Going Home

“Is your backpack all packed up for our night in the cemetery?” I asked my seven-year-old daughter Stacy, with all the enthusiasm I could muster. I looked around her room as she sat on the bed with her arms folded. I sighed, knowing we were about to go through it again.

“I don’t WANT to go,” she said petulantly. Originally she had agreed, but that had been a couple of months ago. The whims of children.

“I know baby,” I said. I tried to sound reassuring while I got down on my knees to look under the bed. Aha! The bright pink My Little Pony backpack with Fluttershy emblazoned on the front practically glowed in the semi darkness. I snagged the strap and dragged it out. It was definitely weighed down with things, but probably not what I told her to put in there.

I opened it up and sure enough, I saw the TV remote, a unicorn bookend, several DVDs, and various other items stashed away. I took out the nonessentials and turned to Stacy’s bookshelf, shoving in her much-loved copy of Phoebe and Her Unicorn as well as a few other books inside, along with her stuffed rabbit Baloney, her turquoise blanket, her macaron-shaped music box, and other things I knew she would like and would bring her comfort over the long night.

“What if it’s scary?” she persisted, as I tied the multicolored string bracelet around her wrist. It matched mine; she had made both of them for Mothers’ Day as a gift to me. A lump rose in my throat but I shoved it back down, as well as the tears.

“Of course it won’t be. Mommy will be there too.” I looked her over. Stacy was dressed, hair braided, pink sweater on, with tiny and bedazzled Ugg boots to complete the look and keep her warm.

I had a jumbo sleeping bag for both of us and my own small backpack. It was just for one night, after all.

“Are we going to see Daddy?” Stacy asked. This was a new question in this discussion, and it threw me. Stacy’s father had left both of us just last year. It consistently surprised me whenever she brought him up, because sometimes she would go for weeks without asking about him. But I always tried to answer her questions patiently and thoroughly when she did. Except this one.

“I doubt it,” I muttered darkly. Then, cheerfully I said, “No, sweetie. It’ll just be the two of us. Girls’ night out!”

My words didn’t seem to make a difference, but when I held out my hand, she jumped off the bed and took it. I squeezed it, my heart so full of love I wanted to die from it.

I snugged her backpack on her shoulders. I wished I could carry it for her, but I had my own plus the sleeping bag. But my little girl was strong and so smart for her age.

I remembered holding her in my arms the day she was born. That was the first time I had felt such all-consuming love. It had eclipsed the strong love I had for my husband (at the time). Time and the mother-daughter connection had erased the frustration of the daily feeding struggles, the nighttime screaming, the endless poop. As Stacy grew, my love for her grew too. I could barely contain it.

And I would never forget Stacy’s horrible 6th birthday, the same year my husband - her father - left us to fend for ourselves. Stacy got meningitis and was so sick, I was practically out of my mind in terror. He and I fought often about her care, with screaming matches that threatened to shake the house down. I’ve never regretted that more, because while we never yelled over her hospital bed, the tension in the room was strong enough to make Stacy cry. It was not conducive to her recovery.

One day, my husband just stormed out and never returned. He didn’t even wait to see Stacy fight for health. But here she was, and over the past year she had regained some of her old self back, able to ask about her dad without crying and play outside. The hollow, thousand-yard stare was diminishing. The resilience Stacy displayed after those two events never failed to surprise me.

However resilient she was, I knew Stacy was still missing an essential part of herself that I hoped she’d gain back. I worried that if I let too much time go by without pushing her just a tiny bit, that she would never completely find herself again.

Thus, an overnight trip to the cemetery. I disliked the word graveyard, even though that was where we were going. I even had special dispensation from the cemetery itself, with access to a bathroom and shelter just in case. It was within walking distance of our home and next to a park. I’d always found the juxtaposition strange, even though I knew that the cemetery had come before the park, long before. And the world could use more parks. But children playing and families having fun, right next to a place typically known for sorrow, just seemed so jarringly different.

“Mommy!” Stacy yelled. “Can we go to the park?”

