Kittymomma's Adventures

A certain issue has started to weigh on my mind a bit more heavily as the two month anniversary of Lucy’s death approaches. Namely, what to do with her room and her things that are still around the house.

I certainly don’t want to banish all signs of her. In fact, part of me wants to keep everything the way it is forever or at least awhile longer. Her room is still just as she left it except for the addition of a couple of framed photos my friends gave me the day of the funeral. Her coats and rain jacket and pink Easter hat still hang on the hooks by the front door. Her winter hat and hairbrush still lay on the front table. I picked up the hairbrush to look today and there are still tiny wisps of her hair in it.

Her toys are in the living room and playroom. The Jumperoo is still in the living room. The changing table and boxes of diapers are still in the front room.

Some of these things will be needed for the new baby soon enough, so there is really no reason to move them. But I’m really not sure what to do about the rest of it. There is no handbook for this. Surely it would be odd to keep her little jackets on the front hook forever. Will I just feel ready to pack them away some day?

Obviously, we can’t keep her room intact forever, either. Those of you who know me in real life know how hard I worked on that room and how proud of it I was. The idea of disassembling it is heartwrenching. But it has to be done. And there is a bit of a time limit due to the new baby. It will probably be good for us to move forward and disperse her things throughout the house or pack them away for the new baby. To really see what our new reality looks like. But I can’t imagine not being able to go in her room and see all of the items I chose and arranged with such care. I can’t imagine not being able to look in her drawers and her closet and see all of the clothes she wore and will never wear. The Pebbles Halloween costume I bought a year in advance, before I even knew she was sick. I had so many dreams for the little girl who would grow up in that room. It’s like they are still real if the room is still there.

You probably don’t know that my beloved cat Belle also died in that room. I knew she was going to die and the vet let me bring her home. Lucy’s room used to be the guest room and I took Belle in there, so we would have a quiet place to be together during her last hours. I intended on spending every waking and sleeping moment with her until she died. She died less than an hour after I brought her home. She was just waiting to be home.

I am planning to have a priest come out to the house to bless the room and the crib. One of my friends recommended him. He is her priest and he came to her house to bless it a few years ago. The house was remodeled after a car drove into it. She wanted something to sort of cleanse the place of the bad feelings and memories before they moved back in. I do, too. I believe death is a natural part of life, but having two creatures I so dearly love die in the same room has made me leery of it.

We are not planning to put the new baby in Lucy’s room. It will become a guest room again, but with some Lucy touches. The current guest room will either be the new baby’s room or Max’s new room. I am planning on keeping the crib at this point, hence the reason I want it blessed as well. I went back and forth on that and it’s quite likely I could change my mind. But I love that crib. It is a beautiful crib. Chris and I chose it carefully and considered it an investment. We dreamed of all of our children sleeping in it. It sheltered Max for over two years of his life and Lucy for almost an entire year. It had nothing to do with her death, so, odd as it may seem, I want to keep it.

We’ve been in a state of suspended animation in some respects the past two months. Now we have to figure out how to move forward.