Chapter 1
There are losses that rearrange the world. Deaths that change the way you see everything, grief that tears everything down. Pain that transports you to an entirely different universe, even while everyone else thinks nothing has really changed. Megan Devine
Everything about this moment, this scene, is warm and cozy. As I watch the kids, my hands encircle my treasured mug filled with my favorite coffee. The mug is special because it is emblazoned with a photo collage of the three of them. And the coffee, because it’s one of those freshly ground, indulgent flavors with a seasonal name like “White Frosty Morning.”
I’m wearing well-worn, red-and-green striped, flannel pajama pants that are snug around my legs, which are tightly crossed under me to keep ever-frozen toes toasty. Beyond those beloved heads of hair is an evergreen tree carefully chosen by all of us, with its soft pastel lights almost perfectly spaced to create the heartwarming holiday backdrop. A large window reveals soft flakes settling on outdoor surfaces, giving us a gift of the serene, quintessential white . . . wait a minute. My eyes flit back to those heads—my three kids surrounded by crumpled shiny paper, all looking at one electronic device in Emma’s hands. The age gap between them is irrelevant as all three stare at the screen and excitedly encourage her to keep pressing the buttons to get to the next option. Three! What the bleeping hell?
Just then, I notice my partially numb hand under my pillow, semi-crushed by my head, and am jolted awake by the cruelty of my own brain. This precious scene, this warm glow that every mother, every parent, every grandparent cherishes on one morning a year, is a blasted dream?
The sheer torture of this realization is more than I can bear. I curse a few more times, feel the tears soaking the pillow, and ask once again that ever-present question—why? Again and again, why? Listening to countless people, every darn place I go, wishing one another “Merry Christmas” for the last four weeks has not been hard enough? Dreading my, no our, first major holiday without Emma has not been brutal enough for Eric and me? Now my unconscious, or subconscious, or semi-conscious brain waves bring me this dream, this vivid image three days before December 25th? What will happen on the actual day? They say the first time you experience a holiday, a birthday, or God-forbid, the one-year date since you lost your child is the hardest. Who is “they” anyway? The anticipation has been awful—I can’t fathom what the real thing is going to be like.
By some merciful stroke of luck, I must have fallen back asleep for a while, because the next thing I know, it is light, and I need to take a few minutes to sort out real world from dream world. My heart sinks, then totally collapses, as I grudgingly acknowledge the whole Christmas-glow thing was a dream. Can I even force myself to engage in my now well-learned ritual of writing the dream down quickly so I don’t forget it?
As the words tumble from my pen onto the nubby, cream-colored pages of the third journal I’ve filled with dreams since Eric left and Emma died, my eyes rest on the corner of the page. Each page has a tiny image of an animal or a plant or some other representation of nature; that’s why I chose this journal when the last one was nearly full. This particular page has a cardinal on the bottom corner. A cardinal—the bird that represents lost loved ones and assures those of us left to actually write in journals that they are looking over us. A tiny little bit of that warm glow from the dream envelopes me once again. So, yes, it felt very cruel to wake up to the reality that my three children are not together for Christmas.
In fact, they never were all together—Everett somewhere out in the world, lost to me since his adoption well before Eric and Emma came along. But is the presence of the cardinal on this particular page some kind of sign? Maybe it’s a sign that Eric and I will actually find Everett soon. A sign that we will feel Emma’s presence on Christmas morning? Is this dream some sort of metaphor created by my imagination? As I recall the dream in writing, it occurs to me that although we all are not physically together, perhaps our efforts to find Everett and to honor Emma unite us all in a way we mortals can’t possibly understand. I decide to stop the contemplation of signs and metaphors and focus on the details of the dream while they are fresh. I can ponder and put mental puzzle pieces together later—on my walk or when I finally get my butt to a counselor again. Wow! Won’t she have a field day with this dream stuff?
A few days after Christmas, I finally make an appointment with a counselor. Over the last several months, I made promises to myself and my best friends, Renee and Isabel, to make an appointment. After my previous experience with a counselor, who told me I should be happy to be able to get out of bed each morning after all I’d endured, making an appointment to try therapy again kept falling to the bottom of my to-do list. It rose to the top occasionally, but the dream about all three kids in front of a Christmas tree pushed me to stop procrastinating and make the appointment. She had a last-minute cancellation and squeezed me into her schedule far more quickly than I’d expected. It’s past time to share all the repetitive thoughts I’ve had with an objective listener.
