Goodnight, My Angel

Goodnight, my angel, time to close your eyes
And save these questions for another day
I think I know what you've been asking me
I think you know what I've been trying to say
I promised I would never leave you
Then you should always know
Wherever you may go, no matter where you are
I never will be far away

--“Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel),” by Billy Joel

Dear Thi,

Every night, there is a thunderstorm in our bedroom. To lull Luc and Dannica to sleep, we’d put on the soothing white noise in the background, muffling the sounds of Daddy’s nightly routine to freshen up and finish doing the dishes before settling in. We discovered that Dannica likes to listen to songs by Celtic Woman, and so your daddy made a playlist for her that we’d play on the speaker to get her to fall asleep through restless nights rough with teething pain and sleep resistance. When the song, “Goodnight, My Angel,” would cone on, my heart would seize up a little as I am transported back to the day of your funeral service when we had it playing for you.

In the third year, the grief softens, like holding a treasured photograph with edges singed by fire, tracing your finger along the blunt, jagged edges ravaged by a past wrong while the heart of it remains intact. We’ve experienced a strange year, with a global pandemic forcing us into a slower pace of life. Your father and I have been working from home since California’s shelter-in-place in late-March, around the time we also both changed jobs. 

Around the holiday season, we strung up lights on the outside, shopped for a Christmas tree, decorated the hall, and made a gingerbread house with your siblings. 

 

 

 

We hung your commemorative ornament up high on our fresh noble fir. I think of you often throughout the year, even though my visits have grown more infrequent to your gravesite, but around Christmastime is when you’d more often cross my mind. Instead of the expected sense of dread and a pervasive grief that blankets my mood, I once again find wonder in the sparkling holiday lights and feel the warmth of the season’s spirit. 

 

 

My heart swells with joy when my children’s excitement over sticking on gumdrop candies becomes contagious, and I experience the magic anew when I discover firsts through their eyes.

 

 

Perhaps people wonder what your mind is like after you’ve dealt with trauma. Even after you’ve roughly recovered, able to go about your daily life appearing to be normal, there are times when anxiety pulls you back down into the dark. In moments of sweet solitude as I sit in bed and nurse Dannica, I’d imagine your lonely soul outside, tapping at the window, wanting in on a bonding moment that we two had never been able to share. Even when I gazed at Dannica’s peaceful, sleeping form and felt her weight and warmth safely nestled in my arms, I would think that I was dreaming it all up, like one of the many dreams I had before she came along, where I’d have a baby girl, only to wake up to the emptiness of a desperate yearning. With our health at the mercy of the pandemic and an overwhelmed healthcare system, I’d mentally put myself in plights during the worst times in human history: when mothers would have their babies ripped from their arms as looters ravaged their homes; when children are forced to take to the streets and beg for food, dying of hunger before they could reach leftovers carelessly flung in their direction by a disinterested passerby; when the bodies of little kids would wash up on shore during wartime, bloated with seawater, or hastily dumped into a ditch already piled high with corpses. Their faces and shapes would so sharply become those of my own babies suffering the same fates while I watched on, a helpless ghost unable to save them or even soothe them in their final moments.

Imagination can be a fearsome beast when it grows dark wings of despair experienced. All this from a sense of helplessness of having no control over the grander scheme of things. This is the year I turn forty: four full decades of having experienced the up’s and down’s of what life has to offer, and what it could take away. I resolved to live and love hard in the next decade, not just to survive, but to experience. It is this strength in the face of adversity that I hope to pass down to my children, so that they cherish life as a gift and not become defeated by it. 

Dear Thi, you weren’t able to experience this gift. You were a wish started but unfulfilled, a dream that slipped through my fingers like fine sand. But you remain a memory in my heart, and as years soften the grief, so too do I feel that I am stroking your indignant spirit, placating our mutual anger at this lost opportunity. I promised I would never leave you, and I never will be far away. So goodnight, my birthday girl, my angel baby. It’s time to close your eyes.

Letters to Dannica: Beaches, First Steps, What Will I Be? (Month 12)

 

Dear Dannica,

You round out your first year of life, and we had an exciting month preparing to celebrate your birthday. Your father and I had envisioned a grand outdoor party with hired cooks for our summer baby, but like how the COVID-19 pandemic has altered many of our plans this year, we had to opt for a quieter and much smaller celebration. We took some family pictures at our favorite nearby park to commemorate the milestone.

Then Daddy and I decorated the house with a rainbow theme much like for your baby shower when we were expecting you, our welcomed and loved double-rainbow baby. We were rewarded for our efforts when you looked up in fascination at the decorations and reached up to touch the paper hot air balloons that dangled from the ceiling. Seeing the wonder in your eyes convinced us to leave up the decorations as a sort of entertainment for you even after your party.

