Skeletons in The Closet

Tonight I cleaned out Bear's closet. She has a huge walk in closet that we mostly use for storage. She isn't a dress wearing kinda girl so she has only a handful of things hanging up and she has a smallish bookshelf that she uses to stash her shoes and boots. The rest of the closet is storage and winter clothes. Amidst the baby furniture we store for foster children, I found an electric menorah we thought we'd lost, a bread machine I stopped using, three empty rubbermaid containers, and enough detritus to fill 2 bags worth of garbage. Once I pulled out the bassinet and infant swing for our dear friend Lelly, I got to work sorting and organizing. Mostly what I needed to do was sort and order all the clothes I have for foster children. Huge piles from sizes 0-3 months through Bear's outgrown size 7's.

I have an infant changing table that is in the closet and when we had the girls, I used it as shelving just to store their clothes. Added to that were the infant things I'd dropped onto it when we did respite the second time for baby R , Bear's outgrown things, and whatever else I'd been collecting to enhance my stash of kids clothing. It was a disaster. I sat down and dug in.

I got through infant things fine. I paused and ooh-ed and ahh-ed over a few cute baby dresses and one really luscious fleece sleeper but I moved through the pile quickly making mental notes of some things I might want to look for to round out my selections. And then I reached the upper sizes: 18 months. And among the first things I saw were the bathing suits and cover ups that Fairy and Baby had worn.

I pictured them on the day we had taken them to the beach - Fairy with her golden ringlets curling in the salty spray of the ocean, her eyes set off by the blue of the water and her skin glowing in the sun. I saw her short chubby legs pumping as she ran after seagulls. In my mind I saw Baby toddling around wearing one of my flipflops and stealing shovels or pails from the big girls. I saw Baby in her blue suit with the fishies on it grinning madly at me as she dashed away, her little flat feet and bowlegs churning up the sand. And I could smell the girls - the smell of wind and sea and sun and Water Babies SPF 50, of baby powder and Johnsons Shampoo all in one delicious fragrance. My girls...

I folded tiny tee shirts that I remember pulling over their heads. I folded little shorts that I remember endlessly washing and rewashing, little socks the I had tugged and stretched to get onto their square little feet. I folded my favorite pair of denim short-overalls that Fairy used to wear, and Baby's OshGosh short-overalls that were blue with little pink flowers. I folded Fairy's pink gingham "Princess Dress" and matched up little sandals. My heart broke off in little flinty peices with every thing I put away. Then I got to the winter wear.

Clothes my girls would never wear. Pink jackets with glittery hearts, a pink denim bucket hat with a big flower on it, jeans and warm long-sleeved shirts... and a red sparkly Christmas Dress. Oh that I would have had the chance to dress my Fairy in that dress! She would have squealed in delight and twirled round and round. Instead of my heart breaking off in little flinty peices, it just sank like a stone to the bottom of my soul. I miss my girls.

I hope that some other mommy, maybe even her very own mommy, got Fairy a pretty princess Christmas dress this year, and that maybe Baby got one to match. I hope Santa came for them, bringing them dollies and carraiges, little play brooms, a pop up tent to play in, and winter boots with fur around the top. I hope they ate candy canes and made a mess and stuck bows in each others hair. I hope they got to see their mommy, their real mommy, and that somewhere in their hearts they remembered being loved by me.