No more solitary thinking about holidays or how I will manage Emma’s birthday in a few months; or worse, the date marking when she passed away. Some grieving parents call it the “angel-versary,” but somehow, I cannot bring myself to utter that strange-sounding word. And I actually need to slog my way through two of those “versaries”—one for Emma and one for my first pregnancy, many years prior. What does one call the day your child is ripped out of your arms to go to adoptive parents, against your will? Such dates are unsettling. On a birthday, do I celebrate that my child once lived, or do I cry that I can no longer hold him? Do both? I haven’t gotten there yet for the first birthday since Emma passed on, but I’ve always felt dramatically mixed emotions on Everett’s birthday—my son who was born when I was practically a child myself. Those extremes made me almost schizophrenic for years, until I learned to play the mind games in my twenties to try to forget him. That was no solution; it just caused more guilt. Now that we’re searching to find Everett, his birthday this year didn’t hold quite as much pain. When his birthday was shortly followed by that dream and then Christmas, I made up my mind it was time to just do it, time to try counseling yet again. The anxiety, the “what-ifs” lingering in the background and jumping out at me far too often, drove me to action. It’s about time; it’s way past time.
Paul, a grief-group acquaintance turned friend, recommended this counselor. He suggested I read her bio online, study up on the approaches she uses, and then decide for myself. There was something unique about the way Marie described her beliefs about counseling, about life, about grief, and most of all, about motherhood and parenting. She drew me in with her well-chosen words that revealed an obvious passion about her work and compassion for her clients.
As she greets me for the first time, I’m amazed that her smile is as endearing in person as it was on her website. Most of them don’t smile—I guess they think a smile is not the professional image they wish to portray? Well, it worked for me, and here I sit.
Marie repeats herself, “Larissa, I need help from you. Can you prioritize how you wish to use your time during this first appointment? Your online registration form indicated you are in need of help with grief, losing a child. Yet, the first thing you mentioned a few moments ago is your search for a child who was adopted. You are dealing with grief around him not being in your life, while trying to find him?”
It’s just too much to try to explain. Mine is a messy story, tangled up like a ball of yarn that takes hours to unravel after a cat played with it. “I guess I did jump around, didn’t I? My motivation to be here, to seek help, has many facets. Let’s just say it’s, uh, complicated. A chronology of my journey here is probably easiest, but not much chance I’ll get to it all before the time is up.”
“I want you to decide how to use your time. For a first appointment, I schedule a longer than usual session, so please feel free to start the ninety minutes anyway you choose. I’ll only interrupt if I get lost and need clarification, or think it’s important to do so,” Marie explains patiently.
Although I suggest a chronological order, I almost immediately lose that focus and begin jumping all around. I start with Emma’s unexpected death nearly a year ago, and relate the gut-wrenching facts quite clinically. Somehow, I’ve come up with this mechanical, concise version that I can deliver quite unemotionally. It took practice—it was a survival tactic to develop a version I can tell without breaking down in tears. Doesn’t mean a tearful rendition is far off, just that I try to get through the facts before I’m assaulted by their meaning.
“Emma was barely twenty-one when I found her in her room, um, unresponsive. After waiting months that seemed like years, the envelope arrived in my mailbox from the medical examiner. It listed a concoction of substances in her system as the cause of death. Most were medications prescribed by her psychiatrist and primary care physician at various times over the last couple of years, like Tramadol, Xanax, and gabapentin.”
I pause. Even with practice, this part still does not roll off my tongue easily. “Then, fentanyl was thrown in. No one expected fentanyl—she was adamant she would never go near any illegal drugs after her rehabilitation stay. The only logical explanation that I’ve been able to come up with is that she had no idea she was taking it. Maybe she got a pill that looked like one of those other medications but had fentanyl mixed in? I read every day about that happening to people. If so—then it’s murder—that’s the only word to describe it.
