Honoring Molly (16 Years)

Dear Molly,

I re-read last year’s post from your birthday/the anniversary of your death and was struck by how much of it applies to how I feel now/this year. When navigating difficult and uncertain times, I often think I’ve never felt like this before, it is so hard. However, in reality every age and stage of life is filled with challenges that can feel almost insurmountable while we are living through them. That is one of the many experiences you never had/will have since you died only minutes after you were born 16 years ago today.

Sweet 16.

That was definitely a memorable one for me, that included a big slumber party at my childhood home on Isabella in celebration of my 16 candles.

The biggest milestone I associate with a 16th birthday is being eligible to get a driver’s license. However, both your older sibling Sean and I didn’t get ours until after our birthdays, because we took drivers ed in school. We are considering allowing Gail to take it privately after they get their permit when they turn 15 in September, as it would help everyone in our family to navigate our busy lives/schedules if they could drive. So I am wondering if would we have given you a similar opportunity, since I’ve been back in the traditional workforce full time for over 2.75 years now.

There are so many pop-culture references related to being 16 years old. From The Sound of Music, when they sing about being “16 going on 17,” to in John Cougar Mellencamp’s Jack and Diane with the lyrics from the bridge “hold onto 16 as long as you can, changes come around real soon, make us women and men,” and, of course, the movie Sixteen Candles.

I met someone at work this week who mentioned they have a child who recently turned 16. Interactions/moments like that tend to stop me in my tracks. After all this time, I am able to handle them well and still there is a small part of me inside that is aching for and wondering about you/who you’d be today, if you lived longer (to turn 16). This morning during our active recovery workout, your dad and I were listening to my Sara Bareilles Pandora radio station (as I like to do in the morning after our more intense exercise routines and during lower key ones), and “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” by Taylor Swift came on. As I shared in your birthday letter/post last year, that is one of so many moving songs that speak to me as I continue to navigate life as a bereaved mother. I also wonder if you would share your sibling Gail and my excitement for Taylor to release her new/next album, “The Toured Poets Department” in two days (on Friday, April 19th), as well as our enchantment with following her relationship with Kansas City football player and New Heights podcast host, Travis Kelce.

As with every year that comes and goes since I carried you, you were born and died soon after, so many things seem to change and others stay the same. The most significant change since this time last year is my mother/your Grandma Jacquie’s death on July 13th. Sometimes I wish I didn’t identify as agnostic in these times, as it is certainly more comforting to imagine that she was reunited with my dad/your Grandpa Kevin, along with her parents, you and other loved ones, when she took her last breath, as Aunt Meg, Gail and I finished signing “You Are My Sunshine.”

One of the many things we learned from our journey with you, Molly, is how meaningful hospice care can be when someone is dying. That experience allowed us to make special memories around your birth and the hours following your death, which helped me so much in the years to follow as I grieved and imagined who you might be if you lived longer. Similarly, though Grandma Jacquie’s death was somewhat unexpected, when she began dying on July 12th and then lived longer than her medical team anticipated, getting to spend time with her and receiving support from hospice nurses meant so much to our family and me.

One of my vivid memories of Grandma Jacquie as it relates to you and your short, but very special, life, is a conversation we had in the dining room on Isabella. I was sharing with her about how I felt like I could communicate with you in some ways, feeling a connection to you in an afterlife (which back then I felt more sure existed). To that, Grandma Jacquie asked how it was possible that I believed a baby that lived for such a brief amount of time and never spoke could do that with me from Heaven? Which is a fair question, though I took offense to it initially/in that moment. I responded that I wasn’t sure it was actually possible and yet, it brought me some peace and comfort, so I was going with it. That seemed to make more sense to her, which she expressed and I appreciated.

That day was a turning point in Grandma Jacquie’s understanding and ability to be more supportive after you were born and died. From that time on, I recall her being more curious, patient and understanding when I wanted to talk about you and/or do things that felt meaningful in your honor and memory. I really appreciated her effort, especially in a culture where people are often uncomfortable talking about baby loss and death in general.

With your birthday/the anniversary of your death falling on a Wednesday this year, we decided to celebrate our 2024 Molly Day on Sunday. We started our day with a family workout and then drove down to the southwest side to visit your grave at the cemetery, where we added some decorations to what we’d brought at Easter and flew a kite for the second year in a row. This year’s kite was Minion themed, which was fun. It was a beautiful day to spend time outside and your dad, Gail and I each took turns flying the kite, which felt meaningful. Afterwards we drove to Beverly, our old neighborhood in Chicago, and had brunch at one of our favorites local restaurants there, Horse Their Hollow, which was delicious. Lastly, we headed to the Beverly Arts Center, where your siblings participated in so many theater productions, to see an old friend perform the lead role in The Diary of Anne Frank play. It was so well done and a moving way to spend part of our Molly Day this year. We didn’t let anyone in Beverly know we were coming, though we considered it (the time got away from us to try to plan any meet ups), and still managed to run into two of the families we would’ve reached out to at the play, which was really nice.

Though this letter/blog post has been a work in progress in recent days, I spent some time on it while watching the WBNA Draft on Monday, including getting to see Caitlyn Clark from Iowa go #1 to the Indiana Fever and Kamilla Cardoso from South Carolina (who won the NCAA Women’s tourney earlier this month) go #3, as well as Angel Reese from LSU (who won the tourney last year) go #7 to our very own Chicago Sky! Our family has enjoyed watching more NCAA Women’s Basketball games this year and added a NCAA Women’s Tourney pool for our Axe family, in addition to the Men’s pool we’ve done for years. We’ve never been to a WNBA game and decided to order tickets to see the Chicago Sky play the Minnesota Lynx (who drafted Alissa Pili #8 from Utah)!

Our family and I continue to wonder and imagine what might bring you joy and make your life meaningful if you were still alive/here with us. What would your sophomore year in high school be like and what activities might you choose to participate in? Dance? Acting? Music? Sports? Would you enjoy live music/theater productions and/or adventures/traveling as much as your dad, Sean, Gail and I do? One of the highlights of our 2023 was our extended Benson family trip to Maui in celebration of Grandma Jan and Grandpa Bob’s milestone 50th Anniversary and this photo was taken on a black sand beach during one of our Road to Hana exploration days there.

Today in many ways will be an ordinary one for our family. However, as always, we will infuse it with special ways to honor your life and memory. For me, that includes wrapping up this letter and posting/sharing it. Your dad and I are both working remotely from home, Sean took the day off from CityYear (so they would be able to spend more time together with us) and Gail is on a school field trip to the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie. I plan to make a cake at some point today (we chose a yellow cake mix with a caramel frosting, which we are excited to try) and we’ll likely go out to dinner at one of our favorite local E-town restaurants in celebration of you, dear Molly Marie.

We love you and miss you so much!

Love,
Mom