The New Year

(My friend Stacie made this photo collage).

It's that time of year again, the Jewish New Year or High Holidays and I've sat on this post for a while. Last year was truly triumphant for our family, especially for Sylvie. Old friends used to ask me if I had become a "Super Jew" because of our frequent attendance at temple but the reality was that Sylvie LOVED it. Going to Tot Shabbat services was just as good as shopping at Target, to Sylvie. Plus it involved fancy clothes, shoes and a matching handbag filled with Princess miniatures. Last fall, it was a very big deal to be at temple with the whole family. I couldn't help but think, "SYLVIE BEAT CANCER!" and she looked pretty adorable, fuzzy head and all. Last year I pondered the serious intonation behind the Jewish Holidays-- being inscribed in the Book of Life for the following year. To say that I felt completely robbed and abandoned two months later when Sylvie, cancer-free, suddenly passed away is an understatement and I've spent the better part of the year trying to reconcile my feelings. Michael and I thought we'd make an appearance this year although and we even strategized with the rabbi about our anger and how to deal with going to temple. He told us the story about Elie Wiesel in Auschwitz debating with a friend whether to fast or not on Yom Kippur and overall, that it's okay to be angry and challenge even the highest power. As per his suggestion, we arrived late. But I couldn't hold it together not for one minute. I was a puddle of tears. A fat pregnant mess. In the third row. Sandwiched between my dad and my husband. And it just got worse. Words that used to have meaning to me leapt off the pages of the prayer book that made no sense to me as one might try and apply them to the death of a child. Seeing Sylvie's buddies cavorting made me miserable. White noise filled my ears and I just couldn't figure out how to leave without making a spectacle of myself. After crying through the Kaddish, the "mourner's prayer," we sped across the front of the synagogue and made a clean getaway.

It was also the first week of school so not only did I have photos from one year prior of a very proud Sylvie and her pals at preschool but home movies of her palling around with her cousin Megan on Rosh Hashana. Knowing the week was going to be rough is entirely different than living it.

Two days later, a dear friend hosted a cocktail party for me under the premise that our friends continue to want to do nice things, especially with the twinkies arrival in the immediate distance and our ability to do anything social is also about to diminish or disappear for a while. It's very hard for me to accept help from others, especially for such a long time, or be the center of attention and I can't wait until I can return all the favors, meals and kindness. If there was ever an area for me to say "I'm lucky" it is that my friends are wonderful. I tried to thank them but the second I said just how awful and hard the past year has been, I looked up to teary eyes sympathetically looking at me and cut it short.

The next morning, we scheduled the unveiling, a ceremony that dedicates a grave monument at the cemetery. There are time constraints (usually done around 11 months) and Audra constraints (my pregnancy). We knew it would be awful so we kept it as intimate as possible. Rabbi Wylen volunteered to read a passage that I wrote on our behalf. I wanted to share it because in as many of our friends who regularly check in and ask us how we are doing, just as many are too uncomfortable or have never said a word, text, nada. Is it hard to balance the joy of imminently having two baby boys dominating our lives with perpetual sadness over our loss? Obviously.

SYLVIE ROSE HUGHES, UNVEILING, 9/12/10
Thank you for joining us today and bringing sparkly rocks. Sylvie spent hours looking for sparkly pebbles and shells which we collected from all over the world to fill her pockets or for future art projects, not for her headstone.

“Most people don’t know there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don’t get too comfortable & fall asleep & miss your life.” We saw this quote in an art gallery in Woodstock last January. I used to like quotes. They are often more poignant than anything we could say ourselves. Like, “The things you can’t control in your life are what shape you,” which opened a movie we recently watched.

The problem with quotes is that they’re impersonal. And the past year has been VERY personal for us and our families.
We cry. A lot. Daily. Sometimes more than that. Every memory we have with Sylvie is as vivid today as the moment it occurred. But they’re memories. The good, the bad, the Sylvie. When we go home today, we go home alone.

We think about Sylvie with so often that if you were to think about any other THING with such frequency you’d be diagnosed obsessive compulsive, addicted or just plain crazy. It’s hard to concentrate, work or sleep when all we hear is Sylvie’s name playing in the background over and over and over again. The pain, sadness and longing does not get any easier.
We look everywhere for signs that Sylvie’s spirit is with us; we talk to photographs, squirrels & rabbits, our own pets, butterflies and sometimes just to ourselves.

Over the past ten months we’ve been showered with sympathy and kindness from near and afar. We’ve learned to accept help from others or just remind ourselves that “people mean well and want us to be happy.” Or that they are sad too. We have learned who our friends are. We’ve also had to lie to strangers and pretend that we have a precocious chatty four year old at home anxiously awaiting her two baby brothers to be born in October.

Samantha, Sylvie’s best friend talks about Sylvie almost daily. I love that Sylvie is still such a part, albeit quite different, of her life. Whether it’s a snowflake or a bright star, Samantha is convinced that Sylvie has had a role in it’s being there. We feel the same way so I guess you could say we have the newfound maturity of a five year old.

I found a picture of Sylvie in the classroom on the first day of school last year. She was standing beside a table with her friend Alexandra. Fuzzy head and all, Sylvie was so proud to be there. She was beaming. As if she knew that she cheated death’s door and WON. In as much as Michael & I wanted the world to see that our lives had returned to normal, Sylvie did too.

Sylvie reminds me so much of my mother’s mother, Sylvia, that I often wondered if that’s what drew my mother and I even closer to her. The sparkles. The fabulousness. The flair. In a three year old. My mom told me one day recently that Sylvie was her favorite person in the world ever. And I have a feeling that if given the opportunity, many others would say something similar because Sylvie went out of her way to make MANY people feel that way, unless they were doctors of course.

Sylvie touched so many people’s lives in such a brief moment of time. I realize when I repeatedly say that our lives will never be normal again, that many of our friends and family feel a similar longing. But it’s different. Because we’ve been staring at an empty bedroom for 10 months and talking about Sylvie as if she’s right here but she’ll never be. Having a newfound need to believe in Heaven, angels, the survival of the human spirit. We’ve discarded or downgraded every need in the universe with the exception of two: The first is seeing Sylvie’s spirit in our future family. The second is being reunited with her upon our own passing. And that’s as good as it gets. Thank you again for being here with us today.