grieving with guinever

I wrote this about 2 months after my daughter’s death.

The night after the funeral, someone pulled me aside and gave me an envelope that the funeral director had given her. She told me that it contained Abby’s sandals. I felt it and it seemed like maybe it contained more than her sandals. Her shirt, shorts, something else? I was afraid to open it.

Tonight, eight weeks later, I finally opened the envelope. I really didn’t think I’d ever open it. Or maybe I wouldn’t open it for a very long time. I imagined putting it in the wooden chest that Todd is going to make and sending everything up to the attic with a note attached, “Abby’s sandals. Never opened.”

Tonight as my house is silent, I sit here thinking about my baby girl. I gaze at the proof of her gravestone that I’ve signed off on. I think of Val, the artist who has taken the time to sketch her face. I love what he did with the photograph we provided. Her dimples are there, her eyes are twinkling, her hair is wispy with some curls, her bangs are long. There’s a little flower on the collar of her shirt. How can I be happy over a gravestone? But I am. Soon, Val will her etch face into stone. And I think, “Is this what my baby has become? A beautiful face etched in black granite?” I want to taste her, smell her, touch her. I want to see the shirt she was wearing.

So I went to the hutch, and felt around at its top. I had to stand on a chair to reach the envelope. I opened it right away, because I know if I had hesitated for even a moment, I would have changed my mind. Inside the manilla envelope was a thick clear plastic envelope. It contained her sandals and a photocopy of the picture I had given to the funeral director. The photocopy is smudged with the yucky makeup they used to cover Abby’s pale deathness. Is that lipstick I see on her fingers and on her dolly’s cheek? I hadn’t noticed the blanket before. How many times had I looked at this picture and I never noticed that the blanket from my Grandpa is in the picture. Priceless.

The sandals. I want to touch the sandals. I want to smell the sandals. But it’s not her. I want to smell Abby. This isn’t Abby’s smell. Is it the smell of leather encased in plastic? Leather smells like leather. A good scent. But this isn’t a good leather smell. Something antiseptic to it.

There’s a few dried liquid drops on the sandals. Seems like the wrong color for blood. Iodine? The orange makeup? I don’t know. I smell the shoes again.

I’m both disappointed and relieved that her clothes aren’t here. I put the sandals and picture back into the clear envelope and into the manilla envelope and shut the clasp and throw it back up onto the top of the hutch, out of reach and out of sight, just like Abby.

So far away. Singing and dancing with the angels and the archangels of heaven and all the Herricks and the Van Campens that have gone before her. Do they know her? Have her four great-grandfathers claimed her as their own? Are they loving her? Is she delighting them with her smiles and sweetness? Is Abby’s spirit as a 2 year old? Or is her spirit mature? Will she be 2 when I see her again? Does she know her tiny embryo sibling? Are they together? Does she have a sister with her or is he a brother? Are they holding hands? Do spirits have hands?

Jesus has my baby Abby. I want my Abby. I want her back. Why did He have to take her so soon? I wasn’t done with her. People have told me that her work on earth was done. That’s a stupid thing to say. No, her work had just begun. I have a lot more work for Abby to do. She used to help me everywhere. I need her help again.