Dear Dannica,

Today marks the 6th time I will whisper “Happy Birthday,” to you in heaven.  I still relive in my mind and my body the weeks leading up to your birth… that precious, blessed event, and the first time we were alone together, looking into each other’s eyes.  The sound of your first cry still vividly vibrant in my memory.  When I held you in the next moment I already knew you.  We were together again, finally; and strangers anew.

My life since your passing has resembled one of our afternoons spent immersed in play dough.  Bits and pieces pulled and rolled and shaped and shifted and mashed and balled up again.  Starting over and over again only to ball it up once more and shove it back into the plastic can, mash the lid on and call it a (play dough) day.  I wonder what I’ll make tomorrow.

Sometimes, I play house instead, just like when I was a child.  I pretend that I’m the mom and that I make a home from the space I’m in.  I pretend this is a bed and that is an oven and the other can be a sunny window full of fresh herbs or maybe a warm hearth over which to hang pot for bubbling soup.

I pretend I have two children, the oldest a son, and a younger daughter.  I love to cook for them and play with them and teach them things about the world.  I love to bathe them before bed and rub soft smelling lotion into their skin and bury my nose in their sweet, damp hair as I read them stories that carry them to far away sparkling, starry places to dream.

In the morning I wander through the flowers and cut the most beautiful and fragrant.  I put them in a vase on the table and I make pancakes with banana slices and sweet peach cream to drizzle over.  The cream is the color of the sun through the window, casting yellow-orange giggles over sticky little fingers… I wish to kiss each little one… just one more time.

Other times, I choose not to play at all.  I choose just to be Me, all the Mes, moving in unison, supporting each other through another day; the child wearing her mother’s apron and clacky shoes, the young mother living her dream, the aging woman whose dream has been shattered and is now afraid dreams just don’t get to come true when she dreams them.

Maybe she just never understood once dreams come true all that’s left is for them to end.  Maybe she loved her first dream so much she forgot to have another one.  Maybe there are more important things to think about now and no time for dreams at all; airiest of airy castles in the sky, slowly shredded then scattered by a breeze.

I pulled a book from the shelf last night, picked at random, and in the same spirit, opened it and read the first paragraphs I saw:

“Gran?” I asked, “Why don’t you paint?”

She said, “I’m not an artist.”

“But don’t you want to talk to God?”

She paused, letting the dough spring back over her fingers as she kneaded.  “What do you mean, my little one?”

“Granpop says art is a way to talk to God.”

She turned to me, flour up to her elbows, wisps of grey hair about her face, her black eyes boring a hole into me.  “My home is my art.”

(Zen Encounters With Loneliness by Terrance Keenan pg. 49)

My home is my art.  I must have read that over 20 times.  My home is my art, too.  My work takes place in a space I’ve feathered like a nest with the intent of inviting, comforting, cradling, healing, and being with a sense of ease and peace and nurturing.  When my work is done, I offer the same to myself that I offered to others.  This nest is now empty and mostly quiet, so full of spaces where memories, bright like peach cream sunlight, play on single screens to an audience of one.

When caring people glance my way and whisper, “Isn’t she over it yet?  Why can’t she move on?” maybe they can only imagine the hole in my life shaped like a teenage daughter, “…and well, it’s been so long.”  What they can’t see, as if that’s not enough, are the holes in my life shaped like dreams; wispy castles in the sky.  What they can’t see are the years filled with the effort of pulling, rolling, shaping, shifting, mashing and balling up of the clay that used to be a life with purpose and meaning and direction…passion.

Maybe caring people aren’t whispering anything at all.  Maybe I only imagine they are.  Probably, they are happy in their own lives, with their families, their friends, feeling joy, and loving their lives.  That is good.

I keep looking for what I’m supposed to do now.  I keep hoping it’s going to be obvious.  I keep thinking you’ve led me to that answer, but I keep making mistakes and it isn’t the answer at all.  My body is tired.  My heart is broken.  My skin is lonely.  My mind is restless.  I am afraid.

I don’t blame you, Little Angel, for any of this, but I do so wish you were here still, so I could hug you on your birthday and see your beautiful smile.  I will make something sweet for your birthday.  I will softly sing your name and instead of blowing out the candles, I’ll light them and let them go until they go out.  I’ll rock in the chair and remember the dream where I held you in my arms and looked into your eyes and we knew each other well.  Happy 24th, Little Beauty.

Like Gran, I will pause, and I will let the dough spring back over my fingers.  I will try again to sculpt a new dream.  I wonder what I will make tomorrow.