Halloween looks different this year but I know that families and children will find a way to continue to make it festive and fun. With or without trick or treating I know there are plenty of family activities going on for kids to partake in. I know Ariella would have come up with some creative way to enjoy one of her favorite days of the year. Maybe watching scary movies, playing games, and of course planning pranks. But on the other hand, I don’t know this. Last year I could imagine her on Halloween. I knew she was planning on being Harry Potter. She planned that the year prior when she was Hermione. I’m not sure if she would have gone trick or treating, she may have wanted to do something with her friends. But I do know she would have participated in Halloween festivities in one way or another. But this year, I just don’t know. Her last Halloween was two years ago. She would be 13 this year. A lot can change in two years as we learned in the most awful way possible. Would she still like Halloween or would she be too “old” for it? Would she still want to trick or treat or would she rather go to a friend’s party? Would she wear a costume or would she have outgrown costumes this year? And the truth is, I just don’t know. And this just shatters me. Because I don’t know what my daughter would be like at 13, at 16, as an adult. I know she would continue to be sassy, spunky, silly, kind, and generous. But there is just so much I will never get to know about my girl, that I can’t even begin to imagine. Today, when I was thinking about how she would celebrate Halloween during a pandemic, was the first day I think I truly realized that I can no longer know what Ariella would do or say or how she would react to a particular situation. I don’t know what her likes or interests would be. I don’t know if she would still be dancing or if she would have decided to do something else. I don’t know what her favorite book or movie would be and what show she would binge. Even though intellectually I knew this, it really hit me today when I couldn’t imagine her on Halloween. She slips away from me more and more each day. Of course the memories are there and always will be, but the future is gone and I can no longer imagine her in it. Because I don’t know who she would be. For those who think there is a timeline for grief, think about not just the milestones, but all the mundane daily routines your child will experience in their lifetime, and imagine them missing most of them because they died. Imagine not knowing who your child would become, not knowing their desires and wishes at each stage of their life. Imagine being faced with other children, then teens, then adults, reaching those same milestones that your child never got to achieve. I am confronted with this daily and so far, it hasn’t gotten any easier. You never stop missing your child. Never. And you always wonder. And it gets harder and harder.
Halloween
Of all the days I have been dreading since Ariella died, I think I have been most dreading Halloween. Yes, even more than her birthday. Because I can’t escape Halloween. I am assaulted by reminders in stores, at work, in radio commercials. “Come to our fall festival.” “Come pick your pumpkin and get lost in our corn maze”. Parties, Trunk or Treats, festivals. Advertisements abound for costumes and decor and even Halloween cocktails (which may just be how I survive the night). Visual and tactile reminders everywhere of what Ariella is missing. Of what we are missing. I miss the excitement, the anticipation. I long for the days when we would spend hours at a local farm, letting Ariella lead us in the corn maze, visiting the petting zoo, going on hayrides, and of course choosing a pumpkin. We would go home and carve the biggest pumpkin we could find and then roast the seeds until they were fragrant and crispy. I miss having my house decked out with spooky decorations, a seasonal tchotchke on every surface, and the house smelling of apples or cinnamon. Ariella loved to decorate for Halloween and the creepier the better. This year there is not a fall decoration to be found in my home. It looks like any other day, like any other season. Which is apt, because every day is the same. Filled with intense longing and anguish that doesn’t disappear until I fall asleep at night. I don’t want the holiday trimmings without Ariella to enjoy it. But I can’t ignore it. It’s everywhere. Fall is fully in the air and I don’t want to participate.
What kid doesn’t love Halloween? Ok, there are some that don’t but for most it’s dressing up and parties and games and festivals and candy. More than just one day, the weeks leading up to Halloween are filled with excitement for children. Planning costumes, picking and carving pumpkins, events leading up to the big day. It’s a great time to be a kid. Ariella loved it so much it was probably her second favorite day of the year, her first being her birthday. She would be so excited about her costumes that she often had the next year’s costume planned before the current year’s Halloween had even arrived. Case in point, last year she was Hermione but weeks, maybe even a couple months before Halloween she already knew she wanted to be Harry Potter this year. She could be playing in a blizzard in February or swimming in the pool in the middle of summer, thinking about Halloween.
When Ariella was 5 we started the tradition of trick-or-treating with 2 other families, neighbors of ours. We would have pizza at one of our houses and then go trick or treating throughout our neighborhood. Each year I loved seeing the pictures of the previous years, watching the kids grow older and more independent with each passing year. They trick-or-treated together each year from that year through last year (well last year without one of our neighbors as they had moved) with the exception of 2017, when Ariella spent Halloween in the hospital. Last year Ariella had more freedom with trick or treating, leaving us behind while she and her friends made their way down the street. And she was already talking about the next year, when she wanted to go trick or treating with her friends from school, without parents at all. She never got the chance. She never got the chance to increase her independence from us, experience the teenage years, mature, grow up. She never got the chance to live her life as a fully formed person. She was growing up but still very much a child. And it breaks my heart that we will never get to see the adult she would have become.
