Loose Strife

A few weeks before Laura died she quietly bought almost $500 of books and DVDs from Amazon mostly for the girls. It was during a spate of energy and awareness, seemingly, that she filled her virtual shopping cart. As the boxes arrived over the coming days I realized what she had done, but by that time she was bedridden, talking poorly, and not very cognizant. Still, insensitive ass that I am, I confronted her with the 3 foot stack of media. She said that she had a hard time seeing the screen and figured that we could return the ones she didn’t want. But when I handed her a book to consider she slowly turned every page, looked at each carefully, closed the book and put it aside. “Keep or return?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she replied blankly. A half dozen books later she went to sleep.
Ultimately I made some unilateral decisions and returned the duplicates, redundant books, and others. (A little foreshadowing, I’m afraid, of the many decisions to make with other things now.) But whether I ultimately kept each item or not, the full invoice was a glimpse into what had been occupying Laura’s thoughts. I felt pretty confident that From Here to Eternity or a kid’s book about the 50 states was probably not a critical purchases, but rather a fleeting thought or maybe even a mistake. Other purchases couldn’t be so easily dismissed. Laura purchased 15 books about Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead.
She had been collecting Day of the Dead skulls, skeletons, and other stuff for some time. The girls were familiar with the accoutrements. She saw the Mexican festival as a way for Lily and Naomi to remember her and to be connected with her Mexican heritage. The children’s books on the Day of the Dead were a way to teach them about the celebration and to prepare them for her death.
The timing of her death at the beginning of October gave the kids and me just enough distance from the event so that by the end of the month we were eager to build an ofrenda and decorate her grave this past week. The ofrenda is a sort of alter in the house where you place candles, photos, food, and memorabilia of family that have died. Lily and Naomi were very excited and rushed around the house gathering items that reminded them of Laura. A doll and blankets that Laura made were first. The girls and I chose photos that we liked. We added favorite candies. Some butterflies. A rosary. Then Naomi started piling on pretty much every toy and dress-up item that she could find. Lily started screaming at her: “You don’t understand!” I explained to Naomi again that we were adding things that reminded us of Mommy. But she repeatedly insisted that the blue dress-up feather boa, the mini trophy from the costume contest last Halloween, or a doll that her grandmother gave her all “remind me of Mommy.” It was hard to argue.
Lily wanted to draw a card for Laura to put on the ofrenda and later to take to the cemetery. She asked me to draw a bench and then she decorated it with flowers. The bench was Laura’s gravestone. Several times since Laura died Lily has asked where the gravestone was. I had told her that I would have one made soon and I had also mentioned that a bench — perhaps like the marble ones near Laura’s grave — was an option. Laura and I had talked about gravestones and a stone bench was one of several ideas that appealed to her. She liked the idea that her grave was a place to stay a while and rest.
Of course the Day of the Dead preparations were not exactly taking top billing last week. Several times a day Lily asked when she would be wearing her costume to school and when we were going trick or treating. Lily was overjoyed to be a cat this year. Naomi was a fairy princess, which wasn’t much of a stretch for her — just her usual daily dress-up costume — but I didn’t argue.
Halloween is an adorably cute event in Ashfield with all the town children parading down Main street and collecting candy together at a dozen or so houses. I wrote about it last year and rereading it I was struck that Naomi was fearless and thrilled throughout the evening. This year both of them hardly let go of my hands. It might be an indicator that Naomi is less confident and more clingy than she used to be. Maybe it’s related to Laura’s death. Maybe she’s just older and more aware of her surroundings and of the possibility of getting separated and lost. Maybe she’s just becoming more like her older sister. I don’t know.