I bit my lip, thinking. What harm could it do? It wasn’t like we had an appointment at the cemetery; we just had to get inside before the gates closed. I checked my watch and then nodded.

“Okay,” I said. Stacy raced ahead into the park and I had to jog to keep her in my sights. Once there, she raced up the slide and went down it, still wearing her backpack. It didn’t seem to slow her down at all, so I let her keep it on. A little boy wearing a red sweatshirt with Harvard across the front came up to her and they started laughing together. I watched them as I sat on a bench next to a woman in a business suit, burning the image into my brain.

“Which one is yours?” the woman asked me. I inclined my face toward her to show I was listening but not enough to take my eyes off Stacy.  

“My Little Pony backpack on the top of the slide,” I said and pointed.

“Oh, she’s with my son.”

“Harvard?” I asked with a smile.  

“What can I say? We have big dreams for them, don’t we?”

“We do,” I whispered in agreement. The chilly winter air suddenly seemed much colder, and I felt worried for some reason. I tracked the two of them racing toward a large white Samoyed on a leash and stood up, about to run over there. I thought I had told Stacy about approaching strange dogs.

“Don’t worry, that’s my husband and our dog Hot Chocolate. Guess who named him,” the woman said dryly, alerted to my alarm. “The dog looks like a marshmallow and he is one.”

“Oh,” I said, and fell back on the bench in relief. The name sank in, and I snorted.

“Yep,” the woman agreed, a laugh in her voice.

“I guess we’d still better go. We have…somewhere to be.”

“We’re here a lot in the afternoons,” the woman said. “If you come back some day.”

I tore my gaze away from Stacy and finally looked at her fully. Her gaze was kind. The lump in my throat rose up again, and it was much harder to ease it back down. I saw her note the backpack and sleeping bag I carried, and wondered what she was thinking. Maybe that we had nowhere to go.

“Thank you,” I said and then walked away. Stacy was very reluctant to leave her friend and Hot Chocolate, but she whispered a sad goodbye to both the dad and his Harvard-bound son. They both waved as we left. Stacy sulked, her feet dragging with every step. I had checked her backpack to make sure everything was still there, and miraculously, it was. I wished wholeheartedly that things were different.

We entered the gates across the street, and Stacy seemed to perk up a bit. It was just getting to be sunset, and the sky was a soft pinkish purple with thin orange clouds. I watched Stacy run ahead of me on the tree lined road and I smiled. She was so beautiful and precious to me. Tears threatened to make an appearance but I held them back by sheer force of will. Stacy turned to wave, and I waved back.

“Wait for me! I have a special spot picked out,” I called. She halted, then moved to the side of the road. Even though there were no cars, she remembered what I taught her about never standing in the middle of a street. I was so proud of her. I wished I could see her future, see what she would become, but no one had the ability to know that. I sighed, wistful.

I caught up to her and we walked together. I led us to an area near the main office, where a side door was coded with a special code that only I knew. They would change it after tonight for security, plus they had a copy of my ID. A grove of willow trees made the area very private and peaceful.

Darkness came on more swiftly, but instead of being more afraid as I had feared, Stacy was getting into the groove of the place. “Can we sleep here?” she asked, pointing to a small row of headstones. A serene-faced winged statue guarded them.

“That’s perfect,” I said. We made ourselves comfortable. We played cards in the dim light of the cemetery’s lamps, and I let her win time and again just to hear her laugh. After that I read her a story, and then we snuggled into our sleeping bags while I told her stories from when I was a child her age. She and I were giggling late into the night, and she finally fell asleep. I kissed her cheeks and forehead, and before I drifted off, I felt content in my choice to spend the night here.

The next morning dawned bright and chilly. The new sun glowed softly on the marble stones. I was alone in the sleeping bag, and Stacy’s pink backpack was gone. I smiled a soft, sad smile as I looked up at the winged statue for a moment, then back down. 

“I’m glad you finally went home, baby,” I whispered. The careful façade I’d kept up for months crumbled, and silent tears ran down my face. I gently touched the headstone above where she had lain. Stacy McLamb, born March 23. Died, December 20. One year ago today.