Twenty-two months ago my daughter Jess left this earth. Totally unexpected, accidental, shocking, traumatic, and final. No second try or redo’s.

Twenty-two months ago today my life as I knew it and the person I had been for more than 50 years changed irrevocably. I actually believe my life ended, and I died the moment I heard those horrific words, “Jessie’s dead.” I can go back to that moment, that split second of hearing, and absolutely relive that instance of my personal death when my heart stopped, my breathing stopped, my brain and all thoughts stopped, and everything I had known, all that I had been stopped as well. When my heart, my breathing, my brain restarted, a different person resided within this body: the new me, the mother who “lost” a daughter, the woman whose existence, vision of the world, outlook on life shattered. I can still hear the breaking of glass.

When people who haven’t experienced this type of loss look at us who have, they often think, “What’s taking them so long? Why aren’t they over it yet? Certainly, their children would want for them to be happy. They have other children and people who love them and need them. Why don’t they pull it together for their sakes? Why, why, why can’t they just be NORMAL again?” The flip side of this comes from grief counselors, bereavement specialists, and those who have been unfortunate enough to lose a child. When you tell them, “My child died two years ago,” they respond with something like, “Oh, you’re still so fresh at this!” Then you learn that it can easily take five years to simply absorb and get used to being “that woman whose daughter died,” and that you never will “get over it.”

I live in a ranch-style home on two acres. There are three main bedrooms: my husband and I share one, my older daughter, Sarah, had the second before she moved out, and Jess had the third. When Jess moved out the first time (she moved out two or three times), her room became known as “Nana’s bedroom,” since that’s where my mother stayed when she visited. When Jess moved back in, she took over Sarah’s room at the opposite end of the house. Jess was living in Los Angeles when she died, just 11 days after my elderly mother passed away. Now, the room that both my daughters lived in serves as a storage space for all of Jessie’s and my mother’s things, among which is my parents’ 1940s-50s retro mahogany-veneer bedroom set that I inherited after Mom moved into assisted living. Although I have no need of another bedroom set, it’s one of the few things that has been a constant in my life, and I can’t part with it. Jess was really into retro and wanted the set, which would have been perfect, so I was saving it for her until she settled somewhere. But now, that’s never going to happen.

There’s a certain weight that hangs in the rooms where Jess dwelled and where all of the remnants of her life remain. Whenever I enter these rooms, my lungs feel squeezed, and it’s harder to breathe. It’s not so bad with Nana’s room because my mother’s energy is there as well, and I pass through that room daily on my way to my garden and the barn. But the room where Jess last lived with all the boxes of her clothing and Mom’s bedroom set and other belongings is simply stifling to enter. The family has already gone through Jess’ things, and now I will invite her friends to take what they would like and give the rest to charity. But first, I need to get the bedroom set moved to another room.
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So, this weekend I painted Jessie’s original bedroom, which has always been a dark turquoise blue with apple green wood trimming. Perfect for a young teenager when we moved to the farm in 2001 and an almost blind 90+-year-old mother who used to visit on the weekends. Not so perfect for a greenish mahogany-veneer bedroom set. On a whim, I decided to paint the room a light green, pull out the old carpet and put down wood flooring, make new curtains, and move the old furniture into this our new spare bedroom. I was driven to brighten up the space, so it would feel less oppressive. Of course, in my enthusiasm to barrel through this room so that I could clear out the final bedroom (which I plan to paint yellow in the hope that a bright room will ease the pain of loss), I didn’t really consider the emotional impact of repainting Teenage Jessica’s bedroom.

I know of people who have lost children who never remove their things or change their rooms. They’ll tidy and dust, but some won’t even clean up any mess the child left behind. The room is frozen in time in the hope of somehow keeping their child with them or perhaps in expectation of their child’s return. I don’t know which is more painful, making a museum of your child’s room or sorting through it all and in a sense removing their presence and deconstructing their lives. I certainly hadn’t anticipated the pain of changing the paint color in Jess’ room since I really hadn’t thought of that room as entirely Jessie’s in a long time. Yet, for 14 years it was the blue and green that she herself picked out with the stars and moon curtains that I sewed, and yes, in one way I feel I’ve betrayed my daughter by painting her room, removing the carpet, changing the furniture, replacing the stars and moons with something light and green.

That’s the thing of it. We whose children have died want to heal. We want the pain and shock and despair to go away, but we don’t want to give up on our babies, even if they were 60 years old. We don’t want to lose them all over again, the memories of their smile, the curve of their back, their particular smell, the sound of their laughter, the sweet sound of hearing them say “Mom.” We’ve lost so much, and in a very profound way, our grief is one way of holding on to what we have left. I don’t believe we could simply choose to be done grieving, but what will survive this agony of loss? When the pain eases, will we still have our connection to our children? Will we remember all of the small things that made them special and unique? I have kept the last phone message Jess left for me even though she simply told me what time she’d arrive into town. I need to know that I will not forget her voice. I have a couple of short video clips where she appears so alive and full of her essence. Although I could swear I’ll never forget, I know too well what a feeble thing my memory is. I’ve lost so much of her, I must hold on to what I still have.

I know the worst is yet to come: finishing with sorting and removing all the boxes of my daughter’s things and repainting and decorating the final bedroom, the room where at one time baby rabbits ran loose around her futon, books, candles, and scattered clothes. Will my pain be eased? Will Jess linger in this new sterile yellow space? I hasten through the changes as quickly as possible because it hurts too much to spend time in between here and there. I can only hope that as I make these changes and clear the physical space that I can heal, and Jess will be even more present in my heart and mind, softly surrounding and supporting me while I live the coming decades of my life without her.