Tucked Away Memories

Every time Madeline draws a picture, she hangs it on the refrigerator with pride.  My kitchen is so cluttered with colorful squiggles, crude letter M's, princess stickers, and stamped handprints that one can barely tell that there's a refrigerator under the mess at all.  And so every few weeks, I sift through Madeline's masterpieces.  Most are placed discretely in the recycling bin, while the best of the bunch are tucked away in a box on top of our bookshelves for safekeeping.  

Meanwhile, Vivi outgrows clothing so quickly that I am constantly juggling what needs to be folded, donated, or discarded.  The most precious of her outfits are saved under her bed in a box that's identical to the one that holds Madeline's baby clothes.  

When the girls are grown, we'll open the lids and marvel that their feet were ever so tiny.  We'll smile at their early attempts at writing their names.  Favorite toys will bring up long-forgotten memories.  Some of the contents may be passed along to their own babies one day.  

Those boxes are mini museums housing the priceless artifacts of my children's lives.  And as the years pass, more and more boxes are stored under our beds, in the back of our closets, on the top of dusty shelves.  

But there's one box, safely nestled in my nightstand, that is never added to and will never multiply.  Ellis Jane, who came into this world still, has just a handful of items to prove she existed.  Her box  contains an envelope of photographs, her footprints, hospital bands, the clothing the nurses dressed her in, which miraculously still smells like baby.  

I used to pour through the contents of this box daily, then weekly, then every now and again.  Six years later, I am almost reluctant to open her box and be drawn back into that place of sadness. 

So much has filled the space between then and now that six years feel like another lifetime ago.

But today is her birthday, and today I will let myself remember.  Tonight, when the girls are safely tucked in bed, I will open the lid, flip through the photographs, study the footprints, and let my fingertips smooth out the wrinkles of her tiny pink sweater.  I will feel sad, and grateful, and maybe even an odd kind of peace.  Then the lid will close till next year.  

We love you, Ellis Jane, our forever baby.