The Attic

This weekend, I was making room in my attic for my winter clothes. For months, they sat in Tupperware bins in my hallway.

I avoid the attic.

It is where all of Ethan’s things are stored, packed away as gently as when I used to place him down for a nap when he was a baby. His knickknacks from our family adventures, his clothes, the teddy bear my mother gave him, his unfinished World War II report due the day after he was killed.

I eyed the bins, neatly stacked in the corner.

Most days, I am not strong enough to open them and look through fifteen years of Ethan. When I do, tears come and the question I have asked a million times escapes my lips: “Why?”

But today, I trudged toward the bins as if moving through water. With all my strength, I pulled the lid off.

It was the bin that held his childhood books and projects from nursery and elementary school. The handmade Mother’s Day cards, the Thanksgiving turkey made from the outline of his tiny hand, and the pasta necklace from art class I wore for years.

At the bottom, I spotted his favorite children’s book, “Can’t You Sleep Little Bear?” I pulled it out and ran my hand over the cover. I read this book so many times to Ethan. I opened it and a piece of paper fell to the floor. My breath caught and I panicked. I knew the paper was either something I had written to Ethan or something he made for me. I wasn’t sure how much more of the past I could handle.

I pulled an old trunk over, sat down and turned the piece of paper over. It was a note in my handwriting to Ethan, “I loved you the minute I found out about you. I loved you more when you were placed in my arms. I will love you more each day. I will love you forever.”

I wrote that note almost twenty years ago.

I turned the pages of the book, my eyes clouded by tears. It’s a story about a mother bear trying to comfort her child from his fear of the dark. The same reassurances I once gave my children. That everything will be alright. That Mommy was here. That Mommy would protect them.

I remembered those evenings; my world was in color then. My children, my greatest joys surrounding me, Ethan tucked under my arm, his breath slow and soft. He looked up at me occasionally with a smile.

He was safe, he was loved, he was cherished.

I shake my head and wonder again: How did it come to this?