“At least the medical examiner didn’t call it “overdose,” although it seems everyone else, the press, the politicians call it that. How can you overdose on something you didn’t know you were taking? After a few days of calling and begging, the medical examiner agreed to speak with me. She told me it was ‘fentanyl poisoning.’ I’ve actually read recently about families pressing charges and arrests being made related to fentanyl. No one let me know that was an option.” My voice trickles away to nothing. I drop my chin to my chest for a few seconds, take a deep breath and change subjects.
I jump from Emma to the almost-as-awful months before that when Eric was first missing, whereabouts unknown. I remember to recount my mostly happy reunion with him three months ago, but confuse Marie momentarily when I go back in time to my pregnancy loss, then further back to my teenage pregnancy that resulted in Everett being taken from me at birth—yet another loss.
“I need to interrupt, Larissa. You’re correct—there’s a lot to talk about here. Before we go any further, your story is so very sad. I admire your courage and your ability to state all of those events so factually. How did it feel to relate all of that to me?”
I’m struck by the calm, compassionate way she interrupted to reassure me, and then encouraged me to articulate my feelings. It freed me to be very honest, some might say blunt. “It feels shitty. It hurts more than anything ever hurt before.”
Her response is intriguing and reassuring. “Larissa, that’s because it was traumatic. Grief over the kind of experience you had with Emma is not anything mothers should ever have to endure. That’s why we may want to approach this more like post-traumatic stress than grief. I’ll tell you more about how we might do that with a treatment called EMDR—Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing—later, but believe me, you have been through the unthinkable. Things that comprise trauma may call for trying something more than cognitive behavioral therapy, if you think you want to.”
By the time I walk out of Marie’s office, it’s almost two hours later. Either she had more time on her hands than I thought, or she unobtrusively notified someone else to come later while I sobbed. I’m exhausted.
I drive to a nearby park and sit in silence for a while. I successfully kept the details of my life factual and to the point until she asked me how it felt to do so. That’s when the weeping started. I hadn’t cried uncontrollably in a long while. In fact, I’d reached the conclusion I was cried out, but apparently, not. Something about being so well rehearsed that I can usually tell it all without feeling, made the feelings more intense when Marie prodded me to describe them. Bogged down by the sadness, I didn’t get the chance to tell her about coming to believe in signs from birds and butterflies that bring me messages from loved ones, or of communicating with them through the psychic medium. I guess I can save all that for next time. I wish I had time to tell her those things, because sadness is only part of the story. Memories are also bittersweet, and more recently, I’ve even had a few happy moments. But then there are the dreams—a mix of bitter and happy. To her credit, I didn’t sense her hurrying me or leaping to conclusions, as happened with previous counselors. This time, I actually want to return and look forward to the opportunity to share more with her. I also want to do some research on my own about EMDR before the next appointment.
My phone vibrates in my pocket—Eric. I quickly pick up. “What’s going on? Are you home or still with Steven?”
I marvel at how easily, after so long apart, we fell back into multiple, casual conversations a day. The difference for me is, my heart flutters a bit every time I see his name on the screen, and I almost can’t respond fast enough. That flutter is a combination of worry for his safety and relief that he’s connecting. I’m so grateful for our connection, our reconnection. I cherish every interaction.
“I’m going to hang out here a while longer. Steven is helping me polish up my resume some more. When we finish, want to join us for dinner? We made a little progress on adoption research and want to fill you in before he goes back to New York. Nothing monumental, but progress.” We agree on dinner details for later.
I promised to meet Renee for coffee after counseling, so I text and arrange to see her at our favorite place. She’s encouraged me to contact Marie for weeks and wants to hear about the appointment.
The heavy wood door to the coffee shop opens to a little hideaway where we often find ourselves when we need to catch up. Many aspects of our lives have been debated and analyzed sitting in its high-backed window booth. I see her waiting, order my coffee, and walk into her warm hug. She immediately starts an animated invitation to “spill my guts” about how counseling went.
“How was she? Did you like her? Was she easy to talk to?”
When she finally stops her barrage of questions long enough to come up for air, I fill her in on Marie and my ease speaking with her. Renee is glad I plan to go see Marie again.
“Yup, I’ll go back. There’s a lot I didn’t get to share yet. And she described an approach I’ve never heard of that treats profound grief like trauma. I want to investigate.”
“What a great distinction. Sounds promising. And what about Eric and Steven?”
