Category: Pediatric Cancer

Closets are very personal spaces.  Even anonymous ones, like hotel closets — cool and spare, empty as they are, offer glimpses of passing guests after adding their clothes and shoes.  We know something about the person behind those clothes and shoes just by looking at them.

Donna’s closet is the same.  As I look through the bins and hangers and boxes, Donna’s things spilling out, those things lead me to memories.  So many memories.  Wonderful memories, bittersweet memories.  They are visceral reminders of the person who was, but no longer is.  Our Donna.

Donna didn’t love the typical pink and purple choices offered for girls. She loved black and navy right along with her pink.  And she was particular.  And delicate.  I could buy her a white cotton broadcloth blouse and not worry for a moment about stains.  That is a rare quality, indeed, in a two, three, and four year old.

In the bins above, I remember the sweaters, some hand knit, that she wore so well.  There is the pink ombre skirt she rocked with black Cons and a tank top.  There is the blue floral blouse that she wore to pre-school and ran around the front yard chasing bubbles in, laughing all the way.  There are the striped leggings that always reminded me of the witch from the Wizard of Oz. She was bald when she wore those.  And so very tiny.

On top is the baby blanket our dear family friend knit her.  The blanket came with a hat to match.  We didn’t know if Donna would be a boy or girl, so the colors are sweet and pastel.  We wrapped Donna in that on the way home from the hospital.  Her little two day old self refused, absolutely and loudly, to wear the matching hat.  Pffft.  She was smarter than us even then.  Who needs a hat in the middle of July?

Donna hated hair bows.  Hated them.  When you are a Cancer Mom, the hair on your child’s head is a big deal.  A very big deal.  Donna lost her hair three times.  She had beautiful curls to start, just like her brother.  Beautiful curls.

In the midst of treatment, I always imagined a long haired Donna sitting on my lap hearing stories about how she was so sick as a young child.  That was never to be.  When Donna’s hair would grow back, it was not the same.  It was straight and the texture was much stiffer than her original hair.  We have science to thank for that.  Her treatment was strong enough to permanently change the texture of hair that grew on her head.

The one hair decoration Donna would consent to was a black crochet spider. She was so her own little being.

Thank goodness Donna loved hats.  Hats are crucial to a kid going through cancer treatment.  They are worn for both warmth and sun protection.  Donna had dozens of them, some mailed to us by strangers, their love in every knit stitch.

I remember well Donna’s big, almond shaped eyes peering out from under the brim of whatever hat she had chosen that day.  She had the most lovely eyes.  Piercing and knowing and wise.  And so blue.  Just beautiful.  I miss those eyes staring back at me, twinkling at me.  I even miss the tears flowing from them.  Under the hat, too, was always the surprise of a bald child.

And now my tears flow.  Each of these hanging pieces have meaning to me. I have this odd knack of recalling exactly where we were when Donna wore what.  Maybe it is from all the photos we took to document a girl we knew wouldn’t always be there with us.  Regardless, I am so very grateful for the memories.

The pink tutu was a gift from Grandma.  Donna loved to wear it inside over her shorts or jeans or pajamas and dance.  She always loved to dance around the house, wherever there was music.  The kimono was a gift from a dear friend who lived in Japan.  The toys in Japan are about a thousand times cooler than the toys in the States.  So are the kimonos.

The green fairy dress brings back lovely memories.  In June 2007 Donna wore it at home when she was so sick from her first dose of chemo.  We had no idea what we were in for at that time, but there is a video of Donna coughing and wiping her dripping nose as she retrieved plastic fruit hidden all over the living room.  All the while in her green fairy costume.

The next year, on Halloween day, Donna decreed she wanted to be a Fairy Flower.  Out came the green dress.  With a few felt flowers and green leggings, POOF, Fairy Flower she was.  What a glorious day that was, Halloween 2008.  Perfection in every single way.  I was deep into my pregnancy with Mary Tyler Son.  The sun was bright, the temperature unseasonably warm, the light delicious.  And there was our little Fairy Flower, working hard to climb every stair to get her sweet treats from the kind folks charmed by her.  My Dad and sister joined us.  Halloween 2008, despite sensing it would be our last Halloween with Donna (and we were right, as Halloween 2009 was Donna’s memorial service), goes down as one of my best days ever.

There is the red floral broadcloth shirt Donna wore to her first and only school picture day.  The navy blue knit and pleated dress worn on the first day of school.  That same day the teacher pulled me aside, complimented Donna’s dress, then gently informed me pre-school was no place for dainty dresses.  Sigh.  I chuckle at the memory.

There is the sailor suit Donna wore to my Dad’s 75th birthday party.  She had had brain surgery, her third tumor resection, just ten days earlier.  Didn’t matter.  She sauntered into the party loving her frock.  There is the floral dress worn on the 4th of July when we were guests of the Mayor of Downers Grove, Illinois at their annual parade.  There is the canvas jacket that looked so hip on her.  I always wondered how Donna did hip so effortlessly.  You can’t force hip.  It just is.

