Life is a journey measured in moments and memories. Turns out it can also be measured in beds…
In the early months of 2001, as the reality of our imminent parenthood started to slowly sink in, Sean and I found ourselves facing many questions and unknowns. Should we stay in Austin? Can I keep working or will the cost of daycare be too much? If daycare, what will it be like to leave my baby with a stranger all day? Will we be good parents? Oh dear god… what have we done!!? But despite all these fears and anxieties, we were beyond excited.
With nothing left to do but eat, sleep and get larger by the day, I needed a distraction, one preferably aimed at keeping the unrelenting nausea at bay. And so naturally, my focus quickly shifted to the baby room. Still living in an apartment, our decoration options were limited. But this self-proclaimed artist was undeterred. Using nothing but thumb tacks I went to work, painstakingly pinning up a beautiful bright yellow wallpaper that would adorn Londyn’s first room.
From there the focus naturally shifted to bedding. Little did I know just how many options there were for a sleeping infant. But Sean’s mom came to the rescue purchasing Londyn‘s first crib, a beautiful piece of furniture that would convert as she grew into a toddler. It would be in this very crib that my sweet, beautiful little baby girl would look at me with bright eyes and exclaim her very first word…”Dadda!!”
The year 2004 would see us moving into our first home. Our then three year old Londyn had decided she’d outgrown the toddler bed, and so the crib went into storage. As we worked to get settled in, those first few weeks found her making an adventure out of camping out on her bedroom floor. The memories of late night snuggles and reading stories out of books that projected images of stars and fairies on the walls flood my mind. And the conversations we had as I tucked her in, some of our first mommy-daughter talks, remind me of a little girl that carried deep thoughts for one so young.
But the day finally came when we purchased her very first bedroom set. Pink and off-white with flowers, it was every little girls dream. Until it wasn’t. As many parents come to find, what is adorable one second can become too “babyish” in the blink of an eye. A true reflection of a growth timeline that is both exhausting and amazing all at the same time. And so the beautiful furniture was handed off to friends, ushering us into the pre-teen era.
Enter the infamous bunk bed. This towering conglomeration of metal and wood would bring with it a myriad of its own unique memories. A hand-me-down from my bff Heather, laughter ensued as we played a bit of Tetris to fit it into our suv. Then came the assembly. And disassembly. And reassembly. So on and so forth …So many times I lost count as the now famous bunk bed traveled from first-home to interim-apartment to now-home and eventually even became Brendan’s for a bit. This bed, which boasted its very own built in desk underneath, would host stories filled with twinkling fairy lights, a doomed lizard named Pisces and many, many sleep-overs.
Sitting here now in her room, thinking through all the different stages these beds represent and seeking inspiration for my latest post, I could never have imagined this would be her last. An IKEA purchase-turned-project selected during her modern/minimalist phase, this final purchase is full of its own memories. Londyn and I made a surprisingly good team as we spent one full afternoon knocking out the very complex job of building a chest of drawers and bed frame together. The resulting beautiful room that emerged has remained unchanged to this day. Suspended in time it’s a space both comforting and heartbreaking. Full of everything Londyn, visitors are treated to a virtual hug the minute they go through the door. Conversely, its frozen state is a painful reminder of the enormity of our loss.
As we approached the two-and-a-half year anniversary of her death, however, it turns out there was one final purchase in the cards for us. A decision that took us over two years to reach, our family marked the day by placing our daughter’s ashes in their final resting place. Situated within a beautiful memorial park nearby, her urn has been interred inside a bench. A monument dedicated to our angel marks the site of this small plot of land where visitors are greeted with views of a trickling brook and a pond that displays cascading fountains. Our hope is that Londyn’s friends and loved ones will find it to be a peaceful place to sit and reflect. All are welcome to visit anytime.
Life is a journey measured in moments and memories. This odd stasis we find ourselves in, one that demands a delicate balance between “the before and after” of her death, is a constant reminder our time, too, is limited. We can wander hopelessly in “the before”, fixated only on our loss and forgetting to live. Or we can hold on tight to the beautiful life that was and let it inspire us to write new chapters. As our story unfolds, her monument represents a bookmark of sorts, giving us a place to both revisit beautiful memories and share stories of Iour latest adventures. A place to laugh, a place to cry but more importantly a place to be together meaningfully. A place where we can actively express our love to cherish and uphold the family unit we are now and will continue to be until the very end. And in doing so, our hearts now too have found a place to rest.
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