The Empty Jar(80)

She watches me, still holding onto the edge of the coffee table, the tips of her fat little fingers blanching with her efforts. At first, she completely ignores my request. She reaches for the edge of a magazine and tries to pull it off the table, much more interested in it than me at the moment.

When she realizes it’s too far out of her reach, she turns her attention to a red block letter, in the shape of an A, from her enormous stack of toys. She eyes it, and I wonder if she’s debating whether it’s worth the effort to crawl all the way back over there to get it.

Eventually, she makes up her mind that it’s not and looks back to me for a little more encouragement. “Come on, Grace. Come to Daddy.”

I shut off the video and restart it at least six times. I’m nearing resignation when Grace finally decides that now is the right time. Then, just like that, she lets go of the table, flexes her tiny fingers, and wobbles toward me.

On her feet.

I capture the whole thing on my phone, and for the first time in nine long months, I laugh. I feel the subtle stirrings of real pleasure. I love my daughter more than anything, especially now that Lena is gone, but my grief has been so deep, it’s affected my ability to enjoy the little things. I care for Grace diligently, I love her profoundly, but on the inside, I’m broken and no other love can fix that.

Her first steps, however, mark a turning point.

The first step toward healing.

The first of a few.

From that day on, Grace and I interact on a whole different level. She’s walking surely and chattering constantly before I know it, bringing true joy back into my life. She does it as effortlessly as her mother did.

Before I know it, spring has arrived.

********

Spring brings with it a renewal, as it’s wont to do, but for me, it’s a renewal of pain. The warming of the weather, the blossoming of the flowers, the leafing-out of the trees—it all forces ghosts out of hiding, and I become haunted by images of my dying wife.

I find myself watching her videos more and more often, turning inward, withering a little more each day. I know it isn’t a good path to be on, but I’m helpless to stop it.

I just can’t let go.

I sit alone in my bedroom floor most nights, watching Lena’s beautiful face, listening to her beautiful voice, and remembering our beautiful life. The balmier the nights become, the closer I get to the anniversary of her death, the deeper I fall into depression. Grace brings me joy, of course, but even my bright, beautiful, intelligent daughter can’t thaw what’s frozen within me.

But as she did in life, my Lena is determined to save me, even in her death.

It’s a Sunday in late May when I feel her for the first time.

Grace and I’d gone to church this morning, something I found an easy and soothing habit to adopt, and it had left me thinking even more about Lena. It’s yet another instance I wish my wife could be with me. I know without a doubt that if Lena had had the benefit of holding a miracle in her arms, having something tangible to join her to her God, she wouldn’t have struggled with Him the way she did.

Lena found her peace eventually. But it came at quite a price.

Grace and I decided to spend the rest of the afternoon at the park and then go out for dinner. Nissa and Mark had invited us over, but I politely declined. I didn’t feel like being social. I never did, actually. Not anymore.

So as usual, I throw myself into my daughter, into her world. It’s a soothing escape into love and away from memories.

It’s later in the night when Grace totters through the house and wants to go into the pantry. I assume she wants to pick a different after-dinner treat.

But that’s not the case.

“What do you want, little girl?” I ask when Grace putters around aimlessly from shelf to shelf. She grunts once, that petulant sound that I love and try not to smile at because I know I shouldn’t encourage it. “What?”

Patiently, I let my daughter make her way through the small room. Suddenly, as though she just remembered what she wanted from the shelves, Grace turns. I watch with wide, curious eyes as she walks to the back corner of the pantry, leans against the wall, and points straight up.

My eyes travel up, up, up to the only thing above my child’s head.

“Mines,” she says, tilting her head back to look at me, to make sure I’m paying attention to her.

Slowly, I reach up onto the nearly-empty corner shelf. With curiously numb fingers, I take down the only thing that is anywhere near where my daughter is pointing.

It’s an old empty Mason jar.

With holes poked in the lid.

In my chest, I feel an ache so sharp and painful that I have to reach out and steady myself on the shelving as I struggle to suck air into my throbbing lungs.

The last time I saw this jar was when it was full of lightning bugs and sitting on the nightstand. My wife was curled up against me, reciting an old rhyme to our baby. I don’t remember freeing the lightning bugs, although I must’ve. But it had to have been Patricia or Nissa who washed it and stowed it away because I honestly can’t remember putting it there. Or even seeing it for that matter.

Yet here it is.

Finally, I exhale one shaky puff of air and look down to where my baby bounces at my feet. What would bring her here? How could she possibly have known this jar was here?

I wrap my stiff fingers around the cool glass and take it off the shelf. I stare into the empty jar. I see my own face reflected on the shiny surface, but more than that, I see that it’s not empty at all. Among the four slightly rounded walls of this container rests one of my life’s most precious memories. Inside this jar there is love and family and a beautiful legacy that my wife wanted to share with our child. This moment, this moment where my child brought me here, will be added to it, as will all the laughs and squeals and yawns that we put in it from here on.