Three years ago today, my first granddaughter, Eliana, died in Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, after several painful months of life.
Today I sit in the sunshine in Eliana’s mother’s house. My daughter Elizabeth and I are both sitting on the sofa with the dog between us, quietly typing at our PCs while her one-year-old naps in the nursery.
A row of American Girl dolls across the top of the computer desk in the guest room. A lone girl’s sandal on the floor of my closet. And the question that nags me. “Should I take it to Goodwill (where its mate undoubtedly is)? Or throw it away? Have they already thrown away its mate, at Goodwill? Or is it lounging at the bottom of some sale bin, waiting for me to do the right thing and complete the pair again so some impoverished girl can have a nice pair of sandals for the summer?”
People say that the older you get, the smarter you get. But sometimes I wonder…
At 8 months, Hanah was deeply into her “attachment-to-Mommy” phase. I was holding her as she napped and thinking of telling her, “Hanah, I’m 64, but right now I really want my Mommy too”…
There are things you forget, when your years with a baby are long past. One of them is baby time, and how it differs from ordinary time…
