I Made This for My Daughter, but She Will Never See It
A Button Mirror for My Girl
I made this for my daughter.
I told myself it was inspired by my daughter. A mirror festooned with buttons and charms to hang over the photo of me. With her. A mirror by the necklaces I pin to the wall by my bed. Some of them hers — the silver charm with the bunny engraving we ordered twice from Etsy because the first was lost. Some of them given to me, by her — the thistle necklace from Scotland.
But it wasn’t inspired by her. It was for her. I made this pretty in pink-and-white mirror for my girl. She might have called it pastel goth, which is how she defined her style. The pastel is in the buttons. The goth is for the girl who will never look in the mirror. The girl who died. The girl who chose to die.
I want to make her things. Take her shopping at Ulta. Talk books. Make her favorite foods. Watch Ink Master at midnight when she’s not sure she’ll make it. Make sure she knows she’s loved.
I can’t stop wanting to take care of her.
She had an emotional support bunny. Went to college with her. Moved back with her. Lived in a four-story bunny condo she put together for him weeks before she left.
He lived for four years after she died. He was a sacred trust. I worried every day. Was I taking care of him as well as she would have? Was he happy?
Had he forgotten how he used to come running when he felt the vibration of someone approaching — because like many lop-eared bunnies, he was deaf — and he looked for her? And she wasn’t there.
For months, her dog sat at the top of the stairs where our daughter would come up every morning, confused because She. Did. Not. Come. Now she is “my” dog, and she loves us, but not as much as she loved our girl.
I was the one who went through the artifacts of her life. Her enormous wardrobe of cute T-shirts, skeleton dresses, and pole dancing shoes. Her extensive collection of pebbles from the Oregon coast and the Isle of Skye, her charms and bracelets, the stuffed animals she had from the moment of birth and beyond.
I felt like I was curating a life, deciding which items to donate to the school Clothes Closet, so that other girls could wear her fabulous outfits. I donated her toe shoes, her wrist therapy balls, her skateboard. Wanting them to be used.
She’d want that I think. I’ll never know.
There are boxes I haven’t gone through. Drawings I should probably leave unseen. Because they are private. Writing I would never read. Again, private. If she wanted to share, she has already done so.
Her possessions are reduced to a full dresser and part of a closet. I know that I will look at them. I know that I will think of her when I see them. See her. Right now, that’s too much to bear.
The first Christmas she was gone, I bought her a present. I’d done it for twenty-three years. It felt wrong not to. Would she feel forgotten? Would she be forgotten if I didn’t include her that way? Would I be forgetting her? How could I do that? I tortured myself over the decision.
I didn’t buy her a present the next year.
It would never be hers.
The bunny I sewed her when she was six, and the pink minky bedspread I made for her second to last birthday, and the Harley Quinn corset her godmother and I made for Rose City Comicon were hers.
Unlike this mirror. I made it for her. But she’ll never look in it. Even with tiny silver flowers, heart shaped buttons, and purple, and green, and satiny white buttons, too, it will never be hers. But I’ll hang it over the picture of us standing together in Scotland. The one on top of my jewelry box. Where we’re both smiling. And I’ll think of her. And wish she was here. And most of all, happy.