Finally the teal wool coat with the velvet collar bought by our friend in Iowa from her local thrift shop.  She saw it and said it screamed DONNA to her.  It did.  It still does.  Donna wore it to the North Pole Christmas party at O’Hare Airport, a guest of United Airlines.  It was snowing that day and as Mary Tyler Dad carried Donna to the car, the snowflakes were big and delicate and sat perfectly against the blue wool and the red beret she wore to match.  She smiled, held in her Daddy’s arms, safe and warm in the snow.

So many memories, all lovely, in this closet.  So much Donna.  And still, it is time.  As we grieve our girl, our hearts flutter with the thought of a new baby. How happy that would make Donna, another brother to love.  She knows. She always did.

We love you, girl, still and always.  We’ll meet you there.

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It’s time.  My daughter’s closet needs to be cleared.  In October, my daughter, the beautiful Donna, will have been gone from our home for four years.  Four years.  Those years have somehow mysteriously inched and sped by simultaneously.  By next January, Donna will have been dead more than she was alive.  I shake my head, the tears flow, my arms and heart ache.

On some very essential level, I still don’t believe that I had a daughter and that that beautiful girl died of cancer.  How is that even possible?  This is a hard time of year for me.  July brings Donna’s “would be/should be” birthdays.  This year, on July 20, my daughter would have been, should have been eight years old.  But she isn’t.  Instead, she is and will always be four. Just four.

Four years old, which is how old Mary Tyler Son is.  Four years.  A lifetime for Donna, and yet my boy is just coming out of the gate, so to speak, in the midst of his own fourth year in his young life.  He is growing, changing, different every day.  He is full of energy and mischief and play..  At four years old, Mary Tyler Son is full of life, while his sister, at four years, was full of cancer.  There is such a deep, profound sadness at this juxtoposition.

Last weekend, my husband grumbled at the suggestion of trekking to the suburbs to look for a bed, a “big boy” bed for Mary Tyler Son.  I chided him, gently, and told him how lucky we were to be shopping for a bed for our son. I didn’t mean to be so blunt about it, but it was truth, our truth, and it needed to be said.  It is so very easy to get stuck in the muck of life.  Grrrr, a drive to the land of strip malls and chain restaurants, grrrr.  It’s easy to think that.  I did, too, to tell the truth.  I am tired.  I am recovering from pneumonia.  Two hours in a car to buy a bed that we may or may not find?  Grrrrr.

But we did it.  We found a bed.  A great bed, in fact, at a great price.  Hooray! There is much to be done — walls to paint and furniture to rearrange and sheets to buy and a Magic Tree House theme to coordinate.  There is much to do.  Busy work that should be a joy, a celebration.  Our boy is growing up! Hip Hip Horray!  Three cheers for the boy growing up!

Which brings me back to the closet.  Mary Tyler Son and his sister shared a room for the nine months their lives overlapped.  Kind of, but not really, honestly.  For three of those months we lived in Bloomington, Indiana, where we went for proton beam radiation treatment for Donna’s aggressive brain tumor (fuck you, fucking tumor).  For five of those months Mary Tyler Son slept in a car seat, as it was the only sleeping angle where he didn’t aspirate. For seven of those months, Donna slept in our bed, between us, eking out as much time together as we could before cancer took her away.

So the shared bedroom was more like a shared closet.  Donna had two drawers, Mary Tyler Son had one.  Donna had the left side of the closet, Mary Tyler Son had the right side.  Most of the upper shelves were dedicated to medical supplies.  So very many medical supplies.

When your child dies before you, there are many tasks you are faced with, most of them brutal.  One of those tasks is determining what to do with their things.  What to do with Donna’s clothes, her tutus, her coats, her boots? What to do . . . Some things went away right away.

We could not get rid of the medical supplies quickly enough.  Liberation is what it felt like.  Bottles and bottles and more bottles of medicine.  Bags of fluids.  Boxes of saline solution syringes.  Latex gloves.  Nebulizers with purple dinosaur masks.  Padded chucks for the night time vomiting and bed wetting brought on by overnight fluids.  Tubing.  More tubing.  A bright red sharps container, just like in your doctor’s office.  Gone.  Good riddance.

Some clothing and shoes went to a cousin of Donna’s.  I am still touched that my cousin accepted Donna’s clothing and dressed her own little girl in it.  To see Donna’s shoes on another child’s feet always brought me comfort.  But that cousin is long grown out of Donna’s things, as she is now older than Donna ever was.

The last clothing Donna wore I couldn’t part with.  We have whittled away at it over these four years and it has been condensed to a couple of shelves and half the hanging space in the closet.  Every time I open the door I am reminded, “Yes, Donna.  I miss you, girl.  You were here and I mothered you and dressed you and here is the evidence of that.  You were here, girl, and I remember.”  Every time I open the closet it is the same thing.  Donna wafts out at me, reminding me that once upon a time I mothered a daughter.

I don’t mother a daughter anymore and I never will.

There is no longer the need for dresses and hair bows and tutus and pink boots and silver sequined tiaras.  It is time.  Mary Tyler Son needs the space.  As we prepare to open our hearts and home to a baby boy through adoption, we know and feel that, yes, it is time.  The last of Donna’s things need to be packed away to make room for those of us in this family that are still here, still breathing, still growing.

Good Lord, that is cruel to type.  Forgive me, Donna. Forgive me, girl.

Tomorrow:  Coming Out of the Closet, Part II:  Donna’s Things

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