Arches
/This week’s post is from guest writer, Ben. Ben's first daughter, Elowyn, was born unresponsive in March 2021, after an otherwise normal full-term pregnancy and labor. She was resuscitated but suffered catastrophic brain damage during the time her heart was stopped. She died six days later. Ben is astounded and awed by the way that everything can change in a moment. Ben and his wife have a second daughter, Juniper. They make sure that everyone knows they are a family of four.
On the way home from Massachusetts we stop at a McDonald’s in Fultonville. The air is a combination of diesel from the TA next door and smoke from the Canadian wildfires. I take the dogs to pee on ten-thousand-gallon storage tanks while Kara carries Juniper inside to get the food. The dogs and I do a few laps around the restaurant. I tap on the glass when I see Juniper inside. She sees me and she smiles. The dogs and I find a spot under a tree to sit. There are no picnic tables. The sky is still smoke-red, ominous, better than last week, but I know better than to allow myself to expect. The sun shines orange as it sinks.
Kara and Juniper exit the McDonald’s. Kara is carrying a Happy Meal in one hand and holding Juniper's hand with the other. Juniper walks across the parking lot. She looks so big. My eyes shift to the Happy Meal. The little box, practically a cube, with its little golden-arched handles. I know there is a toy inside, a toy and some McNuggets and about ten french fries and, for health, apple slices. It is utterly mundane, ubiquitous. It is her first Happy Meal, a milestone of which, before now, I was never consciously aware. I do not have an emotional attachment to Happy Meals. I do not define my family with trademarks. McDonald’s is a convenience on a road trip. I do not particularly like McDonald’s. It is a milestone, but not a significant one. Like every mile marker on the Thruway, it is just one more unremarkable mile. So I do not expect her first Happy Meal to break me the way it does.
I choke on the combination of tears and diesel and smoke. Kara notices and asks me if I am okay. I gesture at the grass beside us, at the empty strip of green between the McDonald's and the TA, and she understands. There is nothing where I am gesturing. Like me, she sees what is not there. I am gesturing at the space where our other daughter should be playing, having already finished what would very likely not be her first Happy Meal.
It is a few minutes before I am able to talk. I chase my living daughter around the parking lot as she squeals in delight. She ate one and a half chicken nuggets and an apple slice. The dogs ate the rest. The toy was a plastic crab on wheels that bounces up and down as you push it back and forth. In the car I stroke her arm as she falls asleep. It is the unexpected firsts, Kara says quietly, and I nod.
Sometimes the milestones we encounter are ones we expect; sometimes they take us entirely by surprise. What milestones have mattered most for you? What milestones go observed, or not?