This is Today
This is Today

03.25.2022

Azlan just turned 8. He finally has friends, loves school, and shines with confidence. Since the day Mila died, he has thrived. Something in me refused to accept that it took losing Mila for Azlan to live. Until I spoke with a mom who also lost her daughter to a rare disease. As she consoled me, she mentioned that her son opened up like a flower as soon as his sister passed. I wasn't alone. The burden I carry for the decisions rare disease forced me to make weighs on me like a heavy blanket. But watching my son blossom is one big step toward finding peace.

03.11.2022

I've felt distant from Mila recently. No image I conjured up helped bring her closer. So I woke up the other day, dropped Azlan at school and drove aimlessly around Boulder stopping at the places that reminded me of Mila. The playgrounds where she served me imaginary mango gelato, the warm indoor pool behind an old hotel where she tried to learn to swim, the animal sculptures she climbed and jumped from on hot summer days. I ended at her one room preschool, Dream Makers, which became a second family for her from when she was five until the end of her life. Last week, as I pulled the door open for the first time since Mila's last day there, I fought back a surge of sadness and pain. A little four year old girl with brown hair and brown eyes walked up to me, staring from below and said, "Are you a mommy?" I paused, then said, "I am", and pointed to the photo of my smiling Mila taped to the wall. "That's my daughter, Mila. She used to go here." The little girl listened and said, "I'm Alia." It was the name I had almost given Mila, the one I had saved for a future second daughter I never had. 

02.11.2022

This morning, I stop and close my eyes. One year ago today, I held Mila for the last time. My emotions are spinning into a web I struggle to untangle. As my eyes close, I remember a moment beside my little girl, her face pressed up against the window of our old house, her excited voice whispering to me about the bugs flying on the other side of the glass. A page in my book from many chapters ago. Then I travel to a memory of lifting an unstable Mila into our car, singing to her “Slow Down You Move Too Fast”, her laughter filling me. I end on a more recent moment pressed up against my quiet Mila, the daughter I last knew. There are no sounds. There is no excitement. Our silent love is solemn, stabbing... but in some way it eases me.

01.06.2022

The year I wasn't sure I could survive is behind me. I thought that turning the page, starting a new year, would bring relief. In some ways it has, but in others I feel the distance from Mila and my mom more than ever. As I embark on this new very different year, I try to remember who I am. Are my passions and interests still in me? Does music still calm me? I place my hands on the piano keys and tell myself that I still have a song to play.