I do know that when it comes to Laura’s death that the difference between them is dramatic, but not unexpected given their ages and personalities. For example, several nights ago I pulled out a children’s book that Laura had bought last spring about death called “I Miss You.” Lily recognized it and hid it under the dining room table. When I later produced it again at bedtime Lily adamantly stated that she didn’t want to read it. I said that it was a book about death that we all might like to read because it might make us feel better about Mommy’s death. Lily said no, but Naomi eagerly said, “I want to read about death.” So the three of us read other books together and Naomi and I read “I Miss You” by ourselves. Surprisingly, the next night Lily mustered the courage to ask to read the book, too. As I read it again, Lily held me tight and cried, and then I cried. Then Naomi started to pretend to cry and pout, “I miss Mommy.” Lily screamed, “Naomi, you’re faking it!” and flailed her arms at her sister. “No I’m not,” she said almost mockingly.
Although Naomi’s emotional connection to Laura’s death does not appear to be very strong, she is clearly working to understand the facts seemingly beyond her age. Conventional wisdom says that three year olds cannot grasp the permanency of death, but neither girl has ever suggested that Laura would return. During the week after Laura’s death on our way home from preschool, Naomi said, “Daddy. I’m not going to die. And Lily isn’t going to die. And you’re not going to die.” We’re all safe, she assured herself. Last night, she suddenly asked me at dinner, “Daddy, Baba and Yaya aren’t dead, right?” She was making sure that death was not just someone being out of sight for a long time.
The day that Laura died I decided that we would all be away when the car came to take away her body on a stretcher in a bag. I had heard from others that it was a traumatic experience and I didn’t want the girls or me to have that imagery. So I timed the pickup so that the girls, Laura’s family and I would be taking a walk down the road. Before we left that morning the girls made goodbye cards and laid them on top of Laura. When we returned the girls ran upstairs to see that she was gone and they hugged me and cried.
Afterwards I wondered whether Naomi or Lily would ask when Mommy would return. They didn’t see her removed, so a young child would reasonably suppose that Laura had left on her own. But that never happened. Still, it might have been helpful to have had a private casket viewing later in the week. I had chosen not to because I thought the family had had enough time with Laura after she died and Laura had been adamantly against the expense involved in preparing the body for viewing. In fact, she had long wavered between cremation and burial not because of any particular interest in scattering or saving ashes, but because she thought it was unnecessary to give any attention to the physical body after death. That wasn’t what was important.
But it is important I’ve found from a child’s perspective in particular and more generally for everyone symbolically during the funeral as well. And so it was not surprising, but eloquent coming from a child, when Lily asked on the day of the funeral, “why is it made of wood?” The casket, that is. As I struggled to answer, she said, “I wish it was made of glass.”
It’s been almost a month now and the girls seem to well understand Laura’s death and they are as comfortable talking about her as I could hope. Lily doesn’t like to confront the pain directly with words, but what five year old would? And she is happy to recollect the past through pictures, books, and other things even if it makes her a little sad, so I feel relatively confident right now that the girls are coping well.
Yesterday morning we decorated Laura’s grave for Dia de los Muertos with flowers, Lily’s card, and another butterfly. We read some stories including “Caps For Sale” just because Laura liked to read it to them. We dawdled a while. And when we got home I found this month’s edition of the Ashfield News. An obituary notice that I wrote was in it that said:

Laura K. C. Kulp
1970 – 2008
Laura K. C. Kulp, 38, of Phillips Rd, Ashfield, died October 5, 2008 after a year long battle with cancer. She was born the second of five in a close-knit family on April 10, 1970 in Annandale, VA, where she was raised.
While attending the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA she met her husband, David Kulp. She graduated in 1992 with a B.A. in Linguistics and joined David in New Zealand to live and then travel through Australia and South East Asia. They returned to the states, married in 1994, and then settled briefly in Baltimore before moving to Santa Cruz, CA. She was occupied with libraries, pottery, photography, art, kitsch, and music among other pursuits while continuing to travel to such places as South America and East Asia. They later moved to the East San Francisco Bay area for several years where their first daughter, Lily, was born in 2003.
Shortly thereafter the family relocated to Northampton when her husband took a faculty position at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She quickly developed close ties with many mothers in the area and gardening became a passion. Their second daughter, Naomi, was born in 2005.
