Five

Skylar,

On the eve of your birthday, I’m sitting in the only room in my house you ever touched. It seemed fitting for such a milestone. Five is a big age. If you were here, I wonder if you would hold up five fingers proudly when your mom asked you how old you were. Underneath my optimistic musings, I wonder if the action would have brought you pain or brought you joy. Maybe both?

Your mom and I painted the dresser in this room white and it took several layers. While we worked in our walk-out attic, you were laying in the floor of what would eventually become the guest bedroom. You were sleeping, I think. Sometimes I couldn’t tell if you were sleeping or trying to ignore your mom and I. Sometimes, as much as I hate to admit it, I just wasn’t sure at all. Of anything you were up to. And it scared me.

I wonder if the person that named big moments “milestones” understood what that term meant to people who dreaded them. The first milestone of you being gone, for me, was having a daughter of my own. I wanted her to look just like you – all Henkes – but was scared of that possible outcome as well. Would she be a constant reminder of all they had lost? Of what we ALL had lost in your passing? A mile of stones form all the way down to my core.

She does look a lot like you. She’s also sassy just like you were. She doesn’t like my singing either, in case you were wondering. I sing to her like I sang to you – hoping I would form a connection to a person that felt entirely unknown. The mystery of childhood, I think, is that the grown ups have no clue what’s going on and it’s scary and beautiful all at once.

I wonder if grief feels like silence to everyone. I feel your absence most in the quiet moments I consider a way forward to honor you. I think you’d like Mrs. Becky. I wish I had been able to be your teacher like I hoped I could be. Maybe your mom would have trusted you to me? I hope so, but I had just started speaking that idea out loud, right before you left. And in the months afterward, the words felt like concrete in my throat, so I stopped imagining that path. Grief felt silent and I think the concrete was too heavy. Like a mile of stones.

I wonder if there’s always guilt. The grief inside the guilt of not knowing you the way I hoped to. I feel anger at time and circumstance – how a year of masks turned into two and the paranoia meant I saw you only sometimes. It makes me sad and angry.

The dresser we painted on the only day you visited my house was once black. I remember being so proud of my ombre drawers – black to white. I wasn’t as proud of the dark paint once your mom and I tried to cover it with white. The black streaks kept peeking through. No matter how hard we worked, they wouldn’t go away. Even now, a close examination leaves no doubt of it’s prior color. I think like most things, this feels like a cliché metaphor.

I wonder if grief is whitewashed black paint. No matter how you try to cover it up, it keeps peeking through. Some days it feels like concrete. Some days it feels like joy. Some days it feels like silence. Some days you hardly notice the black streaks across your façade. Other days, it’s all you can focus on. Most days, I’m in awe of your mom and dad. What feels like black streaks to me must feel like an all-black room with no windows. I worry about them.

I’m still trying to figure out what your life and death were supposed to mean. But tonight I only wish there were five candles, a big birthday cake, and your hands smacking the icing as hard as you could. It seems so unfair, but I think sometimes…grief is just hope. A hope that your life leads to even more goodness.

Maybe the brightness you showed will be the brightness that leads us forward. Thank you, sweetie. For a million things.

Where did five years go? Happy (ALMOST) birthday.

Aunt Halie