On your birthday morning, I prepared a traditional game: you were to pick from a box filled with items that may hint at your future profession. I included things like a forehead thermometer (doctor), a toy "gavel" (judge), whisk (cook), book (teacher), pen (writer), paint brush (designer/artist), computer mouse (technology), ruler (architect), home magazine (real estate agent), and dance robot (engineer). After initial hesitation and very careful consideration as if your future really did depend on it, you picked the dance robot, so Mommy hopes you will rise to become a strong, competent, and compassionate female leader in a corporation, engineering useful products for the future generation.

We let you open your gifts and play with them, Luc leading the way with his expertise with how toys work.

 

Luc and Mommy spent a weekend baking rainbow unicorn cupcakes to share with your friends at daycare.

We spent the rest of the month taking you to a few local places, such as Stanford Shopping Center.

 

Visiting beaches became a favorite past-time for us, so that you and Luc could get some time playing outdoors. You love spending hours digging in the sand and quickly worked up the courage to chase waves with your brother, who in the last year has become enthralled with them.

 

 

We also visited Vasona Park and took you onto the lake for paddle-boarding.

We spent weekends off work relaxing into domestic life. You'd pull what we call a "Dannica-ism" by climbing into the slit between the mattress and the headboard and slip halfway down before we'd have to hoist you out. Despite being "stuck," you seem to like doing this, maybe to seek our attention.

We take walks to the park and watch our summer crop of sunflowers and dragon fruits grow.

You are now very steady on your feet and could stand for long periods of time, even on uneven surfaces like the bed. Shortly before your 13th month, you took your first few independent steps.

The year has become very different than what we envisioned. We thought we'd show you the world by traveling more with you, introducing you to many firsts in your first year of life. However, we've come to settle into a slower pace of living, happy to have extra time to spend with you, walking you to and from school, watching you grow, happy and content. Thank you for making our hearts so full, Baby Girl. We love you and are so proud of you every day.

Letters to Dannica: Daddy's Day, New 'Do's, and Assisted Steps (Month 11)

 

 

Dear Dannica,

This month, we celebrated Father's Day, and I was able to include you in the annual photo of dressing up my little ones in your daddy's dress shirts.

You continue to entertain us with your "hi" face, and most days, you come home from daycare with your hair in a different style, from pigtails to tiny buns.

 

 

Dannica's "Hi" Face

The tousled look

We spent the 4th of July relaxing as a family, and you discovered the thrill of reaching (and tasting) your toes.

My patriotic girl

You continue learning and thriving at daycare and love going there everyday to accompany your big brother. Before you came along, he would usually put on a show of crying and fighting to not go to school, but you would run right in, wave goodbye, and blow us kisses when prompted before joining your friends for the morning activity.

Letters to Dannica: Joy, Curiosity, and Life Unlived (Month 10)

We did a Memorial Day barbecue with a fire pit and s‘mores to give you and Luc some semblance of normalcy. 

 

In truth, I miss many things about our pre-pandemic life. You’ve never gotten to know how it feels like to sit on a swing or go down a slide. You haven’t been on an airplane to to marvel at the sights and smells of somewhere far away from home. Your first birthday is coming up, and we won’t be able to give you the big fanfare celebration traditional in our culture. I know you won’t remember back to this age when you’ve grown enough to retain memory, but I still mourn these experiences being lost to you.

In carefree fashion, you enjoy sleeping the day away, are fascinated by the softness of flower petals, and marvel at the way sunlight gets filtered through our blinds and dances with shadows. 

You examine any object you could get your hands on, and you are interested in repetitive gestures like Daddy’s coffee grinder. 

You like watching Odin; you especially revel in tossing your finger foods down from your high chair and watching him gobble it up. 

You learn more gestures, like rotating your hand for “no more,” shaking your head “no,” and pushing food away when you’ve had enough. You develop a fondness for bread and get a kick out of playing peek-a-boo. 

You love Luc just about as much as you love picking a fight with him over toys, and you take turns sleeping on each other’s heads, clamoring for the upper hand.

We start reaping the results of the labors in our garden: we harvest the potatoes that we planted at the start of shelter-in-place, and we watch our baby plants grow tall. The summer flowers bloom as we continue to cook and bake to pass the time. 

As the world gradually reopens, we take little strolls around downtown Willow Glen and Santana Row so you could marvel at small joys like water fountains. 

 

We cannot give you much else these days but hope that you will retain your infant optimism, and that nothing can dampen the joy in your heart and your sense of curiosity for the world.