In 2007 the family relocated to Ashfield where she hoped to turn her enthusiasm for flowers into an agricultural vocation. Instead, she was struck with advanced breast cancer and for 15 months careened towards death through tremendous ebbs and high tides as family and friends from town, the region, and afar held her close.
An utterly devoted and loving mother and wife, she leaves her two daughters and husband in Ashfield; her parents Joe and Natalie Coleman and her siblings Heather Arbeen, Elena Shacochis, PJ Coleman, and Justin Coleman, all of Virginia; and fond memories among many. She was buried in Plain Cemetery. The family requests that flowers be given to someone you love as a reminder of how precious and fleeting life can be.

But what really delighted me was a column written by the preschool director, Patricia Donohue:

From the end of the banquet table where a dozen children are eating lunch together, Benjamin shares a story about his dog finding a skull in the woods. “What is a skull?” Owen asks. “I can tell you, ” Naomi offers, “because I have one in the Days of my Dead book at my house.” Quite likely Naomi’s alteration of the name of this traditional Mexican holiday, Day of the Dead, is merely an innocent 3-year-old misremembering. But I also wonder if it might actually be a very decisive, precise choice of words. Naomi’s mother, Laura Kulp, died on October 5th at home, surrounded by her daughters Naomi and Lily, her husband David, her parents Natalie and Joe Coleman, and her brothers and sisters.
The news of Laura’s death leaves us all with the same heavy feeling of helplessness and grief for such an enormous loss. Repeatedly the same questions are asked, the same concerns expressed. We ponder the grief Laura must have felt knowing she wouldn’t get to watch her children grow into young women or to fulfill all the dreams she and David must have had when they moved into their beautiful Ashfield home only a year and a half ago. And most immediately, we ask each other, how do we best take care of Naomi and Lily right now?
David provides the best answer when he brings Naomi back to school. Following his lead, we ask other preschool parents not to offer the words of consolation that they would with another adult. Children at this age cannot grasp euphemisms like “passed away,” and death is something that only year after year will they come to understand more fully. But for right now, the best we can do is to try to make their worlds as secure and uncomplicated as we are able.
A week later at the Saturday Farmers Market, Naomi’s grandmother is wearing her Day of the Dead shirt and I tell her about Naomi saying she had a book about the holiday. Natalie describes the way she has for years decorated her porch and celebrated Dia de los Muertos with her children and grandchildren and how year after year, they anticipate the day she will unpack the box of plastics skulls and catrinas, the plastic skeleton figurines. Laura had bought books for her girls to begin sharing this part of her family heritage with them. I ask Natalie how we can bring some part of the holiday into the preschool.
The Day of the Dead celebrations can be traced back 3,000 years in the ancient cultures of the indigenous peoples of Mexico. It was believed that on this day it was easier for the souls of the departed to visit the living. Part of the tradition, then, is to cook the favorite foods of friends and relatives who have died, to construct an alter and set their photos on it. November 1st is known as Dia de los Inocentes, Day of the Innocents, and in most regions of Mexico, it is the day to honor children who have died. November 2nd is know as Dia de los Muertos.
Another tradition is to visit the cemeteries where loved ones rest and to bring a beloved food or flower. Since walking in the cemetery is a regular part of our week here at preschool, I think perhaps this would be a good year to begin our own tradition of taking a Day of the Dead walk there. I think about how the teachers here have already practiced this honoring of the dead for all of the years that I have worked here and for years before when my own children came here, how they have shared their own enjoyment of the beauty of this cemetery on Baptist Corner Road and their reverence for the meaning of such a place. I think once more about how lucky we are to live here and care for our children here.
Naomi examines the choice of colors of chalk and after some thought, she picks up the purple. On the huge slate board that hangs in the Great Room she draws a person who is wearing a long dress. She adds a crown and says the picture isn’t finished yet, because, oh yes, that’s it, she needs to put in the fireworks. It’s done now, she announces. This is my mommy in her wedding dress. She is wearing a crown. And there are fireworks all around.
Dear Laura, I hope that where you are right now, that you are being treated royally and that you are surrounded by the sort of brightness and wonder and magic that comes from fireworks.