Meredith’s Musings | Dear Bonnie

article by MEREDITH MCKINNIE

Dear Bonnie, It’s almost January again. We used to celebrate your birthday; now we honor your passing. With the two occasions a mere two days apart, I toggle with acknowledging your loss, celebrating your life, or bridging both. Doesn’t one cancel the other, or does it only feel that way? Last year being the first without you, I felt in transition. I don’t feel that anymore. Now, you’re just gone, and somehow that seems worse. I expected relief, but instead, just absence. In this blank space, I find myself saying your name, bringing you into random conversations with people who didn’t even know you. Perhaps it’s my way of keeping you alive, introducing you to the people you didn’t have a chance to meet.

As the girls get older, Wilder now 7 and Fable 5, I keep looking for signs of us in them. Wilder is all me all the time, eager to please, affable, craving affection. Fable is inquisitive, unimpressionable, and frankly, uninterested in others’ opinions. She’s a sucker for a good cuddle though. I glimpse your spirit in hers, the rebellious nature in actions as opposed to my use of words. These glimpses of you both terrify me and feel entirely appropriate. I think you’d adore her quirkiness, her embrace of the shadows. She dances to the music instead of for the crowd. She fears nothing, like you.

I sometimes watch them from our bay window in the kitchen, Wilder seriously focused on a balance beam routine, Fable filling a bucket with dirt, stage left. As Fable wanders into her orbit, Wilder explodes, thinking the beam is only her territory. I remember your consistent childhood presence, staying just far enough away to not get hit and yet always there, stage left. You just wanted to be where I was. I acted as if I resented it, but my vivid childhood memories are never of me alone. Even in pictures, you’re the prominent sidekick, beaming from ear to ear, happy to be included.

This past Thanksgiving, we had everyone at Mom and Dad’s. I insisted on a group photo by the pool, something we rarely do. When I scrolled through the photos later that evening, I noticed a gap in the second row, a spot you would have filled. We left it open for you, unintentionally. Your name never came up that day, at least not in my conversations. You were on our minds though; I could tell in the sometimes vacant expressions, the sentences that trailed off. We would be laughing at the “kid’s table,” you know the one we were initially relegated to in order to oversee the children and came to prefer. Nat said something funny and slightly inappropriate. Everyone chuckled, volleying additional commentary, and then silence. It would have been your moment to chime in. Again, we left it open for you.

You’re here and noticeably not here. You’re missing, yet omnipresent. Perhaps that’s how grief unfolds. We hold on to you as long as we can, as intensely as we can, oftentimes via silence. We’ve run out of words to convey the grief, or we’re shifting into a place of acceptance and don’t want to show our cards. Grief is constantly in flux, not always center stage but nonetheless woven into the fabric of those still living. I heard someone say that the dead live on in us, that having shaped who we are, you’re alive in us. I like to think of you that way, experiencing each day with me as I live it. Remember how we could express so much sentiment in one look across Mom and Dad’s table, the context of our shared lives filling in the details. I hope you’re observing the details, gathering the remnants of experience, chuckling at the randomness of it all. I hope you live on in us, in me, in all who hold space for you. It feels comforting to think so.

This canvas hangs above my couch; you remember it., the quote by E. E. Cummings. You commented on the typeface font, how you liked the letters misaligned. Disorder never scared you as it does me. It reads: “I carry your heart with me, I carry it in my heart.” Forgive the sappy heart metaphor, but I hope that’s where you are, if only symbolically. I picture you at a bigger bay window, watching us live life without you. I hope you express all the emotions via absurd laughter, teeth-gritting frustration, and perhaps some familial pride, rooted in love. With our many faults, we were never without love. Our life was beautiful, wasn’t it? We had it all, didn’t we? If grief is simply unexpressed love, you’re awash in it. I hope it sustains you for now.

Love,
Meredith