This week, inspired by the cooler weather and the return of August and the desperate need for this summer to just be over, I welcomed fall into our home.
I turned the white “Welcome” sign on our front porch over to its orange “Harvest” side. I got out the stuffed pumpkins and put them by the fireplace. I put the fall floral arrangement on our breakfast table. To make fully sure that summer is aware it needs to go, I declared fall’s arrival with a sign reading “FALL” in all caps on the mantle. It felt triumphant. I don’t think I have ever been more ready for a change of seasons in my life.
I always look forward to fall and winter (especially winter, because Christmas), but this year I desperately need them to come quickly. After losing my daughter and my grandfather two weeks apart in June, this summer has been stained with oceans of tears. I’m worried that the month of June will forevermore feel that way—full of nothing but dark sadness—but I’m trying not to worry about that right now. I’m anxious that the coming of fall will bring sadness, too, because we found out we were expecting Eleanora just as the leaves were starting to turn. But I’m trying not to worry about that right now.
Right now, I need to know that the world is going to keep spinning and that this summer will eventually be behind us. So I made it so. Even if we continue to have 90-degree days here throughout August, I don’t care. I have hope that the return of fall will bring with it a return of happiness, even if only in small doses.
I hope for these things because I can see a glimmer of it already. The last couple of days, Daniel and I have had the kind of days I feared would never, ever return: purely good days. Days where, despite the weight of grief on our backs, we felt genuine happiness, too. And we laughed. And a lot of that is owed to a sweet little three-year-old boy named Jack.
We met Jack’s parents, Ethan and Bethany, five years ago when Daniel and I were newly engaged and looking for an engagement/wedding photographer. We knew even before we met them that we wanted them, and when we did meet them, we loved them immediately. They are the very best kind of people—the kind who hug and hold you tight, who look you in the eyes to tell you they love you, who refuse to let you sink when you’re in the darkest depths of grief, and who absolutely over-the-moon rejoice with you when you feel on top of the world. Their son is growing up to be just like them.
Jack, Ethan, and Bethany visited this weekend to have lunch with us over some of Daniel’s famous homemade pizza. (We used to do homemade Pizza Friday every week in our home. We’re trying to work back up to that.) At some point, Jack invited me to “look for tunnels” throughout our home, and I happily obliged. I told Bethany how sweet it was to hear a little one’s feet pattering down our hallway. We went in and out of each room, trying and failing to find any tunnels, but giggling all the way. “Nope, no tunnels here. Let’s keep looking, okay?” he’d say. (We did find my toothpaste and the Q-Tips in the bathroom, which he thought was exciting and definitely worth carrying with us on our journey, but no tunnels until the very end.)
Eventually, he asked to check the closet in Eleanora’s room for tunnels. We opened up the doors, and his eyes lit up when he saw all of her books and stuffed animals inside. He immediately found the book that he and his parents had gifted us for Eleanora and held it up to show me. I said, “Can I show you something?” From one of Eleanora’s toy baskets, I brought out a sloth lovie, exactly like the two he has and adores at home. He smiled at me and exclaimed, “Just like my Slothy!” We checked out Eleanora’s zebra, her teddy bears, her bunny, the book I got Daniel for Father’s Day. I realized as Jack and I were sitting in the closet how much pure joy it brought me to be looking at Eleanora’s things with him. I realized how much I desperately needed to feel that joy in that room again.
A bit later, he noticed Eleanora’s box of mementos from the hospital sitting on her nursery chair. He asked if we could look inside. I got a lump in my throat. I wasn’t sure if I could look through the box with him without crying, and I didn’t want to scare him. But I knew it was worth a try. I said, “Of course, Jack, we can look at it together. That’s a box of baby Eleanora’s things from the hospital.” I looked at him. “This box just makes me a little bit sad, okay?” He looked back at me with the most serious, concerned eyes and nodded. I know he understood. We sat down on the floor together and opened the box. I showed him the lock of my daughter’s almost-black curly hair, the tiny hat the nurses had adorned her head with, the yellow envelope with her pictures enclosed, the knit butterflies she’d held for those pictures, the tape they’d measured her with (cut to 21 inches exactly), and the sheets of paper stamped with her hand and footprints. The entire time we sat there together, he held each item with utmost care. He listened as I told him about each item, and he returned each one back to the box as gently as he could. It warmed my heart in a way I wasn’t sure was possible again. When we were done, we returned the box to its spot on the recliner and went back to looking for tunnels.
In total, we found three.
I will forever be grateful for that wonderful visit with our dear friends, and especially those moments with little Jack. I don’t imagine that I’ll ever forget them. He did the sweetest thing for me that day. He brought laughter and smiles back into a nursery that, all summer long, has been filled to the ceiling with tears. Even now, three days later, that room feels lighter. It feels hopeful again. It feels like it can someday return to a room where Daniel and I and, God willing, Eleanora’s siblings, will laugh and smile and play together. And maybe even find some tunnels.
So thank you, Jack. Thank you for stitching up a little hole in this mama’s heart. And thank you, Ethan and Bethany, for your life-giving friendship and the gift that is your son.
