She was almost two years old when we adopted her from the state of Texas. Though the special needs and health concerns she had scared us, there was no denying the light and gumption of this tiny girl, nor her grit.
Her joy and resilient spirit left a mark on our family and community so profound that two of my grandchildren are her namesakes. To this day I encounter people who met her through Special Olympics or another community or school event, and approach asking if I’m Olivia’s mom. Everyone recalls her as an embodiment of joy—“I can’t even think of her without smiling,” they say.
a triad of grief
Olivia died the summer she ought to have been preparing to enter middle school. She was 12 years old. Her memorial service filled the town’s largest church to the rafters with family and friends, classmates, neighbors, and the teachers and physicians who had known her most of her life. Her first mother and I eulogized our child in a church decorated with balloons.
In the years following Olivia’s death, my husband and our sister-daughter Anna and I got together every year on her birthday and remembered her over coffee or on the porch with a glass of wine.
We talked about our shared lives, Olivia’s quick wit and puns, and how much we missed her.
My husband and I had just rebuilt our lives around the void of Olivia’s death when he died unexpectedly. Three short years later, Anna also died unexpectedly. She was 37 years old.
During the few years between my husband’s death and Anna’s, three of us continued to keep vigil—Olivia’s first mother, and Anna, and me. When Anna died, though, the anguish of losing these dear people so much a part of me expanded, swallowed itself, and sucked everything down into a black hole so vast there seemed no escape from its darkness, and no light at all. Every yearning for them excited in me profound fears of disintegration, portending death’s inevitable non-being. I felt a constant dread of losing another child. I did not think I would survive. Even today, I wonder if I did.
Oh, how our lives are defined by the ones we love and are loved by. Bereavement makes us ghosts wandering shadowy paths, one foot in now, another in then—the precious price paid for being holy confessors, righteous witnesses, and companions to our darlings.
Oh, how our lives are defined by the ones we love and are loved by. Bereavement makes us ghosts wandering shadowy paths, one foot in now, another in then—the precious price paid for being holy confessors, righteous witnesses, and companions to our darlings.
the third eve
A few years ago during Olivia’s birthday week, I decided not to communicate about her or her birthday, to admit to my open-ended longing for her, or to confess that I can still feel her physical presence, the tenderness of her elegant little hand in mine.
I’d not communicate anything at all about her life or her death.
I didn’t message my co-mom. I simply spent the day in a walking meditation, an inner silence of remembrance.
My reluctance to talk about her stemmed from cultural taboos surrounding the expression of grief. These taboos often led people to avoid mourning openly, especially after significant loss. I saw this dynamic repeatedly with psychotherapy clients over the years—people who had lost close loved ones, but whose friends and family expected them to move on long before they were ready. Those deeply impacted by grief often felt isolated, as society pressured them to suppress their sorrow and ‘move on,’ even when they weren’t ready.
The main character in Megan Giddings’ latest novel, Jo, arrived at an understanding of this taboo within a few years of her mother’s disappearance and presumed death:
“shut up about your dead mom”
I don’t tell people about my mother any more, because I feel like most of them are thinking, “Shut up about your dead mom.”
It’s something about how scrunched up and tight their shoulders get, when their mouths get smaller and smaller while I’m talking about how my mother is probably, definitely dead.
They’re thinking about how everyone they love will die. They will die. Their dogs will die. The Arby’s we’re walking past will die. The earth will die, and so will the universe, spreading out into a nothing state we cannot comprehend.
And I have infected them with death.
Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly
The day after Olivia’s birthday that year, I woke up to the sad realization that life is as short as the memories of those who loved us and what they say about us after we’re gone.
Good people—those who show and reciprocate love, who generously and honestly share themselves with their clans and communities—are remembered for it. Their love is a perennial gift that strengthens and is shared by survivors.
Hurtful people—the takers and destroyers, liars, the self-centered and unyielding, and those who cause chronic suffering—aren’t fondly remembered, if they’re remembered at all. Hurtful people die and the survivors are relieved.
Whether or not anyone (besides her mothers) remembers Olivia on her birthday today, I know that when I speak her name, or recall her to the minds of anyone who knew her, we’ll smile. We’ll express gratitude that we knew her. We’ll remember a person who brought light, openly-expressed love, and joy to the world.
The day after Olivia’s birthday that year, I messaged her first mom. “I thought of Olivia all day yesterday,” I confessed, “and I thought of you and her day of birth. I knew you were remembering her, too. But I didn’t call or text. I’m sorry.”
“I know,” she replied. “I did the same thing—thought of her all day, and sent my love across the miles. I should have called or texted, but I didn’t. I knew we were both remembering, though.”
It’s OK, she said.
It’s OK, I said.
To you, daughter, I give thanks. I often wish I’d been born with your soft edges, your joy, and the light you radiated. Lacking those qualities in such extravagant measure, though, I hope that my sharp edges, acute angles, and shadows all serve a purpose—that of illustrating the varied and extraordinary shapes of love, and the benedictions bestowed by it.
writing about olivia
I’m often asked if I’ve written about my experiences as a bereaved mother, and an adoptive mom at that. Before we adopted her, did we know she would die in childhood? How did our relationship with her first mother come about, develop, and continue after our daughter’s death? How did we survive our child’s death?
My personal essays portray events to the best of my memory and are supported by journals and notebooks I’ve kept obsessively since I was a child. While all the stories are true, names have been changed to protect the privacy and dignity of the people involved.
Here are my favorite essays written seven and eight years after Olivia died, for it took me that long to begin to write about it publicly. I met many of you as I began to do this writing, and thank you for being part of an ongoing conversation and exploration.
reflections on losing my child
- Part 1: Of Love and Terror
- Part 2: Trauma
- Part 3: Waiting in Fear
- Part 4: Night Song
- Part 5: Walking Her Home
- Part 6: The First Year
- Part 7: Resolved to Heal
endnotes
Giddings, Megan. The Women Could Fly: A Novel. Amistad, 2022.
Recollection, (n.), from the essay title, derives from the French récollection or from Medieval Latin recollectionem, a noun of action meaning “to take up again, regain,” etymologically “to collect again.” To recall by recollecting is more than remembering, it is a psychologically healing act of gathering and reclaiming what remains after a destruction.
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