Not That Kind of Fairytale

As I attempt to explain to my youngest daughter why we are going to Mass today, I struggle to make sense of it myself. We’re not Catholic.  We don’t really practice any religion. It’s a Sunday evening in late July. I’m hot, tired, and broken hearted. I’ve recently broken up with my long-time boyfriend and I’ve just celebrated my 44th birthday. I realize I’m not old yet, and although I am loved and relatively happy, it is my first birthday in 14 years without Rita.

For most of my adult life, my life and Rita’s have been intricately intertwined.

Our fairy tale started like this:

15 years ago I showed up at my eldest daughter’s first day of school. Just as a side note, my girls have all been Montessori educated. Montessori starts at birth, but they can start independently in the community at 14-16 months. My daughter was 22 months old on this day, and I don’t think we had ever been separated for more than a few hours at a time. To say I had mixed feelings is an understatement. I’m a huge believer in the Montessori system. I’ve seen it produce the most confident, independent, self reliant, and entrepreneurial sprints. I see it’s natural beauty everyday in my own girls. That first day I was full of first-time-mother emotions. I tell myself this is the best thing for her, but I am completely lost.  It’s as if I’ve landed on the moon and don’t speak the language. The teacher helps my daughter from the car and she leaves me. This will be her first giant step away from me. I drive a block down the street, call my mother, and sob. I sob so much I’m choking trying to get words out to my mom.  “Things will never be the same,” “she’s never going to need me again,” all kinds of dramatic statements are coming from my mouth, and I believe them, despite not being a dramatic person.  It feels like the end of the world.  Finally, I take a deep breath and gather myself. I’m to go to the new parent coffee and meet the other new parents. I’ve since learned, that as much as I love and am interested in my children and all the things they do, school functions that require me to mix and mingle are not for me. But on this day I am still naïve, luckily for me.

As the head of school speaks about whatever it is he speaks about on these occasions, I scan the room. I’m so out of my league. It’s full of powerhouse women in Chanel suits and professional stay at home moms with perfect hair and perfect lives. I want to run but I am trapped. Then I see her, a stunning yet warmly approachable redhead. She is dressed casually and wears a jade amulet around her neck. The woman fits in and yet still stands out. Like love at first sight, I know we will be friends. After the coffee, I walk to where I am to pick up my daughter. As she babbles about her morning, I see the redhead walking to her car with a tank of a little Asian girl who barrels down the walkway next to her. I scoop up my daughter and run towards her. “Excuse me,” I say, “but where do you get an Asian baby?”  It just comes out and I’m wondering from where. She eyes me like maybe I am crazy. She looks me up and down and then at my tiny daughter with her enormous black eyes that swallow everyone.  She smiles a little and says to me, “China, she’s from China”.

In the 14 years that follow we share more than seems possible in a whole lifetime, divorces, boyfriends, girlfriends, heartbreak, happiness, a broken neck, new babies, a wedding, a move out of state and back, paralyzing depression, and unbelievable joy. Then cancer, it is the death sentence I refused to let myself believe. Even as I watched her disappearing body lay in the bed in hospice, I am unable to fathom a life without her in it. When she left me that night last July, a piece of me left with her.

One year later, to mark the anniversary of my friend’s death, I’m standing in a beautiful Catholic church, thankful for the relief of the icy cold air conditioning. I’m trying to think of how to answer my daughter’s question about why we are here. She is 5, and I don’t know why. I guess I know, but I don’t understand.  It feels unfair. Maybe fairness has nothing to do with it, but this isn’t the fairy tale I imagined that first day of school. How can I explain to her that sometimes the gifts you get when you need them most aren’t always permanent? Sometimes you move forward alone, whether you want to or not. Just then she runs off down the hallway. I’m holding my phone, as always, ready to take a picture. I have my Hipstamatic app open to this week’s Hipstaroll combo. I see her headed towards a side door and I quietly say, almost to myself, “freeze”, but she stops. I want it to be true. I want to be frozen. I don’t want this moment to end. She’s heard me, and being the artist’s daughter, she doesn’t turn around. She knows she’s the model in this moment. Freeze is a word I say when I want her to stop where she is so I can take a shot, and she knows that. I snap her. For all eternity she is frozen. Quickly I come to my senses. It’s just a moment, and I know I can’t stop time no matter how hard I try.

When I go to edit her image, I look for something to add that will represent my desire to hold onto her, to freeze time, to keep her forever in that moment where she hears me even when I barely speak. I mask an image of a Bougainvilla vine that I see growing everyday along my walking route. It is a beautiful plant with hot pink flowers and sharp thorns that protect it. I think of the vines like a mother’s arms, reaching out to protect her, reel her in, keep her safe.  As the edit develops and I add another masked vine in to the image, it takes a sinister turn. The vines no longer seem protective but rather threatening and scary. They are creeping towards her; she is innocent of their danger.  She is frozen and waiting.  It’s then that I realize it’s not the kind of fairy tale I imagined.

About Author

Rebecca Cornwell

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