Excerpts From The Porcelain Heart
HOLIDAYS
The simple act of walking past a greeting
card aisle in the drugstore was traumatizing
The first year of holidays was brutal. My weekly grief group spent a lot of time talking about how to prepare ourselves. Mother’s Day came first. The simple act of walking past a greeting card aisle in the drugstore was traumatizing. I envied those in the group who had other children to celebrate with, although this didn’t seem to diminish their sadness.
Sitting together in our parents’ grief meetings, we committed to being stronger by fall, when we would have to face the big winter holidays. We spent time preparing for those land mines—namely, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Would it be best to go to bed for the day, watch multiple movies, or accept invitations?
There was no question about hosting our regular celebrations. As the November days passed by, I didn’t feel thankful for anything. Also, half of Michael’s ashes were stored in the dining room sideboard with the good silver, so I felt unable to even set the table for Thanksgiving dinner.
TAKING HIM HOME
I could feel myself dissolving, but managed to say, “Ashes.”
I gave Molly some affectionate strokes, then climbed into the back seat of an Uber and put the carry-on on the floor of the car. I had never felt so alone.
Jim walked to the window, and I tried to smile as the car pulled away. He waved and mimed, “Call me.”
I looked down at the case, unable to grasp that it contained all that remained of my child.
At LAX, I put my case on the X-ray belt and crossed my fingers. It didn’t take long for everything to come to a stand-still, and exactly at the point where my bag passed through the scanner. I watched nervously as the TSA guard, seated at the monitor, called over another guard, and then another.
They all stared at the screen.
A uniformed woman with a round, friendly face approached and, pointing to a small station against the opposite wall, asked me to step out of the line.
“What’s in your case?” she asked matter-of-factly.
I could feel myself dissolving, but managed to say, “Ashes.”
Her expression softened. I could tell she didn’t want to continue the interview, but there was a form to be filled out and she had no choice. “Where are you taking them?”
“Asheville, North Carolina.” I showed her my ticket.
“Whose ashes are they?”
“My son’s.” By now, tears were flowing down my cheeks.
I pulled a tissue from my pocket and fumbled for the letter from Forest Lawn.
“I’m so sorry. What was his name?”
“Michael.”
“I will pray for him,” she said, and walked me back to the front end of the security ramp, nodded to the other guards, and handed me my case.”
BECOMING A CURATOR
To me they were all priceless treasures.
I became a curator for what he’d left behind.
Everything Michael had ever given me took on new meaning, preserved as if it were an artifact in a museum. The cream-colored cup he’d made in school was where I kept makeup brushes, the smooth oval stone he’d painted to look like a ladybug I used as a paperweight, and the crude wood letter opener he had whittled stood tall among my pens in a ceramic pencil holder.
I framed his inlaid wood chessboard and hung it in my office. His high school yearbooks, his diplomas, and some of his comic book collections rested on the bookcase in my bedroom. To me they were all priceless treasures. I became a curator for what he’d left behind.
We had a long, heavy trunk at the foot of our California king bed, and I chose that to be the repository for Michael’s documents: photo albums, correspondence, a box of business cards from films he worked on. It was also where I placed his treasure box, school records, and sympathy cards, as well as the funeral guest book. His small Cub Scout shirt, Little League windbreaker, and golf team sweater were folded neatly inside. His iPhone, still in its rugged dark green rubber case, sat in there too, waiting for someone to bypass or crack its password.