I remember people telling me not to make any big decisions for at least six months after losing Madison. I was told it’s best to keep things the way they were, leave her room alone, don’t donate things, sell things or give any of her things away to close friends or family. I had heard this advice before directed at people who had gone through traumatic experiences and I completely agree. The emotional strain makes you think there are things you need to do. Sitting still with your thoughts is probably the hardest part. Day after day we relived her death. The only thing that helped was activity, noise, and anything that could distract us. I understand now the immediate need to “take care of things” and, more importantly, the necessity of sitting with her things, hugging and holding her favorite toys and blankets, and letting things just stay where she left them for a little while.
It has been a little over six months and we now know that we can handle some changes. We agreed that we needed to make one of her rooms a place for all her favorite things and make the other a guest room for family visits. Our future plan was always to leave California after Megan graduated high school. She has one more year and then she’ll be on her way to college and we’ll be deciding our next steps. I knew we would eventually have to go through Madison’s things and decide what we could let go of and what we absolutely needed to keep. I didn’t want movers coming into our house and touching her things so I ordered some boxes and started slowly going through the playroom. We were able to painfully hold the things she loved the most and put them in a place to protect them, hopefully passing them down for family to enjoy in the future. I was able to let go of her bed as well because it was new and the only thing she ever did in her room was sleep. Most of her time was spent in the house around her family. She didn’t spend a lot of time in the playroom either. She just chose her toys and brought them out so she could be around us. Her bedroom will be where we put all her things. We couldn’t handle making it the guest room because it was her room and it should stay that way until we leave.
The playroom is almost empty. It wasn’t easy packing up her things, but it was necessary. I kept out pictures of her and smaller favorite toys to hold occasionally. The next task will be to go through her clothes which will most likely be much harder. I plan on sending her clothing and blankets to someone to make a quilt so we can wrap Madison around us when we need her close and preserve those memories.
Madison is always here with us. We can still hear her occasionally when we know what she would say at specific moments. She’ll forever be a part of us no matter where we go or where we live and we’ll have all of her favorite things to look through occasionally so we can smile and remember.
Facebook Post from 5/4/2022
The playroom is almost empty. Madison’s bedroom is becoming a storeroom of memories. I’ll have to go in there eventually to go through her clothes as well. She’s slowly disappearing from our everyday lives just through regular tidying up. She was so present in the house. Her toys were everywhere all the time so I’m always finding a single lego or little toy here and there. Many of the bigger toys made noises and we don’t hear that anymore. I tried to keep up with cleaning up after her but eventually just let her activities stay on countertops, tables, and couches. I’m sure there are signs of her under the cabinets, couch, and cushions still. I used to constantly have to fix and straighten the couch slipcovers because she spent time laying every which way on them. There are no more reminders to put something away, no more giggles from the other room. No more, “Momma, watch dis, watch dis…,” then shoving her iPad in my face. I don’t walk past the playroom and roll my eyes anymore at the beautiful disaster I see. It’s almost an empty room. A hole I can’t fill.