Day 6: Rituals

Day 6: Rituals
Oct 6, 2013

We never set out to intentionally create any rituals in regards to Nolan, but a few of them just started to happen out of habit more than anything. The first one that started and probably the most visual one was a light that we burn every night. The one thing that was left unfinished in the nursery when we had Nolan was that we had yet to buy a lamp for his room. I became obsessed with finishing his nursery and finding the perfect lamp. My husband didn't quite understand my obsession, and quite frankly neither did I, but he indulged me. After a day of being very distraught over not having any success in shopping, I happened upon a beautiful blown glass night light that went perfectly with our ocean themed nursery. When we got home I immediately went in to the nursery and plugged it in. It was perfect. Now the light burns bright every night in the nursery, which has still remained empty despite the arrival of my second son. We have yet to transition him out of his bassinet and into his own room, so he hasn't had the pleasure of sleeping under the watchful light of his brother. We have had a few people stay the night and had to put them in the nursery to sleep and I tried to make a point to move Nolan's night light out of there and plug it in elsewhere so it could continue to burn. Recently, I forgot to though and was deeply saddened to see it pulled out of the wall and lying on the floor the next morning. I replaced it in another outlet until our guest left so that it could continue to burn bright all night long.

The other daily ritualistic thing I do is a necklace I wear. While we were in the hospital, our friends had silicone bracelets made that had Nolan's name on the outside and on the inside they said, "I held an angel." I wore the bracelet all day and night long until I replaced it with a silver bracelet that had Nolan's name and birthdate on the inside and the phrase, "until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hands" on the outside along with Nolan's birthstone. Eventually, though I replaced even that with the keepsake I wear constantly which is Nolan's footprint engraved on a pendant along with his initials. I wear it around my neck even still. Now that my son Ronan is teething, he has replaced holding the pendant to chewing on it and for some reason it doesn't bother me. In fact, I find it endearing that Ronan since the day he was born has been drawn to the pendant. I've tried wearing teething necklaces for Ronan to chew on and he still finds his way to the footprint pendant.

Although we've only celebrated one birthday thus far, we have decided upon a ritual that we did this past year. Both my husband and I have decided that we will never work on Nolan's birthday but instead use the day to spend it with our family and do something special in memory of Nolan. This year we spent it not only with our son Ronan, but also our extended family and amazing friends. We held a birthday party complete with a cake and candle and then we ventured out to the beach where we let a luminary go. Each year we will let go the number of luminaries that would have equaled the age Nolan would have been had he lived.

Last Christmas we decided to buy some gifts from Nolan for some children in need that we knew. This year and from now on out we plan on picking a child from the angel tree, hopefully a boy around the age Nolan would have been, and buying him gifts.