Dear E,
There’s a story that hasn’t ended yet, but I want to tell it to you, anyway.
It’s about one very long year. It’s about giving things up. It’s about being afraid. It’s about losing things—really big, important things. I guess it’s about discovering things, too.
—
You weren’t yet two years old. We had recently lost a lot of your toys and keepsakes in a basement flood in the house we were renting. It had happened right around Christmas. In January, the furnace stopped working—while you had pneumonia and it was snowing outside. The house was so old and small that only one space heater could be turned on at a time. We put the space heater in your room so you’d be warm at night. We bundled ourselves up in layers before bed, slept under an electric blanket, and told ourselves that after we got through this and fully settled in that everything would get better. You know by now that it didn’t.
—
February seemed ok at first, I think. It’s very hard to remember it now. You were in a toddler gym class on the weekends that you loved. We loved it, too, because it helped you burn off energy. (You have a lot of energy. I have a feeling you always will. It’s exhausting, but I love that about you.) We had a few play dates with friends, though in retrospect not nearly as many as I’d have liked. I wish I said yes to more things now. We went to a children’s museum together. Your dad and I went out to lunch for our fifth wedding anniversary. We couldn’t have known it then, but that was the last time he and I sat inside a restaurant together. We went to a friend’s birthday party at their house. You followed the older girls around and played in the ball pit while the grown-ups talked. That was the last real social event we went to before it all started.
—
You’re a very social person. Even when you were in the infant room at daycare, back in Jersey City, you lit up the moment you saw one of your teachers in the morning. On walks, you’ve always been delighted by brief encounters with other people. Someone might stop to make a nice comment about your little sweater and you’d smile and wave. But suddenly, that wasn’t happening anymore.
It was a clear day. A nice-looking young family with a little boy close to your age was approaching us on the sidewalk. I saw you get that excited look in your eyes—people! But then, as soon as they saw us, they crossed to the other side of the street to adhere to the six-feet rule. Your look of confusion was obvious to me. I don’t think I said anything to you, despite my heart breaking. Maybe I should have, but how could I even attempt to explain? You were only one year old and didn’t understand what was happening.
Even now, I don’t know what to say to you. At first, I didn’t think it would be necessary, that it would all pass in a few months at most. We all thought that back then. Obviously, that hasn’t been the case.
Love,
Mama