“They continue to enjoy spending time together. What’s the expression—‘thick as thieves’? He’s helping Eric write his resume and they’re continuing to research finding people who were adopted.”
“Steven’s really stepped into the dad role, hey?”
Reconnecting with Steven (my first, ex-husband) over a work project led to the unexpected revelation that he was likely Eric’s biological father. Not without a little trepidation, we decided to tell Eric and seek his input into whether to confirm by DNA or not. While I had no clue what my twenty-six-year-old son would think, he didn’t hold back his excitement for one minute. Ever since the results confirmed the blood relationship, Eric and Steven spend time together as often as possible, building the emotional bond. It’s a ray of happiness for Eric after our loss of Emma. For that and many other reasons, I am grateful. They’re also enthusiastic partners in assisting me in the search for Everett. Renee, as I suspected, is interested in hearing about the search.
“So, what’s up with the adoption stuff? What have you discovered?”
I explain our approach to go slowly and gather as much background information as possible before making specific inquiries. I find myself being protective of the young man who came into, then out of, my life more than thirty years ago. We don’t know if he’s even interested in finding me; or should I say, us.
“We’ve researched the legalities around adoption at that time, thirty-five years ago, and found it was kinda different. It also varies quite a bit by state, and whether it was a private adoption or agency-directed. So, there’s all that to sort out. Then, the online search options seem endless! There are forums for people searching for biological parents or children, and agencies who help as well. There’s even people who call themselves search angels—volunteers who help adoptees looking for families. Who knew? I sent a request through one website for someone to contact me and explain more about how they work. Or, if we can figure out what agency my family used, I’ll contact the agency and sign a waiver allowing my confidential and personal contact information to be shared with anyone who might be searching. Just before I came in here, Eric told me they have more information to share later this evening, so the story’s ongoing.”
Renee appears interested, then jumps to another question. “So, back to Steven and Eric. It’s terrific to hear they’re spending so much time together. But what’s the deal with Steven still being here? Doesn’t he need to get back to his job, his brother, his life in upstate New York? Georgia is a long way from the Finger Lakes!”
“Yeah, well, funny you should ask—I wondered the same thing when he came back down to visit this time. Apparently, Steven has an amazingly competent assistant, so they conference call every morning and figure out a way for him to fulfill most, if not all, his work responsibilities from a distance, at least for the short term. As for his brother, Jimmy, he’s doing much better at the moment. He was discharged from the hospital and is in his apartment with his two roommates and their care providers. Steven video chats with him every day, and Eric’s started chatting with them as well. I think they’re planning for Eric to visit New York and, hopefully, meet Jimmy. If we make progress on the adoption inquiries, I may coordinate anything I need to do in person and go along. It’s a lot to get used to, but I keep reminding myself how positive it is for Eric.”
Something is still on Renee’s mind. Her eyes flit downward and back up again. “Do you, um, think maybe, um, Steven is around so much for another reason? Like maybe he wants to rekindle what you guys once had? Be like a family? Or whatever?” She’s smiling in the same goofy way she did when she was with me in New York and first heard Steven and I had talked about our shared past, including Eric.
Slightly annoyed, I know I need to be circumspect about my response. I don’t want to overdo the denial and have her quote the old Shakespeare line about protesting too much. “Well, if that’s what he’s got in mind, he certainly hasn’t told me about it.”
“What about you? Would you like to start up where you left off? Or start over? Maybe for Eric’s sake?”
“Uh, in a word, no. I’m not into a, uh, romantic relationship with any man right now. There are far too many pulls on my emotions, way too many feelings to sort through. Just too complicated. I told you and Isabel at the lake—I’m emotionally worn out, totally spent, just trying to put one foot in front of the other. Christmastime almost did me in, and I haven’t even gotten through a year without Emma, and I, well, I . . .” The tears just start flowing. Sometimes, the pain of it all comes crashing back down on me, in waves. Right now, it’s more like a tsunami. Every day on this journey of mine is full of peaks and valleys, including landmines. I can be ecstatic one moment to see Eric at the breakfast counter again or hear the excitement in his voice as we talk about searching for Everett, his brother; then devastated the next when I look at the date and count how many days, weeks, or months have gone by without my sweet Emma at the same counter. The idea of a romantic relationship right now is the furthest thing from my mind. Is Renee out of her mind?
