Children's Games

If you haven’t noticed, it’s been a rough few days. Or at least a rough few mornings. The days seem to have gotten a little bit better as they have gone by, which is good, because I am gearing up for what I already know is going to be a rough weekend and week—my mind is already being called frequently to images of last Mother’s Day weekend, the last few days we spent with our girl before she got sick, and then, of course, to all the images of the harrowing days in between that weekend and the following Thursday night when she died. This kind of remembering was inevitable, I’m sure, so again, I’m just going to take any chance at respite I can get before that storm gears up for real.

I woke up this morning feeling a little better than the last few days—the sunlight streaming through the windows probably helped (yesterday was gray and rainy, matching my mood well, but not doing much to help it). I woke up thinking about the mess in Hudson’s (Jackson’s) room and all of Jackson’s newborn clothes that are still sitting out on the sofa in the TV room where I folded them. I got up and showered and then went into their room to see if I could move some things around to make a little room without having to actually change anything.

I looked into Hudson’s closet (it is still definitively hers since it still contains only her things) to see if there was anything in there I could box up or pack away, since it was more a storage space than something we used every day. Up on the top shelf, I saw a Children’s Place bag, and remembered that inside were a few pairs of 24-month sized fleece jammies that I had bought at a deep discount at Christmas in 2009, figuring I’d just store them away for her to wear the next year. I did store them away. But she never got to wear them.

I pulled the bag down to see if any of the jammies were ones Jackson might be able to wear—I couldn’t remember what I’d bought and whether they might be too girly. I looked inside and this is the first thing I saw:

I immediately started to laugh. And then I started to cry, still laughing through my tears. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Penguin jammies, totally suitable for a boy, that I had no idea I even had. I swear sometimes it almost feels like the two of them are running around in and out of the corners of my life, playing little games with one another that are intended to somehow lift me up. I can almost picture their heads leaning into one another, whispering and smiling conspiratorially. And this was certainly a delightful discovery to make this morning.

Of course, as delightful as it was, it was also so very bittersweet. I couldn’t believe how long and tall those 24-month jammies are. That’s what Hudson would have been wearing six months ago. What a very big girl she’d be now.  How very much better it would be if these were hand-me-downs from her rather than brand new jammies that were never worn. 

But on this bright sunny morning before the coming dark week, I’m trying to hold on to the sweet. I’m holding on to the reaction I first had when I saw those little green penguin jammies in the bag—the immediate laughter accompanied by the image in my mind’s eye that my little ones were in a corner somewhere, giggling at my reaction to the cute little trick they’d played on me.