Thirteen Years

It has been thirteen years since I have seen Elizabeth.  As a mother I carried her inside me where she remains, a presence in my life every day.  Some days I say her name three times, like a spell.  It keeps her alive: Elizabeth Elizabeth Elizabeth. I want to believe that she is still with me. 


Now that Advent is here, I remember the chain of days we made, the twenty five days til Christmas, how we would first cut construction paper into rectangles, then staple them together in to links, and then take one after the other off, until we arrived at the big day, when so many presents arrived for her and a few for Richard and me.   The whole holiday was designed to get children excited, and to make them feel happy.  After she died, I found the chain and I still don't know what to do with it, that and the origami whale we made together.  How can I honor the holiday when she is gone, she for whom I wanted to celebrate year after year.

And yet I keep going, keep singing the old songs, and even last year I got a tree, and years before that, bought wreaths, and tried to keep in the spirit of the season.  But since she died at the beginning of advent, it is difficult to celebrate the season in quite the same way.

I want people to continue to remember her as she was, when she was eighteen, bright and beautiful and full of promise.  That was the real Elizabeth, the one who was still growing.