I want nothing to do with Halloween. I don’t want to see it, hear about it, partake in any related activities, even be in my house because I don’t want to see or hear the kids having a great time, doing what any child would be doing, what my child should be doing. I don’t want to hand out candy and see the adorable kids in their adorable costumes. The chatter and laughter of the children pierces right through me. There is a laugh, a smile, missing. There is one fewer child knocking on doors, exclaiming over the candy she received, giggling through the streets. I don’t get to go home and check out her stash and steal her Almond Joys and then coax her to bed since it is a school night. Halloween is just one more reminder of everything we have lost.
The last place I want to be is at home. I was actually in the midst of trying to think of someone without kids, or with older kids, that would be available to go out to dinner with David and me so we would be away from home, away from the bustle, away from the trick or treaters. Our rabbi has brought dinner to us several times since Ariella died and it just so happened that he texted us to see if we were available on Halloween for dinner. I jumped at the chance and said as long as we we could go out this time, not stay at our house. So for the first time ever our house will be dark, uninviting. No pumpkin lights lighting our steps and no jack-o-lantern gracing our stoop. There will be no candy, just disappointed children if they happen to ring our bell.
This is my life now. Constantly navigating a battlefield trying to avoid landmines. Everything is a trigger but one false step and I hit the big one, and BOOM! It all comes crashing down again. It is exhausting and dispiriting. It is disenchanting to no longer enjoy activities and events and holidays that I once loved. I never used to want to escape from life and now I can only dream of getting far, far away from everything.
Since I can no longer partake in sharing of our kiddos in costumes here are pictures of Ariella through the years, in chronological order. Her first Halloween she was just 4 weeks old.
I still can’t believe that this is it. Any pictures I share of Ariella will be old, of memories, pictures others have seen before. No new ones. No new memories. No future milestones. I hate this. I fucking hate this and wish it all would just end.
Lost
Ariella’s friends are at a Halloween party tonight. Every year her dance company has a Halloween party, sometimes it’s at the dance studio but other times it had been at her dance teacher’s house. The parties at her teacher’s house were parent friendly, not just for the kids. They are elaborate. Lots of good food and fun games, a haunted woods and a campfire. Kids and parents alike have a great time.
This year the party is not just a party, but also a fundraiser for Ari’s Bears. It sounds like a great time with even more games and activities, items for sale, a silent auction, and fireworks to end the night. David and I were supposed to go. We were almost ready to leave the house. But I really did not want to go. So we didn’t.
I feel guilty about not going. After all, this event benefits our foundation. But I have learned over and over that out of necessity a grieving parent is selfish. A grieving parent must put her own needs first. A grieving parent must take care of herself in order to just survive one day to the next. So to protect myself we didn’t go. I would have been happy to see my friends but I do not want to be someplace where Ariella would be, having a great time with her friends, being the loudest one in the room, and just enjoying life. I do not want to see her friends having fun without her. I know they love and miss her but their lives go on. Ariella’s absence does not define their lives like it does mine. Nor should it. But being at the party without her only one thing would be running through my mind the entire night. She should be here. Her absence would be glaring and I just wasn’t up for that. I also wasn’t up for seeing my friends happy and having fun with their children. I don’t begrudge them their happiness but I certainly was not in a party mood. Definitely not up for small talk when all I care about is that Ariella is missing a party for her favorite holiday. I sometimes I feel like the unwanted guest. No one has made me feel that way, but I don’t even want to be around myself. I’m a downer. I have always been quiet and introverted but more so now. I can’t force myself to converse when so often I just don’t care. I know that sounds terrible but all that matters to me anymore is Ariella. Nothing else is important. I also know that I am an uncomfortable reminder of a parent’s worst nightmare. Again, no one has made me feel unwelcome, but I also know I am not the ideal friend anymore. Sometimes I’m up for hanging out but a Halloween party with Ariella’s friends was the last place I wanted to be tonight.
Instead David and I stayed in and I am pretty much doing what I did all day, just laying around without the motivation to even get off the couch. The only difference now is I added a glass of wine. I am not alone and yet feel so lonely. Because no one else can understand. Even those who are in a similar situation. Even David. Just like I can’t fully understand how they are feeling. Because everyone grieves differently. Everyone feels differently. Grieving by nature is a very lonely road and when you feel like your life’s purpose and meaning has been stolen from you there is a lot of uncertainty with how to just live and find new meaning. I just feel so lost.