Being There....

Just before Christmas, a close friend of Greta's lost her Father in an ice boating accident. I heard the news on the morning of the Solstice and thought that the darkness on that day was eerily appropriate. When Greta found me crying in the kitchen and asked me what was wrong, I told her the truth. Her response was to ask a few simple questions, some pertaining to the accident itself, and she wondered if her friend would be in school that day. Then she slipped quietly into her bedroom to dress her dolls.

The next day I received a phone call from the little girls' Mother, who asked in a wispy voice if the girls could get together soon for a little play time. I stumbled through the conversation not knowing what to say to a woman who had just lost her husband, besides the trite "I'm so, so sorry", and the "of course, she is always, always welcome at our home, we'd love to have her". She said she just wanted her daughter to be able to be a little girl, to play and laugh with Greta, she said she thought that they were kindred spirits.

So it was arranged that while our household was focusing on storing leftovers, and vacuuming up wrapping paper remnants, and theirs was organizing the order of services for the funeral, there would be a play date. She came over wearing her new pretty dress that Santa had brought her for Christmas, and a big red satin bow in her hair. She brought two big candy canes for them to share, and a little peppermint stick for Simon. They played dolls, and dress up, and then settled in beside the Christmas tree to break in Greta's new Connect Four set. I had to stop myself from interrupting them, pulling Greta aside, and encouraging her to let her friend win the game. I made them grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, and drove her home after. It was two days later when I realized that she'd left her hair bow under the Christmas tree where they played.

The morning of the funeral, the little girls' Mother called me again. "You have no idea how bizarre this feels," she said, and then she asked about the hair bow. Was it at our house? Could we drop it off? It was really, really important to the little girl to wear it in her hair to her Dad's funeral. I pictured the days that the bow spent at our house, Greta trying it on and gazing at her image in the mirror, even getting it perched precariously in Simon's hair for some quick laughs. When I dropped it off, their house smelled like shampoo and coffee and the Mother was in her bathrobe with a towel on her head. She thanked me and said "this will make it almost all better, for now..". Later that day when I sat in the back of the overflowing church, singing songs that I'd never heard, and hearing stories about a man I'd barely met, I couldn't take my eyes off the little red bow in the front pew.

We wish we could take it all away, but Greta and I have talked a lot lately about grief and loss, and come to the conclusion that sometimes all we can do is be there, with red bows, Connect Four, and grilled cheese sandwiches.