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A Regular Madeleine Monday

And on the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me …

You know the words, we all do. I am sure it was a classic back in the day when maids were milkin’ but now the repetitive droning on and on and on of that song is enough to make me crazy. In fact, it wasn’t too long ago that I dreaded Christmas altogether. The stockings, the knick knacks, the garland, the lights, the ornaments.

My daughter Madeleine died twelve days after after Christmas of 1995. She was pronounced dead shortly after midnight early on a Saturday morning. It is hard for me to remember that it was a Saturday because we spent the greater part of Friday knowing that she was going to die soon.  My mind has put a Friday feeling to the memory more than a Saturday.

Madeleine was born a few minutes before six in the morning on November 7, 1988, and died a few minutes after midnight on January 6, 1996. This year she would have been twenty-one.

Madeleine’s first Christmas. I had a different husband, a seven year old son, and six week old twins. A hectic holiday, yet medically uneventful.

The Christmas of 1989 bore no resemblance to the preceding year. Madeleine had twenty-four hour per day nursing care, she had gastro-intestinal tube and was fed and medicated every two hours. She had a tracheotomy tube, and by the following Christmas oxygen had been added to the mix. It’s funny what details I remember, I don’t know what I had for breakfast yesterday but I know on the day the first oxygen tank was delivered to our home she was on .25 liters per minute and on the day the tank was removed from our home she had been on 6.5 liters per minute.

We had a great crew of nurses, generous with their time, talent, and treasures. After all, there were three eight hour shifts a day, a revolving door of nurses. Our dogs knew when shift change was going to occur and they start to watch out the front windows for the nurse’s vehicle to arrive. They became family.

I had never been a fan of real Christmas trees. They’ll dry out and drop needles and drip sap on the carpet, they’re a fire hazard, they’ll bring in bugs … I had more excuses than you can imagine. I was pro-artificial tree and stubborn. One night in early December our third shift nurse, quiet as a mouse, brought a real tree through the front door and set it up in the living room. I swear the tree was as tall as it was wide, easily six feet in both directions.

And I could smell the tree the moment I opened my bedroom door. It looked prettier than it smelled. I became a pro-fresh Christmas tree lover that year. I refused to put any lights on the tree because of my fear of fire, but we had our first real tree.

Most of the ornaments that filled the tree were Madeleine-related. I was pregnant when I got married in March, twins arrived in November. In addition to a brigade of ornaments that come along with my then seven year old, we had twin ornaments and matching boy/girl ornaments. Everyone gave Madeleine ornaments for Christmas. I mean everyone, even the mailman. Name an ornament, we had it. Crayola, Disney, Marvel, Precious Moments, Hallmark, Coca-Cola, Barbie, seriously you name it we had it.

One year Madeleine was in Milwaukee’s Children’s Hospital over December 5th, which is the evening St. Nick came. I stayed at the Ronald McDonald house across the street. When I opened the door of my room, there were two stockings hung from the doorknob. They were full of Cracker Jacks, fruit, candy canes, gum and ornaments. I stuffed the Cracker Jacks and gum into my giant purse and took the shuttle to the hospital only to find MORE ornaments surrounding her hospital bed.

And for as long as we had Madeleine, we had real trees stuffed with ornaments. Oh, eventually I became brave enough to add lights but I kept a fire extinguisher on the coffee table just in case of spontaneous combustion.

And twelve days after the Christmas of 1995 Madeleine died. She had chronic lung problems and we knew her illness was degenerative. The way I like to tell the story is that she had a regular Madeleine Monday. I love how that sounds, Madeleine Monday.  Anyway, she was gone by Saturday. Her body was exhausted and her renal system was already starting to fail. She was ready to go. Her lungs were compromised from years of scarring, they didn’t have the elasticity necessary for effective respiration. We were all exhausted.

Friends and neighbors brought food. Our front doorbell never stopped ringing. Hugs, tears, memories, coffee, cookies, everything became one big blur. And somewhere in the midst of all this Madeleine’s last Christmas tree was dismantled. Ornaments were taken off, lights were removed, the tree was dragged out and tossed in someone’s pick up truck, the living room was vacuumed, Christmas was over and I was, as usual, grateful for all the assistance.

To have your family count decrease takes some adjusting. Madeleine had been home bound for so many years that not many people knew we even had a daughter at home. I used to always recite a sentence in my head when we were out to eat at a restaurant. The waitress would say “table for four?” and I’d repeat “table for four, family of five” inside my head. Even when she wasn’t with me, she was with me. And now she wasn’t with me except for the rhymes in my head.

I think one of the worst things about losing a child is still having more children left. I mean, you just have to keep going because you’ve got more kids that still need you. So maybe it is one of those bittersweet things where the worst thing is also the best thing.

I muddled through life. I grew and got stronger. It didn’t happen over night, but I learned how to cope. I had two healthy active boys, life had to keep going.

***

A Regular Madeleine Monday, is a continued here at Christmas Mourning

I know this is a tough read for some. If you would like more background on Madeleine, I’ve posted most of it at based on a true story … at MilwaukeeMoms.com, more specifically entitled:

How I Became A Wife, A Mother and Divorced

And Then There Was The Time I Had Twins

On A More Serious Note

And If You Were Here I Would Kiss You

Her Funeral

These essays have all been posted previously posted here. Today’s content is also available at both sites.