we were the luckiest people in the world to be Laura’s parents. Soon enough the dull ache of emptiness settles in and fills the black hole with what remains from living unresolved; with speculations of why, of what could have been, what should have been, and with the ever vacillating feelings of gratitude and devastation. 

And then the knife….the word barren enters my mind; not of a woman unable to bear a child, but of one who could not keep her child alive. I push the unbearable away.

A popular belief exists that there is a healing timetable which automatically softens the pain of loss, lessens the sting, and allows a griever to heal because of and through the passage of time. For some this is true. For me and other bereaved parents this may only be true in the first few years of grief when one travels away from the initial assault of that dark stab of death, the shock, and the horror of the realization that this is permanent; your unborn infant, baby, child, teen, or adult offspring has been taken away from you, as if kidnapped by the grim reaper without a ransom note, with no ability to bargain and negotiate.

For me, and for many other long-hauler bereaved parents, the passage of time does not necessarily diminish grief, rather it adds on to it. Living in a capsule of grief and floating through the world invisible, the seasoned bereaved parent’s despair is always there, but now only visible to one’s self.

 As the days turn to months, and the years turn to decades, the heartache of parental grief mellows into the habitual way one lives with profound loss; much in the way a person with an amputated leg manages to learn to adapt, to navigate the world in a new way.  The bereaved parent has no visible prosthesis to alert onlookers that trauma has occurred, and is being managed. The wound, the hole, the pain from the lack of one’s child, this missing piece invisible to others, becomes integrated within our beings like a bacteria resistant to antibiotics. It lives within us growing and subsiding. It never dies. This sadness, this loss that there is no real word for, and no cure for, can flare up and rear its ugly head to haunt us, then back down and recede into a sort of remission, before it takes on the form of a dull ache.

This grief that accompanies us daily, lives alongside another often stronger visitor; the spirit and life force of one’s deceased child, of whose strength and brightness can fill us up and guide us when we struggle to find a path forward.

Today, on Laura’s birthday, I will lament the loss of Laura not being here with me, but I will not allow myself to be dimmed and demolished by my grief on this sacred day of her birth. Unlike April 26, the day that Laura died, the day that she was born shall be celebrated in some way, to honor who Laura was, and for how she graced our lives.  As I sit here with my memories sorting through photos of Laura’s birthdays passed, I remember the happy ones when she was here, as well as the enduring ones since she's been gone. I contemplate for a moment, that we celebrated 14 birthdays when Laura was alive and 22 birthdays since she died, and that there have been more birthdays without Laura, than with her by our sides. I continue to contemplate and strain to see Laura in my mind, as she might look now if she were here today turning 37 year old on this birthday. Instead, I see the golden radiant face of my Laura, as she was, frozen in time at 14 years old. She looks at me with her loving eyes and smiles at me in my mind's eye. I whisper happy birthday. I feel us missing each other as we connect. Then I imagine that Laura would look the same, just as beautiful, but be bigger- grown up. I decide that there is no use in contemplating what would have been or what could have been; it only yields more pain.  I choose instead to find a way to honor Laura today, on her day, the day she came into our world, the day we became her parents, the best day of our life we had said.

In a small album, I spy a photo of Laura and her younger cousin Melissa wearing the tie dye dresses I made for them for a joint birthday party. Laura was born on July 13 and Melissa on July 16.  I get an idea. I search my closet and drawers for a white tee shirt, and find the tie dye kit I have been saving for years for no apparent reason. I know what to do.  Today I will tie dye a shirt for myself in honor of Laura. I will do for myself what I did for Laura every year. I will prepare an activity and surprise myself, just like I would have done for Laura on her birthdays. 

Today while I lament the heaviness of Laura’s absence, I will also lift myself up to clear out that sadness by tending to tie dye, and in essence to Laura. When I tend to the cloth, the tie, and the dye, I will sustain a loving touch, just as I did when I made those dresses for Laura and Melissa years ago. I will make this a sacred process; planning, tying, pouring, and infusing the cloth with Laura’s favorite colors (purple, blue, turquoise), wrapping it in plastic, then letting it sit for 8 hours, to rest, gestate, and be still.

I will go out with Paul for supper, to one of Laura’s favorite restaurants. We will walk the beach she loved, and share our favorite memories of Laura.

Just before midnight, when it’s still Laura’s birthday, I will return to the cloth. I will gently unwrap and languidly rinse it, and snip the ties to reveal the results of my day; the simmering tie dye and the fluid collective thoughts and memories of Laura on her birthday.   

                          ~~~

Laura’s birthday was a milestone each year. Since we lived with a child with congenital heart disease, every birthday was monumental, a miracle. It marked our gratitude for the previous year, of being gifted another year of Laura’s life. It also marked the hope and prayer of a future, of one more year ahead, and the hope for many more. For Laura, her birthday was a joyous day, of great fun, of bringing her loved ones together, and of watching her parents plan her yearly grand event in the backyard of our home. Paul and I never took Laura’s birthdays for granted and neither did she. Nor did our friends, or her friends, and our families who would travel to attend the yearly parties to celebrate the glory of Laura while she reveled in all the fun and attention she received from all who loved her. 

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The birthday Tie Dye