When Griefs Collide

It’s been three years since Bryant left this earth. Since I said the world was less bright without him in it. It still is. I feel for his mama and brothers today more than usual because I know their pain and I also had a front row seat for part of his last weeks here. It was terrible, and it wasn’t Bryant. Bryant was everything light and fun and imaginative and exciting. I’m so glad I knew him.

Today I crocheted a taco Christmas ornament for a 6-year-old boy in Georgia who is dying of DIPG. DIPG is a terminal childhood brain cancer. Not one person with DIPG has ever survived it. This little boy just loves Christmas and wants more ornaments to hang on a tree. He is in hospice care. He’s survived 20 months, twice the average, since his diagnosis. In pictures he is so swollen from treatment and steroids you would never ever recognize him. It reminded me so much of Eli. Like a knife in the heart. I hate the shit these kids go through. It kills me.

An ornament I ordered months ago came today. It’s a primitive looking mom with a baby strapped onto her in a carrier. I had the option to personalize it with limited hair colors and carrier colors, so it’s representative of the baby carrier I used for Eli. I got that maroon carrier when he was 3 months old and used it every single day until he was walking and would no longer be restrained. That thing soothed him and sometimes was the only way to get him to stop screaming or fall asleep. To receive the ornament in the mail today was emotional. 

My heart is aching for three little boys today. 

Day of the Dead

November 1st is known in Christian circles as All Saints Day. It comes from the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. Popular culture has latched on to the colorful sugar skulls of Dia de los Muertas. The history around All Saints Day/Dia de los Muertos is interesting, but like much of history in the last several hundred years involves colonization and also taking a "pagan" celebration and making it into a Christian celebration. (Womp womp.) The Day of the Dead is a public holiday in Mexico and people of Mexican decent around the world celebrate it, often by decorating the graves of their loved ones, praying for them, and cooking and eating the favorite foods of their departed loved ones.
I never paid any attention to the Day of the Dead before Eli died. In fact, I didn't even know the colorful skeletons and sugar skulls had any meaning or what culture they were from. I once asked my grief counselor how people in other cultures survive child loss. Mostly I was talking about places where people live in abject poverty, where child loss is more common and where mothers likely don't have a picture of their child or mementos to physically hold on to. Or, you know, grief counseling and entire books and blogs on the topic. She said something along the lines of, "Every culture has rituals and things they do individually and communally to remember their loved ones."
I have learned a bit more about the Day of the Dead in the last couple years. I love the idea of it now that I understand it. Now that I have my own departed loved one. It feels fitting. I don't have any plans to participate in any celebrations because I want to be so careful appropriating someone else's culture. But it is comforting to have this day in my heart with Eli, where I am not carrying my memories and loss alone, but knowing that millions of people are remembering and celebrating their own special person today along with me.