As I’ve shared in past posts, Londyn’s first bout of Covid showed up a full week after the rest of our family’s in December 2020. Still home on college break, she immediately took refuge in her room. Every single motherly instinct in my body immediately went on high alert. I hated the idea of her sudden isolation. To ease the pain I did what any well meaning mother does when she feels helpless, I turned to retail therapy. I sought out things to keep Londyn busy…crafts, art books and even a Hogwarts themed Lego set to name just a few. It turns out, one never truly outgrows Legos. So as the days wore on and she battled her own symptoms she found this Lego project to be a happy distraction.
The castle in its final form was beyond impressive. It came stock full of many familiar characters, the common room dining table, a working drawbridge and even included the iconic sorting hat. Despite her dismissiveness (it’s just a toy after all mom) I adored it and immediately gave it a home in my office on the top shelf of my desk when she finally returned back to school.
Over the next couple of years it would remain there. The busyness of life taking hold, it never occurred to me to move much less disassemble it, and so there the castle stayed weathering many dustings, rearrangements and occasional furniture collisions. As these things happen it started to slowly lose some parts. At first there was simply the disappearance of a character or two, then at some point a whole room came off. Eventually it was even missing a wing of the castle. Although a bit disappointing I was never bothered by the small losses too much, always at peace with the knowledge it couldn’t last forever but determined to preserve it as long as possible. And so the castle persevered in its less-than-perfect (but still perfect to me) form, assuming an unofficial space in my office.
I have found hindsight more often than not to be an interesting resource to apply as I attempt to document my journey with grief. And so this tool of reflection once again came in handy when, suddenly faced with some unexpected news, I found myself inexplicably devastated. It was only through some much needed soul searching that I was able to discover, much like Londyn’s delicate and carefully crafted Lego castle, the past 21 months of my life have been similarly crafted and constructed. Pieced together brick-by-brick, our day to day routines have been built and preserved to include the people we interact with, the places we travel and even the meals we eat, all of which have remained virtually and unremarkably the same. This unconsciously designed, carefully orchestrated world has allowed me to keep our family in a stasis of sorts. A protective measure I now recognize applied to allow our brains time to fully realize the truth of our loss. So when it was discovered a very special person, one who entered our lives a mere 48 hours after Londyn’s accident and filled a pivotal role in the days and weeks that followed, has plans to move, I felt as if my world was suddenly crumbling.
As I enter my 50th turn around the sun, I can claim to understand that change is an inevitable part of life. In fact, I would argue one of the best parts of getting older is the ability to embrace and ride the waves of change. But when grief of a deep nature is introduced, change suddenly becomes the antagonist of our story. The castle walls so carefully constructed, despite our best efforts, are destined to be breached. Similar to the pieces missing from the Lego castle, our first brick of familiar comfort has broken off. Time has stormed the castle, and despite my best efforts to fight it off, has taken over command. In the absence of Londyn there begins to emerge a fear of what this inevitable forward motion will come to mean as this grief journeys with us to planes yet unknown.
I still possess one tower of that Lego castle which is now carefully preserved in her room. Despite my best efforts to reassemble the fracture, the pieces no longer fit together as neatly as they used to. It has even occurred to me to apply superglue in an effort to force it into a sort of permanent state. But somehow, even that action seems like a method of alteration, denying even this inanimate object its own right to evolve as nature intends. There’s an interesting aspect to this product, however. Unlike other toys that get tossed when they break, Lego bricks get collected, often thrown into an empty shoebox or other similar container, the pieces are eventually revisited and assembled to create something uniquely new. It occurs to me Londyn’s castle is not in a state of disrepair after all, but is being rebuilt into something more spectacular. These bricks, however, are not made of plastic. Instead they are formed each time someone shares a special memory of our daughter, every time someone calls out her name and by the many, many special people who have played a pivotal part in Londyn’s story. And unlike the walls I've so carefully built but now work to disassemble, this new castle is not created to hide behind. Drawbridge down, it makes its accessibility known and invites all who are willing to contribute to the building of this beautiful proof of her existence.
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