New Year Lantern Release
One day, while our little grief group was pounding them back at Starbucks, we got to talking about how we could not wait for 2019 to be over. It had been the year where the worst thing that could possibly happen did, our babies had died.
It seemed like a good milestone, every day was a struggle, our feet were heavy, our minds were foggy, but if we could just make it to the new year, we might stand a chance.
To acknowledge this occasion and honour our babies, we decided to release paper, biodegradable lanterns on the local pier on New Year’s Day.
Our husbands, who always seem nervous when we have a new idea, were worried we’d get in trouble. Honestly, once your baby is dead, there are few things remaining that you give a flying fuck about, so we decided to take our chances. If 2020 started out with a night in the slammer for setting off lanterns to memorialize our dead children, it would still be better than 2019.
So we ordered the lanterns and met on this first day of 2020 down at the lake. It was windy and raining but we were determined.
Lighter in hand, we formed a circle to shield the paper lantern from the rain and wind and lit that sucker up. It was promptly swept away by the wind and crashed into the lake. Okay…no biggie. Hoping that was a one-off, we tried a few more times, only to have the same outcome. Watching the lantern take off, only to crash and burn, was actually a fitting metaphor for the futures we had envisioned with our children. Realizing that, as we froze on the end of the pier, gave us a good laugh. Sometimes, when you’re out of tears of sadness, tears of laughter are the next option.
Yup… that little blob is our lantern floating away 😂
Were the lanterns a bust? Yes. Did our husbands and living children have a fantastic time watching our stubborn asses fight with the wind, fire and paper?! Hell yeah they did.
At the end of the day we learned that:
Paper lanterns + rain = bad.
Bic lighters are no match for gale force winds.
Once we have an idea, get out of our way because we will make it happen.
Our husbands are smart people for knowing when to stand back, STFU and let us do our thing.
There was no need to fear arrest.
The living children love watching us look like fools and left both happy and tired.
Even though the outcome was a bust, the day was still better than most of the ones we had in 2019... so we took the win!
Since then, COVID-19 has put a halt on any other attempt at releasing the lanterns, and that’s okay. It may not have been the release we anticipated - it was definitely NOT Pinterest worthy, it was messy, it was a flop, but it was ours. And we’re pretty sure our babies were laughing too. Okay so they were probably laughing AT us, but there was laughter where there hadn’t been for a long time, nonetheless.
Em and Pam xo
